Description
IN THE ZONE
The Creature from the Cash Lagoon
Ed Young
December 11-12, 2004
[An oval carpet is in the middle of the stage. In the middle of the oval are the words “In The Zone,” and the graphics for the series surround those words. In effect, there is a “zone” in the middle of the carpet.]
Have you ever seen that movie “The Creature From the Black Lagoon”? Lift your hand. Whoa! The first time I saw part of that, it freaked me out! My parents told me repeatedly, “Ed, there’s no such thing as monsters. There’s no such thing as monsters. There’s no such thing, honey, as monsters.”
But Mom and Dad, after studying for this weekend’s talk, I beg to differ. There is such a thing as the creature. Not from the black lagoon, but from the cash lagoon. Because this creature has moved from the Amazon into mainstream America, and he’s got a lot of us in this stranglehold and he’s swimming away with us as we drown in the seas of debt.
Money, finances matter to God. God wants us to manage and handle our money in a great way, a very strategic way. But there is this creature from the cash lagoon that we have to constantly deal with. And this creature is so intelligent he takes on various forms. I’m going to talk about these forms, because I’m going to show you that monsters are real.
PLASTIC PEOPLE EATER
The first form he takes on is the plastic people eater. You have them in your wallet, in your purse. I’m talking about the credit cards, you know? Those plastic piranhas. They’ll eat your lunch and mine. And here’s how it happens. We make our way down the steep banks of the cash lagoon. We ignore the warning signs which say “Warning: You’re Swimming in Interest-Infested Waters.” We forget that. We use credit cards as floatation devices. Can you believe that? American Express, Master Card, Discovery, Visa.
We lie back on these cards. They’re horrible. They begin to leak. They’re poor floatation devices. They can’t support us. We float on this card and that card, and soon the creature from the cash lagoon is beneath us. He’s waiting just for an arm or a leg to dangle off the side of this floatation device, because when it does, he drags us into the depths of debt and we say, “Help Me! I’m drowning!” And he’s taken another person down.
The plastic people eaters are wicked. Think about your wallets and purses. They’re designed for credit cards. Credit cards are interesting. They come in an array of attractive colors. They can be thematic with a credit card like fishing, golf, or whatever. You can decorate your own card. It has your name engraved on it, and it’s really alluring. It’s cool. And when you use the credit card and when you buy something with it, you just simply hand it to a sales clerk and it’s done. It’s like, “Whoa! That’s great! I’ve bought something else.”
These credit cards, though, if left unchecked, can drown us. They can take us into the depths of debt. The creature from the cash lagoon loves to team up with the plastic people eaters.
The average American household carries $8,400 in credit card debt. If you make the minimum payments to pay the $8,400 off at 18% interest, it would take you 25 years and $24,000 to pay an $8,400 debt. We carry $735 billion collectively worth of credit card debt. That’s 31% higher than it was five years ago.
Do you realize the average American receives 50, that’s right 5-0, 50 unsolicited credit card offers a year? The average person in this place has 7.6 plastic people eaters. Look at these cards, because basically we’re on an American Express to spending; yet, we need to read the Master’s Card where we can Discover a Visa for financial freedom! That’s what we’re doing today.
The book of Proverbs 22:7 says, “The borrower is servant to the lender.” Is that verse implying that we should never go into debt? Is that verse implying we should never borrow money? No, it’s not. Anyone who says that the Bible is anti-debt is not reading the Word. Now, we should never—listen to me—never borrow money we can’t pay back. Now that’s wrong. That’ll mess you up. That’ll take you into the arms of the creature from the cash lagoon. But we’ve got to be responsible with what God has given us. The plastic people eaters are deadly.
You know, if you ever see a cigarette commercial or you ever look at a pack of cigarettes, you’ll see the surgeon general’s warning. Well, I think it would be wise to do a warning label on credit cards. “Warning: Overuse will be hazardous to your personal wealth.”
THE MEDIA MONSTER
[A video is played on the side screens. In the video, Ed is in the middle of Times Square in New York City talking about the Media Monster.] Not only do we deal with plastic people eaters, there’s another monster out there, it’s called the media monster. Check it out.
I’m in Times Square. I mean, this is the epicenter of all the commercials and advertisers and stuff. It’s unbelievable. People spend billions and billions of dollars right here in NYC, in New York City. And these advertising ideas and these creative angles go all over the country and the world with one purpose in mind: to get us to spend money.
It seems that everywhere you look there is a zone and I’m in the zone right now. This piece of cement right here in the middle of Times Square. I am in the zone, the blessed place. God is the Blessor. I am blessed. And He wants me to be a blessing. All around me are those ings I’ve been talking about—the earn-ing and own-ing and cloth-ing, bling-bling, ca-ching, ca-ching. And these ings are trying to get me and to get you out of the zone.
This is how the media monster messes with us. He gets those envy engines really revved up. And he gets us to think thoughts like, “OK, if I buy this I can be over this guy or this girl. I can be more than they are.” And what can happen is we can end up living above and beyond our means. And once we do that we cannot become the kind of people that God wants.
And so often, when we spend out of impulse, when we spend out of emotion, when we spend out of feeling, it messes us up. We drown in debt. We get discontent and we think things will give us contentment. And the thing about buying things is the fact that when we do buy something, it is an anesthetizer. In other words, it does numb us for a little while—that buzz, that thrill of making a purchase—but then the bills come in and we think, “Whoa! We are really, really drowning in debt.”
One of the ways we honor God is understanding the fact we don’t own it all. God owns it all, and we’re just managing His stuff. So, if we got on the same page, if we got on God’s page as far as spending money—as far as living on 80, bringing at least 10 into the storehouse, and then giving ourselves 10 with savings—man, there’s no telling what we could do. It would take a lot of stress and anxiety off our lives. We could be more effective for the church. If we’re married, for our spouses, and family and friends and all that.
So many of you right now are so messed up because your money is out of whack. And it’s out of whack because you’re buying into this mentality. And it’s so easy to buy into it. It’s so easy to say, “Oh, I do need that. Oh, I’ve got to have that. If I have that label or drive that particular car or whatever, that’s gonna do it for me.” But once the shine wears off, you’re like, “Man, that didn’t do it.”
These advertisements are about things. They’re selling things. And here’s something you need to understand: It’s not about my thing-dom, it is about His kingdom. His kingdom will not come until my thing-dom goes.
God always delivers on His promises. But this whole scene, all these commercials and all these executives who come up with these incredible signs and advertisements and commercials over-promise and under-deliver. That’s the way it is when we buy the things of this world. Yeah, it’s great to have things and all that, but they never give you the true satisfaction, the true contentment that only Jesus Christ can give.
Money is great. It is powerful when it is used for the right stuff. We’ve got to live on 80% of it and enjoy it. We need to save at least 10% and then bring at least 10%, the whole tithe, into the storehouse. When we do that, we’re in the zone. We’re in the sweet spot of God’s success. So, being in the sweet spot is saying yes to a lot of stuff. It’s saying yes to the blessings of God and yes to being a blessing. But also, it’s saying no to a lot of racket.
See that beer commercial behind me? Man, the greatest commercials have got to be beer advertisements. How many times have you seen this ruggedly handsome guy driving around in a very expensive pick-up. He pulls into a bar, walks up to the bar, he is surrounded by beautiful women, and you say, “Man, are they selling beer or are they selling confidence?”
So, we’ve got to look past the commercial to what they’re really trying to sell. Because they know if they can breed discontent in your life and mine, if they can show us we’re not as good as we think we are, if they can mess with our self-esteem, then we are going to take our wallets out and overspend. We will start drowning in debt. And then we’ll miss the greatness God has for us. We’ll miss the blessings God has.
I’ll say it again, God wants to bless every single person’s life. Every person around me right now, God richly wants to bless their life. We, though, have got to be blessable in order for God to bless us and once we’re blessable, then we can turn around and be a blessing. We can’t be the kind of blessing God wants until we get a good read on our finance.
Now we’ve got to spend money. God wants us to enjoy our money. But so often, due to this whole hype, we spend too much. And when we overspend, we get into debt and then we cannot leverage the money for the kind of life God wants us to live. We can’t leverage money for enjoyment. We can’t leverage money for savings. And we can’t leverage money to bring the tithe into the storehouse.
So make certain that you do what Jesus did. Jesus said in Matthew to be as wise as a serpent but as harmless as a dove. When it comes to advertising and commercials—and studies show that we are bombarded with 3,000 to 6,000 a day—make sure we use discernment. Make sure we ask ourselves, “Do I need that or do I greed that?”
Don’t let the media monster eat you up. Be sure you know it’s all about the media monster.
THE BUDGET BOOGEYMAN
There’s another monster, too, that we need to talk about. The other monster is the Budget Boogeyman. Whoa! Now if you’re tracking, with the plastic people eaters we have two options: either we cut the credit cards up or we pay them off every month. With the media monster we would have one option: we need to look past the junk, the hype, the smoke and mirrors to the real deal and ask ourselves, “Is it about needs or greeds?” That’s huge. The budget boogeyman is another way this creature messes us up. It’s another way the creature from the cash lagoon takes us into the depths of debt.
I grew up close to a K-mart in Columbia, South Carolina. I have fond memories of K-mart. I love their sporting goods section. I used to live in the sporting goods section when my mom was shopping all over the store. I have memories of the manager of K-mart coming on the PA system and going, “We’ve got a blue light special. Blue light special on ladies’ girdles. Blue light special on ladies’ girdles.” And I would watch these women turn their shopping carts around and rush to the blue light special at a NASCAR-type pace.
What were they doing? Yeah, they were buying girdles. But what were they doing? They were impulse spending. Impulse spending will mess you up, it will take you down the slippery slope into the cash lagoon and this creature will swim away with you and away with me.
As you know, I love fishing. I’m crazy about fishing. That’s the weakness. I can spend too much money when it comes to fishing. I have disciplined myself before God, when I go into a tackle shop, a fly-fishing shop, wherever I am, I say, “Ed, don’t buy the fly reel. Don’t buy another fly rod. Don’t buy this or that. Don’t buy it. Give yourself a day. Talk to Lisa about it. Talk to yourself about it. Talk to God about it.” That has saved me thousands of dollars, because I try to do that in every area of my life no matter what it is. I try to stay away from, “We’ve got a blue light special, blue light special on ladies’ girdles,” and stay away from that mentality of impulse spending.
But there’s something else that’ll mess you up as far as the budget. It’s the save it all, blow all it mentality. I’ll save up, and then I’ll blow it on a piece of furniture. I’ll blow it on a car or I’ll blow it on an outfit or I’ll blow it on a piece of jewelry. Save it up and just spend it all. Save it all, blow it all is going to mess the budget up.
There’s another one. Yeah you’ve got the save it all, blow it all, but some people spend to keep up and show up others. Remember last time I imitated Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson? (I will not do that again.) Once we finally get up with the Joneses as far as spending, what do the Joneses do? They throw another credit card in the cash lagoon, they refinance and then they’re ahead of us again. So often people buy something just to show up or to keep up with others. Sometimes to one up others. “Look what I got! Hey, look what I bought! Hey, I’m up with you now, yeah, in this race! I don’t know where we’re going, but….”
If that’s our mentality we’ve entered the zone of materialism. But remember, materialism begins where your income and my income ends. I hope you thought about that this week. In other words, materialism is not tangible. I can’t look at you, sir, and say, “Man, you drive a Bentley and you wear a Rolex watch and you live in Highland Park? Man, you’re materialistic.” No, I’m an idiot. I have no idea. This guy could be the most generous person, the most God honoring person with his finances ever. God has just blessed him. Who am I to say that? Or he could look at someone else and go, “Oh man, she is so spiritual because she lives here and drives that and….” You don’t know. I don’t know. We don’t know. It’s intangible. It’s between ourselves and God.
So often, though, materialism and spending is driven by what? Jealousy and envy and greed. Our greeds overshadow our needs. And then, you know the story, we’re in the arms of the creature. That’s right. The creature from the cash lagoon.
Well the Bible says—again in the book of Proverbs 27:23-24—the Bible says we better know about our stuff. “Be sure,” it says, “you know the conditions of your flocks, give careful attention to your herds; for riches do not endure forever.”
Can you imagine owning an automobile without a gas gauge? What if you said to yourself, “You know what? I don’t want a gas gauge. Take it off of my car. Take it out of my truck. Take it out of my SUV. I don’t want it. I’m just going to drive by feel.” Man, that wouldn’t be too smart would it? We’d run out of gas all the time. By feel? Wow! You can’t do that. But a lot of us spend money like that. We just spend money by feel. “I just feel it, you know? I’m going to buy that. I just feel it. Oh girl, I just feel it.”
Yeah, that’s what we do. We can’t spend by feel! Do you know how you spell relief? B-U-D-G-E-T. Budget. What’s a budget? Planned spending. It’s telling your money where you want it to go as opposed to going, “Man, where did it go? I mean, what’s happened to it?”
You might be saying, “Well Ed, you don’t know my situation, man. I owe this much, I owe that much. I’m in debt. And this creature from the cash lagoon, yeah, it’s kind of funny and all that, but I’m in some serious trouble! Is there a way out? Is there hope for me?”
Here’s the great news. We can deliver some deadly blows to that creature from the cash lagoon. [A video clip of “The Creature from the Black Lagoon” is played on the side screens in which the creature is floating dead in the water.] Look at that. He’s floating. He’s lights out. The Creature from the Black Lagoon was taken out. Well we can take out the creature from the cash lagoon. We really, really can. I want to talk to you about some deadly blows that we can deliver to this creature. A budget is the way to go. It’s planned spending; it’s being strategic.
Remember? This series has been all about living in the zone. See the God cam? [The view on the side screens goes to a camera shot of Ed from above the stage. Ed is standing “in the zone” on the carpet.] God wants all of us to live in the zone, in the blessed place. God is for you, He’s for me. He’s not against us. God wants to bless our lives. For God not to bless our lives is for God to go against His nature and character.
So, that being said, too many people live in The Land of Ing. We’re zoned out instead of being zoned in. The reason we’re zoned out is because we’re into own-ing, cloth-ing, earn-ing, ca-ching, ca-ching, bling-bling, all those that I’ve talked about in this series. We think we own it all. In reality, though, we don’t own it all. The stuff owns us when we’re here in The Land of Ing. We’re incomplete. And so many people live there, yet God wants us all of us and he has wired us up to live in the zone, in the blessed place. It’s ownership versus management.
Here [in the zone], we understand God is the Blessor. He’s given everything to us—our talents and aptitudes and abilities, our money, our opportunities. Everything is God’s. We’re in the zone and we are what? Managers of it. We’re stewards of it. We don’t own it. We’re just taking care of it. And because we’re managers of it, we’re blessed. We’re on the receiving end of the tangible and intangible favor of God. Because we’re blessed we handle our finances, for example, strategically B-U-D-G-E-T and we are a blessing. We’re a blessing to others. We’re a blessing to our families. We’re a blessing to God. That is living in the sweet spot of God’s success. Don’t you want to live there? Well, the Bible says that we can.
10-10-80 PRINCIPLE
Here’s how we can. This is very simple and you’ve probably heard it before. It’s the 10-10-80 principle. Or you could say the bring, the give and the live principle. That’s what God has in store for all of us.
Every time we get paid—we know this, but just as a review—the Bible says we’re to bring the tithe into the storehouse. Don’t get mad at me. Those aren’t my words. Those are God’s words. You got a problem? You don’t have problem with me. You have problem with God. Okay?
God says 10%. Not to a Christian School, not to a para-church organization, not to a missionary. All those things are great and fine, but it says to the local church, the local storehouse. 10% of all income should go there, the Bible says. If I do that, the remaining 90% will be blessed. If I don’t do that, 100% will be cursed. So a long time ago, 22 years ago, Lisa and I sat down and said, “Okay, do we want to be blessed or cursed financially? I’ll choose the blessing.”
It’s amazing how God has worked. It’s the quickest way to see God work. And Tracy and I talked about this on and on and on. Remember, last time I talked about Mary—not the mother of Jesus Mary, but the Mary who used that real expensive perfume from Neiman’s and she anointed Christ’s feet with oil. Remember that? Then you had Judas—just a self-centered, selfish guy embezzling money out of Christ’s money box. Because people were giving all this money to Christ’s ministry, Judas had this money and he was, you know, stuffing his pockets full of it. When he saw what Mary did with this stuff from Neiman’s he said, “Mary, what are you doing? What are you doing? You could use that and help the poor! That’s a year’s worth of wages.” That is the oldest smoke and mirror stuff of selfishness or envy and greed we know.
We do the same thing. “Man, must be nice! Man, if I had that kind of money to live in that house I’d sell that house, give that money to the poor.” No you wouldn’t. No you wouldn’t. Who are you trying to lie to, man? You’re try to get the spotlight off of your envy and off of your greed and onto the other person. You’re saying to yourself, “You know what? They don’t deserve that; I deserve that. Why do they have what I don’t have?” And that’s what Judas was all into. We’re saying, “Man, can you believe someone is stealing money from Jesus, the Son of God? I mean, think about that, that is, that’s mind boggling. Taking from Jesus’ money box?”
But let’s put a contemporary term for money box: offering box. Could it be that we have some people robbing God, stealing from God, doing the Judas thing right here? I don’t know. Let me read you what God says, these aren’t my words, I’m just a messenger boy, okay? Malachi 3:8, “Will a man rob God? Yet you rob Me. But you ask, ‘How do we rob You?’ In tithes and offerings.” It’s very important that we see this; that we bring, we don’t give. It’s God’s. We bring it into the storehouse. And that’s the quickest way to see God move supernaturally.
First thing we do is bring the first 10% to the local church. If we’re not, we’re being disobedient. It’s your call. It’s my call. I can’t make you do it. You can’t make me to it. It’s the way it is.
The second 10%, we save it. You know the Bible talks about saving money. We’re to save money. At least 8-10% of everything we make we should save it, in an interest-bearing account. Get that money working for you. It’s good money management. “Ed, why should I do that? Give me an example.” Okay. You ever seen a fire ant mound? Fire ants? Yeah, they’re everywhere, man. They’re taking over the State of Texas. Fire ants are bad, aren’t they? They’re demonic. Before you kill those fire ants, think about this, man. Those ants are pretty powerful. They know how to save stuff and store stuff. The Bible talks about ants. I couldn’t believe it. Proverbs 6:6-8, “Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest.”
Why do we save? We save to learn how to live on a margin. We make a certain amount of Skittles, a certain amount of money, and we live on a margin. Also, it teaches us, secondly, to be content. The apostle Paul says we learn contentment, we don’t just say, “Okay, I’m going to be content.” We learn it. And how do we learn it? By living on a margin. The result is contentment. We’re content with our contents.
But again, I can’t tell you what contentment is. I can give you principles. I can share with you what Scripture says, but you have to make that call. It’s between you and God. So I bring the first ten, I give myself first ten; [save the] second ten in an interest bearing account; then the other 80, you know what you do with that? You enjoy it! Have a blast with it.
Hopefully, I’m a generous father. I love to be generous with my kids. I don’t give them every greed, but I give them stuff and I like to see them enjoy the stuff that I give them. I told you a while back someone gave my son a set of used drums, but these drums were phenomenal drums. There was one problem, though. They had no symbols. None. Just drums. But I went out and bought the cymbals for my son. I went in the music store. I didn’t know what I was doing, and I said, “Just give me some cymbals.” [The attendant said,] “Hey, sir, here’s like the starter cymbal kit.” And I bought these cymbals for EJ. I’ve enjoyed listening to him.
God is the kind of God who loves to watch us play the drums and hit the cymbals. Don’t be embarrassed or guilty that you got cymbals, “Oh man I got cymbals!” But don’t be prideful, either. “They’re my cymbals, man! You know, I’m the man! I invented cymbals. Yeah, it’s me. Look at me!” That will take you out of the zone. They’re from God! And take care of the cymbals.
Proverbs 13:4, “Lazy people want much but get little, while the diligent are prospering.” If we love money, it will lead us. A lot of people hearing my voice right now, you say you don’t love it, but you love it. You love it, and it’s leading you around. You get more excited talking about deals and stocks and investments and landing than you do about Christ, than you do about the things of God. It’s leading you around. The creature from the cash lagoon’s got you. “Oh man, come on!”
Conversely, if we lead money, if we tell it where to go, it will serve us. Money is awesome. It can be used for greatness. But if it’s used in the wrong way it can cause stress and worry and we can drown in the seas of debt.
10-10-80 principle. That’s living in the zone. God wants to add his Bless- to our Ing. He wants to move us into the blessed place. That’s what God is going to do. Our response, as a response of love and gratitude is, “God, you own it all. It’s yours. I am going to do it your way.” Because when we do it God’s way we’re going to be walking in the sweet spot of his success.
Let’s pray together. [Closing prayer]
While I was in New York I had an opportunity to talk to a manger of a very famous Japanese Restaurant. Here’s what he had to say. [A video is played on the side screens of Ed interviewing the manager of the famous restaurant Nobu about how even at this renowned restaurant customers sometimes walk the check.]