God’s Plan for Financial Blessing — Part 2

SPEAKER 01 : 0:02

Hey there, everybody, and welcome to Pastor Rick’s Daily Hope. And whether today is your first time tuning in or if you’re a regular listener, we’re really excited that you’re here. Well, today, Pastor Rick is continuing his series called Discover Your Destiny. So get ready to explore the practical steps to grow in all areas of your life. spirit, mind, body, relationships, and even your career. So stick with us as we uncover God’s incredible plan for your future. Let’s join Rick right now with the final part of a message called God’s Plan for Financial Blessing.

SPEAKER 03 : 0:40

Now notice this next verse, Proverbs 13, 11. Money that comes easily disappears quickly, but money that is gathered little by little will grow. In other words, it’s gonna compound, like with interest. Circle little by little. The reason why most people don’t save, number one is they spend it all, and number two is they don’t think it’s gonna matter that much. It says money saved little by little will grow. It’s not, listen, it’s not how much you save. It’s the consistency that matters. Doing it every single week. A lot of people say, well, I can’t put a whole lot in. Well, what can you put in? Start saving every week and the consistency, little by little, it will grow. My parents taught me to tithe and save as a child. I started saving when I was 17 years old. I started putting away a dollar a week and then more and then more. It wasn’t a whole lot, but you know what? Let that compound for 50 years, it adds up. That’s why I don’t have to take a salary today. Because my savings works for me. And I’ve been saving for 50 years. That’s called wisdom. Spending it all is called foolish. Now notice this next verse. If you just keep on doing it a little bit at a time, it’ll all add up. Proverbs 24, 27 says, develop your business first before you building your house. This is one of the many financial principles that Solomon gives in the book of Proverbs. Develop your business first before building your house. What’s he saying there? He’s saying when you get some income, instead of going out and spending it on a luxury or buying a new painting or painting the house or doing something that doesn’t really grow your wealth, he says you need to reinvest it. and you put it back into your business or you put it back into some kind of investment so it’s growing and the money’s working for you instead of you just spending it on some luxury. I see this happen all the time. Somebody gets a big promotion or a raise and the first thing they do is go out and buy a new car. That’s stupid. First place, as soon as you drive that car off the lot, it’s worth $10,000 less. You just lost it. And second place, it’s gonna depreciate each Year. On the other hand, if you take that difference in your race and you continue to live at the same level you’re living at and you take that money and you invest it, all of a sudden you’re making money with your money. God says that’s wise. It’s one of the reasons why I drive a 10-year-old Ford. It gets me to the same place anything else does. I haven’t had a car payment in 10, it’s actually an 11 year old Ford. I haven’t had a car payment in 10 years. What am I doing with that money? Well, I’m not spending it, I’m putting it into savings and investment. And that’s making money and that’s making money so that I can serve Saddleback for free. Now, the Bible says that you need to develop your business before you build your house. In other words, put it back into investment rather than saying, oh, let’s just go buy a bigger house. Now, the number five, number six, the six things you need to do, and by the way, these are in order, is you set up a repayment plan. You set up a repayment plan to get yourself out of debt. Some of you, it may take you the whole 10 years. But I want you to get out of debt. Why? You have no idea how good it feels to be debt free. To say, I owe nothing to anybody. And on top of that, God wants you debt free so he can tell you what to do with your life. Some of you, if God told you to do something, he had a great opportunity for you, you couldn’t, you’re in such financial bondage, you couldn’t move if you had to. And here’s what the Bible says, Proverbs 3.27, don’t withhold repayment of your debts. And the Bible says in Romans 13.8, let no debt remain outstanding. What does an outstanding debt mean? It means you’re only paying the minimum. If you’re only paying the minimum on your card, you’re not paying your card off every month, you are letting a debt remain outstanding. That’s wrong. Not only is it wrong, instead of your money working for you, you’re working for your money and you’re doing an exact opposite. Now, remember, I said these are in order. Keep good records, give the first 10% back to God, save and invest for the future, then set up a repayment plan. You say, wait a minute, Rick, are you telling me to save and to tithe before I pay my debts? That’s exactly what I’m telling you to do. You say, why? Because you need God’s help getting out of debt. Somebody asked John D. Rockefeller, who was the wealthiest man of his day. He was the Bill Gates of his day, the Warren Buffet of his day. How did you get so wealthy? He called it the 10-10-80 plan. He said, you tie 10%, first 10% to God, second 10%, you pay yourself in savings, and then live on 80%. You say, I can’t live on 80%. Then you are living beyond your means. You can live on anything if you want to. You are living beyond your means. You need to pay God first, you need to pay yourself second, and then you set up a repayment plan for your debts. And God will help you with those things. If you wait till you’re out of debt, you’re never gonna start saving. And you’re never gonna tithe, because your earnings will always be exceeded by your yearnings. Now, you need to set up a repayment plan. Number seven, if you want God’s blessing on your finances, you must budget your spending. You must budget your spending. Now what is a budget? A budget is simply a plan. It is planned spending. That’s all it is. A budget is telling your money where you want it to go rather than wondering where it went. You say, I want this to go here. I want this to go to college. I want this to go to my kids. This is the savings. I want this to go to the Lord. I want this to go to food. A budget is telling your money where you want it to go, where you control it instead of it controls you. And the Bible says you need to have a plan. Proverbs 21.5, plan carefully. That’s talking about a budget. And you will have plenty. If you act too quickly, you will never have enough. Now circle the phrase act too quickly. What’s he talking about there? He says if you act too quickly, you’re always gonna be in debt, you’re never gonna have enough money, you’re always gonna be behind schedule. What does it mean if you act too quickly? The Bible there is talking about what advertisers and marketers and merchandisers call impulse buying. Have you ever gone into a store and bought something you didn’t plan on buying? But you looked at it and you saw it and you go, whoa, how did I ever live without that? And you buy stuff not based on reason, not based on rationality. You buy it purely on emotion. And have you noticed it’s geared right at the most visible spots? Oh, let’s take some of those things. Those look great. And that is impulse buying. Now, marketers know that there’s one word that will get you to act too quickly. And it is the word… You got it, sale. But honey, it was on sale. Did we need it? No. Could we afford it? No. Do we really need 5,000 gallons from Costco of this? No, but it was on sale. And that causes impulse buying. If you act too quickly, you will never have enough. What is the antidote? to impulse buying. How do you spell relief? B-U-D-G-E-T. You gotta nip it in the budget. Nip it, nip it, nip it. As Barney Fife would say. Now look at this next verse. In planning your spending, budgeting your spending, Proverbs 10, 16, the earnings of the godly enhance their lives. Isn’t that great? That’s what I want to happen with you. I want your income, I want your wealth, I want your money to enhance your life, as the Bible says. But evil people squander their money on sin. Now, Proverbs 21, 20. Let’s read this with great enthusiasm. Aloud. Stupid people spend their money as fast as they get it. Some of you, that’s all the truth you needed. Go home. You don’t need any more sermon. Your cup is full right there, okay? If you’ll just put that verse on your refrigerator, stupid people spend their money as fast as they get it. That’s dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. God says, no, no, you need to plan your spending. You need to budget your spending. Now there’s one more, number eight, and all of these are important. I must enjoy what I have. If I want God’s blessing on my finances, I can’t always be griping and complaining. I must learn contentment. I must enjoy what I have. Now this is one of the major problems, particularly in Southern California, We’re so busy getting more, we don’t have time to enjoy what we’ve got. People buy these beautiful homes and then they’re never there. Because they’re always busy working to pay the mortgage on that beautiful house. Ecclesiastes 6.9 says this, it’s better to be satisfied with what you have than to always be wanting something better. Until you learn that truth, you’re never gonna start saving. Because you’re addicted to upgrades. It’s better to be satisfied with what you have than to always be wanting something else. And when you’re always wanting something else, you get so involved in getting more and getting more. We gotta get the newest model. We gotta get the greatest fashion. We gotta get the latest style. We gotta keep moving up and on. We gotta keep up with the Joneses. Don’t worry about the Joneses. They just filed for bankruptcy. Okay? Just about the time you catch up with them, they refinance. You get in the rat race, you may win it, you’re still a rat. So don’t get caught in the rat race. It’s better to be satisfied with what you have than always be wanting something else. And you know what, sometimes we’re always wanting something else and we’re so busy getting our kids things, we don’t have any time for our kids. Kids don’t need things, they need attention. When my three kids were growing up, we lived for over 10 years in Laguna Niguel in a 1200 square foot home that didn’t have enough bedrooms for my three kids. So I built, I turned the garage into two bedrooms. And the two boys on one side and my daughter on the other side, and they grew up in the bedrooms I built in their garage. You know what? None of them are worried about it. Because the fact is it allowed Kay to stay at home with them and allowed me to not have to take on a second job when the church was small. They needed me and they needed Kay more they needed our money. And they’re never gonna be resentful for the fact that they had a small bedroom in our garage. When we moved out of that house, I took it out and turned it back into a garage. And the Bible says this in 1 Timothy 6, 18. Tell them to use their money to do good. They should be rich in good works and should give generously to those in need. Always being ready to share with others whatever God has given them. You know, I was interviewed recently on a radio and somebody said, why do you think God let you write Purpose Driven Life, best selling book in American history? Because it brought in a lot of money. I said, you know why? Because God knew what I’d do with the money. He knew in advance. I had already had 35 years of faithfulness. He had trusted me in little things so he could trust me in bigger things. Can God trust you? Have you proven by your past, do your finances right now prove that you know how to manage money according to the biblical way? Now, what we’re talking about here, friends, if you want God’s blessing, is you’re gonna have to do the exact opposite of our culture. This is extremely counter culture. Because everything in society tells you, spend it as fast as you get it. In fact, spend more than you’ve got. Put it on the credit card, charge it. On your outline, I’ve given you two columns. On the left hand side is what most people do. This is what culture does. First thing people do is as soon as they get it, they spend it immediately. They spend it all. And then after they spend it all, they worry about it. Now, if they have any left, they repay a little bit, the minimum. If they have little, any left, which they don’t, they save it. And if they have any left after that, they give it, which they don’t. On the other side is the order God blesses. First, I dedicate it to God. God, it’s all from you. You’re my source, you’re my supply, and you’re my security. Second, I tithe it. First 10% goes back to you because I’m trusting that you’ll make the 90 go further than the 100%. It’s a statement of faith. Third, I save it and I invest it. I pay God first, I pay myself second. Fourth, I set up a repayment plan. And fifth, I enjoy it. I want you to hear the testimony of somebody who has lived out these principles and God has blessed him. Would you give him a warm welcome? Love you, man.

SPEAKER 02 : 15:01

By the way, I’m standing up if anybody’s wondering, so. Are you on the front row? Sorry. I’m humbled and honored to be asked to share my story with you this morning. The fact that I’m standing here today is an example of being careful what you pray for. You see, last Friday, as we prepared to announce that GE Healthcare was buying Clarion, I got up around 3 a.m. in the morning to pray before heading into what I knew was going to be an extremely frenetic day. My prayer went something like this. Lord, you’re an amazing God, and you deserve all the credit for what’s been accomplished at our company. I’m just the steward you put in charge to see your plan executed. I know that people and the press will likely blow my role out of proportion today, so I ask you, Lord, give me a forum where I can boldly and publicly proclaim you as Lord and recognize that the author of this amazing financial success of our company is you. As the crazy day ended, thank you. As that crazy day ended, I was on my way to see my daughter cheer at Santa Margarita football game and unexpectedly got an email from Pastor Rick congratulating me and asking me to update him on the big deal and God’s role in the process. So I returned his email. Well, the next thing you know, I’m standing here. So the moral of the story is if Pastor Rick emails you, don’t answer him. Truly, though, the story of our company’s success is an amazing testimony to how God can take a group of ordinary people, inspire them with a divine vision, grant them the wisdom to develop a solid long-range plan, and then provide them with discernment, strength, and most of all, perseverance to navigate the challenges along the way. I’d like to give you some background. At 35, I was having breakfast one morning with our pastor of our little church when we were living in Chicago. I was having my little pity party and expressing my desire to leave the corporate world for what I thought would be the safety of church ministry. Dave looked across the table at me after listening to me drone on for about 30 minutes or so and said something that changed my life. He said, Ronnie, you are in the ministry. Some are called to preach, some are called to teach, and some are called to minister in the marketplace. He went on to say, God has uniquely gifted you with an aptitude for the sciences and with the servant’s heart that he wants to use to transform the lives in the healthcare business community. I was stunned at his comments. It wasn’t what I wanted to hear at all. I was looking for his encouragement to quit my current job. But it was a wake-up call for me. My destiny was to serve God in the business world, meeting the needs of others, making a profit from it, and using those profits for God’s glory. The last 16 years since that day have been just an amazing journey, filled with challenges, some failures, and some successes. But I was determined to do it by the greatest business book ever written, the Bible. I would build a business on godly principles and God’s financial plan. Another real important piece of the story is that my grandmother had breast cancer when she was 52. I was only 11 at the time, but she would often tell me that she believed I was smart enough to do something about that disease. That dream of a destiny that she had really made an impression on me. She lived 30 more years with the disease, and finally it took her life. But on the night before she died, I held her hand, and she looked at me and said, Ronnie, you promised me you would do something about this disease. God will provide a way. Just follow him. So as a good Southern boy always does, I said, yes, ma’am. And through a circuitous route of divinely ordained moves, five years later, I ended up as the head of worldwide commercial operations for the world’s largest molecular diagnostics company. I thought, finally, my chance to do something about breast cancer. But I soon discovered that the corporate world is full of bureaucracy and egos. And we were slowing down both the discoveries and patients’ access to it. God wouldn’t let me sleep. In 2004, God gave me the opportunity to take over a failed medical instrument company here in Orange County that had the ability to map proteins and cells and help doctors in any community in the United States identify the most appropriate therapy for that breast cancer. With an idea to change the way breast cancer would be managed, I began to pray about making a faith commitment, as Rick calls it, to lead the safe corporate security for a new, extremely risky startup venture. All my friends and advisors told me I was crazy. Rick calls them dream busters. They’d ask, Ronnie, why do you want to do this to yourself? You could take any job in the diagnostics industry. Well-meaning friends poured water on the fire that God had lit in me. I was afraid and kept coming up with all kinds of compromises and shortcuts so I would not have to step out in faith and trust God. Still, the conviction from God would not leave me alone. And one night, as I sat outside in Northern California and looking up at a beautiful, crystal clear fall sky, it hit me. The science geek kicked in. Our God is a big God. The universe is 27 billion light years wide. And God laid on my heart that the psalmist said he holds it between his thumb and his forefinger. That’s a big God. That same omnipotent God cared enough to design the human body with cells that have the ability to uniquely repair themselves when DNA is mutated. And that wasn’t good enough. He put a fail-safe mechanism in that if that cell repair system failed, that the cell would know it and kill itself in a process called apoptosis so that cancer would not eradicate the human race. That’s the God I serve. So despite how impossible I felt my destiny would be to fulfill, the same God would be with me. And I remembered the promise of Isaiah 43, 2 and 3. “‘When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you’ll not be burned. The flames will not set you ablaze, for I am the Lord your God.'” I realized that this step of faith would leave me totally dependent on God. And that’s exactly what God wanted and exactly where I wanted to be. I’d never be able to do this financially or any other way on my own. It was that moment I realized I had to do it. As I prepared to launch my vision to my new company, I enlisted a group of people to pray for me. Those prayers kept me going because on my first day, I laid out my plan and proclaimed my faith in front of 50 plus employees. And immediately afterwards, as I made my way up the stairs, I was met by a woman who boldly proclaimed, this will never work. Even your God isn’t good enough to fix this mess. You should just get back on your plane and fly back to Northern California and hopefully get your old job back. Talk about an in-your-face move by Satan. I knew he was trying to deliver a discouraging message to me and weaken my faith. You see, Satan was fighting me, not only because we had a passion to change the way breast cancer would be managed, but also because I was determined that my company would be built on financial principles and the leadership model of Jesus Christ. I went straight to my office, asked a few folks to come in, we got on our knees, and we prayed. We dedicated our company, our vision, our profits, and our plan to God. I don’t have time this morning to share the full story with you, but I can say that over the past six years, we’ve had many ups and downs, failures and successes, and most of all, tests of faith. God needed to change me before he could bless me, and personal change, as you know, is never easy. Thankfully, though, Saddleback Church has been instrumental in my personal growth and the growth of our company, especially Saddleback’s workplace ministry. These small group studies have helped us define servant leadership in Christ terms. They’ve had a profound impact on our company culture. And as a testimony to these groups and their impact on our corporate culture, last week, Clariant was named the top medium-sized healthcare company in the United States to work for by Modern Healthcare Magazine. This truly shows that when your business and finances are focused on bringing glory to God, people will want to work there. We have an extremely compassionate, energized workforce and a very sustainable business. But my testimony today is not about the effectiveness of my leadership, but about the greatness of our God and the fact that God always keeps his promises if we just fulfill our part of the deal and obey him completely. I don’t know why we think we know how to do things better than God, because we certainly don’t. But as a result of my simple faith commitment I made six years ago, God has delivered in a big way at Clarion. We’ve touched over 500,000 cancer patients and have grown at a 60% compounded annual growth rate since we began. We’ve pioneered new technologies that are saving lives while bringing in this year over $115 million in revenue. Again, I’m not the owner of this company. I’m just a steward of what God placed in my hands. If you think you can’t, if God can’t use you, let me encourage you right now. I am the least likely person in this building to be a CEO. I’m a southern boy with a funny accent, extreme case of attention deficit, no big name school education, no MBA from a top business school. In fact, my MBA stands for more Bible than anything. I simply agreed to do it God’s way and fulfill his destiny for me, not mine. It has been an extremely wild ride. And now what God placed in my hands for many years, he’s now placing in someone else’s hands. A decade of destiny could not have come at a better time in the life of our congregation, Orange County, and our country. People need hope and a vision today. There is an absolutely huge void of godly leadership in the marketplace. And no matter where you are in your company, you can have an impact. After all, leadership is not about a title. It’s all about your influence. In closing, the movie Chariots of Fire told the true story of Eric Little, the missionary and Olympic sprinter from Scotland who at the time was thought to be the fastest man on earth. But he’s most famous for refusing to compete in the 1924 100-meter race because it was held on a Sunday. He insisted on honoring God first in every area of his life. He became famous for this saying, and it’s a saying that’s inspired me through the years. God made me fast, and when I run, I feel his pleasure. As we begin Decade of Destiny together as a church family, I challenge you to consider how God has made you. In your shape, you will find your calling that allows you, too, each day to feel God’s pleasure, to have a lasting impact on the lives of others, and to succeed in being who God created you to be. Thank you.

SPEAKER 03 : 26:47

Thank you, Ronnie. Thank you. Now let me say this to you as your pastor who loves you deeply. You have no idea how God wants to bless you if you’ll just do it his way. You have no idea what God might wanna do in your life. But you gotta decide, am I gonna trust God or me with my finances? Am I gonna do it my way or am I gonna do it God’s way? Do I want my blessing or do I want God’s blessing? Now you gotta do all eight of these habits. I know some people who tithe but they’re not satisfied with what they’ve got. And I know some people who are trying to repay debts, but they’re not saving anything. You’ve got to do it all. Now, I know debt is a big problem. And many of you, and I pray for you, those of you who are in debt, I pray for you and I hurt for you. The Bible says this on the screen. Jesus said, don’t worry. He just says it. Don’t, don’t worry. Your heavenly father already knows what you need. And he will give it to you. That’s the promise. Here’s the premise. If you give him first place in your life and you live as he wants you to. Now I want to pray for you. Let’s bow our heads. Heavenly Father, I thank you that you want to bless our health. You want to bless our families. I thank you that you want to bless our jobs and our finances. These are not areas that you’re uninterested in. I thank you for the story of Ronnie and his faithfulness to you and how he followed God’s financial plan and he followed your will and he listened to your voice and he felt himself as a steward, not as an owner. I pray for all who are here today in debt, who are worried about their finances. I pray for all who are out of work right now. Lord, give them a job. I pray that many today will say, I’m going to take that step of faith. I’m going to stop pretending. I’m going to follow God’s financial plan. And I pray that you will create a generation of wealth creators and kingdom builders at Saddleback in the next decade. And I pray this in your name. Amen.

SPEAKER 01 : 29:34

What a life-giving message from Pastor Rick. Now let’s join Rick with today’s offer. Thanks for listening today.

SPEAKER 03 : 29:41

You know, honestly, I never paid much attention to my health until I had a little epiphany a few years back when I baptized over 800 people in a single day by immersion. Now looking at myself and everybody that I was baptizing, it was real clear that we all needed to get healthy. So I put together a team of nationally known doctors to help me develop a program for our church. I called it the Daniel Plan, based on the passage in the book of Daniel, where Daniel has a contest with King Nebuchadnezzar on who can be the healthiest. The Daniel Plan is centered on five essentials that will help you become healthier. faith, food, fitness, focus, and friends. There are a lot of diet plans out there that deal with food and fitness, but the secret sauce in the Daniel plan is focus, learning to have your mind renewed, friends, learning to grow in community, and faith, trusting God’s power rather than willpower. You know, we found that when individuals addressed health issues in each of these key areas, they are transformed. In fact, in the first year of the Daniel Plan, over 15,000 people from 190 countries participated, and the results were life-changing. In fact, our own church, Saddleback Church, lost over a quarter of a million pounds in one year. Can you imagine that? What did it do for our church? It increased our energy. We started sleeping better. It reduced our need for medication. The whole church was healthier. Now, the Daniel Plan has recently been released in a book format, and I want you to have a copy of this book today so you can start getting healthier now. And I’ll send you a hardcover copy of the Daniel Plan book as a very special thank you for your gift to this ministry.

SPEAKER 01 : 31:29

Just go to PastorRick.com to get your copy of this great resource. That’s PastorRick.com. Or you can just text the word HOPE to 70309. That’s the word HOPE to 70309. And thank you so much for your support. Your gift to Daily Hope really helps us share the hope of Christ with people all over the world. Be sure to join us next time as we look into God’s Word for our Daily Hope. This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick’s Daily Hope and your generous financial support.