The early church gave money to help the poor, take care of their families, take care of their spiritual leaders and pay their bills. It is this last part that we will look at today.

And it is needed. Our government is in a real crisis. Some of you are in trouble because you are in debt. It’s choking you. And now that the markets are in a free fall, you may be in even more trouble.

Our attitude toward our bills is an indicator of our spiritual condition. One of the greatest sins we face is self-centeredness. We were created for God, God was not created for us. When we live for ourselves, we deny the purpose of our creation. Self-centeredness creeps into every area of our lives. (2Ti 3:1 -4) 1 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.

It is interesting to note that the lovers of themselves is immediately followed by lovers of money. Why is this? Because the way we reveal our love is often through our money. Where our treasure is there our heart will be also. When I love myself, I give myself whatever is needed to make me happy. That takes money. So I buy a home that may be too much to handle financially, I get the car I want, not the one I can afford, I buy what I need, not necessarily what the family needs. My life revolves around me.

I can rationalize this by saying that I am not interested in money, that I am only trying to get better things for others, that I don’t want my family to be without. But inside, we often value our worth by our possessions. Have you ever said, “I will never be seen with… this old a vehicle, this kind of coat, this pair of shoes?” The statement reveals an inward pride, a focus on self, a lack of flexibility to live life according to the realities of your pocketbook.

Notice that Paul said that we would be lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. This is a great definition of materialism that is such a hallmark of our nation today. And we cannot throw too many stones ourselves.

If you want to hedge against turns in the market, if you want to give yourself maximum protection in tough times, then listen to what God says about money. More important, if you want your life to please God, if you want to experience real joy in your life, then follow God’s plan.

The apostle Paul tackles this issue in Romans 13. 7 Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honour, then honour. 8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellow-man has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” 10 Love does no harm to its neighbour. Therefore love is the fulfilment of the law.

Paul gives one statement about debt that we will look at: Pay what you owe.
If you owe anyone anything, God’s provision is for you to pay it back.

In the text, he focuses on five areas. First, if we owe taxes, we should pay them. Avoiding the payment of taxes by taking money and not declaring it on our income tax is a sin. If you owe the tax, you should pay it.

Second, we should pay revenues. These would be similar to the fees we have today.
Our government has created a whole branch of government to deal with this. We call it the IRS. Now think about this. Much of what the IRS does is because sin is so pervasive in our country. If everyone could be trusted to pay their taxes, there would be no need for penalties, tax courts, investigators and the like. But we can’t trust everyone in this world. We should be able to trust Christians. From our hearts, we should be people who obey the law and do the right thing.

The third area after paying taxes and revenue is that God wants us to give respect to whom respect is due. The fourth area is that we should give honor to those to whom honor is due. I have personally been sickened by many of the comments made on both the left and the right towards our leaders. We have had presidents that we don’t like, people who have made decisions that we strongly disagree with. The world disrespect them. There is a movie coming out that makes fun of our current president. As I heard that and thought about this passage, it just seemed wrong. When do we mock those we are to respect and honor? The world may do it, but we as Christians should not.

The fifth area is that we should pay our debts.
Before I go too far on this, I want to distinguish between two kinds of debt. The first kind is contractual debt. This includes our mortgage, car payments, credit card bills and the like. We have entered into a contract with these various people. Certain terms and conditions apply. We will pay a minimum amount every week or month until the debt is payed. This is one kind of debt.

The second kind of debt is outstanding debt. Outstanding debt comes because we have either broken the contract or else there was no contract and we just haven’t payed it back. We can call this kind of debt “late payments.” Or it may be that for some reason, you have decided that you will not or cannot pay this. Bankruptcy is one illustration. We go to court to hold off creditors so we don’t have to pay. This is outstanding debt.

God tells us, “Pay it.” If you have made a contract, keep your end of the deal. If you have fallen behind, tell the person or company you can’t make your payment. Don’t try to hide. Don’t ignore them. But pay it. If you go through bankruptcy, contact the people and even though the law says you don’t have to, pay it up. It is the Christian thing to do.

Why should we have to pay? The government wastes a lot of our money. The companies can stand the loss. We are going through tough times ourselves. Why should we have to pay?

First, because God commands it. That should be enough for us. The message should be able to stop at this point.

Second, because the non-payment of debt is unloving, it brings harm to others. Experts believe that 300 billion dollars is not collected in the United States each year. 300 billion! I wonder how many of these people are Christians who are neglecting the clear teaching of Scripture?

You and I are hurt when people don’t pay their taxes. Companies build into the price of their products estimates of losses they will take. I heard awhile ago about people who went to expensive stores and bought expensive clothes. They wore them out for a date or to the prom and then returned them the next day, often damaged. Everyone is hurt when we don’t pay our share.

And people are hurt when we don’t pay our bills. We are using other people’s money to finance our lives. When they lent us money they did so believing in good faith that we would keep our promise to pay them back. They lent us the money, they did not give it to us. So God says, Don’t harm your neighbor, pay it back.

This does not prohibit borrowing. Jesus said these words, (Mt 5:42) 42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. If it is a sin to borrow, why would Jesus tell the people to lend money? What is sinful is to borrow and not pay it back. If you have any money you owe to someone that is overdue, pay it back. That is what the Bible teaches. You may know of people from ten to twenty years ago that never received payment for services. If you want to be right before God, you need to make provision to pay them back.

If this is so, you say, then we need to be careful about how much we borrow and for what. Exactly. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Be careful about how much debt you have.

Proverbs tells us that the borrower is a slave to the lender. (Pr 22:7) 7 The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender. We not only harm others when we don’t pay, we trap ourselves. Others control us. We become servants to those who lend to us. Every time we borrow money we lose some of our freedom. We hurt ourselves.

And to come back again to the most important part, we hurt God. He created us to live at a higher level. He understands when tragedy or unforeseen circumstances hit us. He understands when a company fails. But at both ends of the pipeline, when we purchase and when we pay, he wants us to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. He promises that he will take care of the rest.

So I want to encourage you to pay any overdue bills. The Holy Spirit might bring to mind someone you owe from your childhood. He might be talking to you about what you did last week.

Think about what a testimony it would be to others. It might be that they had forgotten the money or had never expected it to come back. People don’t forget money owed! Now you do the right thing. Why? Because of God. What a testimony!
And then what joy. Many experts call people who are not able to pay their debts people who are in financial bondage. What a hard word, bondage. But how clearly it applies. Obey God in this and you will find joy returning to your life as you are set free by the word of God.