We’re continuing in our study of the Book of Proverbs, and we’ve transitioned from going to chapter at a time for the first nine chapters, now into these topical subjects. And when Colby and I sat down probably four months ago, we mapped out, here are the topics we’re going to talk about. And then separately, the elders. And I said, let’s start the giving on June 1st. And then lo and behold, the topic in Proverbs today, coincidentally, of course, we know God’s at work and all that, is the topic of wealth, finances, money. What does Proverbs have to say about our financial resources? How should we handle them? What should we do with them? We’re going to look across the book of Proverbs today and look at what does it say now, before we dive into the book of Proverbs, I just want to give you a reminder about a basic study, Bible study principle that when we come to Scripture, we come submitting ourselves to Scripture, not trying to make Scripture submit to us. And you’ve all seen this done where someone will pluck a verse of the Bible out of the context and make it say whatever they want. You can do that. You can go find any verse of the Bible and make it say whatever you want to support whatever belief system you have. You see reporters do this. When they interview someone, they’ll take a statement completely out of context and make it say the opposite of what the person meant, so they can get the cutting edge story to get the shock value instead of being fair to that person. And so when we come to Scripture, and especially to Proverbs, we want to be fair with what it teaches. We want to approach it carefully. In fact, the phrase and if you didn’t get a hand out, raise your hands. We’ll get some to you because because we’re jumping all over the book of Proverbs. Normally, if we were just in one chapter, I’d center us there and have you read from your own copy of Scripture. But since we’re jumping all over the place, we’re going with this handout route in this season to help you see the verses to not test all your Bible drill skills all at once, and just help us to stay centered on God’s Word. But there’s a verse here I’ve listed at the very beginning, Acts 20:27. There was phrase in there that says, we seek the whole counsel of God. So we’re not just looking to pull out any one part that we feel like we best relate to. We all have our faith, by the way. We all have our favorite book of the Bible, and that’s okay. But we don’t only study that book of the Bible, we study the whole counsel of God. Because every sentence of the Bible is determined. The meaning of is determined by the chapter, which is determined by the book of the Bible, which ultimately is determined by the whole Bible. And so we want to be careful. This is important, especially in Proverbs, because Proverbs statements tend to be a little more absolute. They feel like this is the way it is and the way they’re worded, and that’s on purpose. It’s meant to make you think. It’s meant to force you to wrestle with a difficult idea. But proverbs in general are not absolute truth principles. They’re more general life principles. And there are times where they don’t always hold out, but in general they tend to be true. They’re proverbial in that matter, but they can come across strong and can be misused. So here’s an example in your notes, chapter three, verse nine and ten. Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of all your produce. Then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine. And you can read this, and some have taken this and use this along the lines of– you may have heard the phrase the prosperity gospel. See, if you give God just a little, he will return, he has to, he must return– this verse says multiplied many over. But God’s not formulaic like that. I don’t tell him what to do. He does what he pleases. He is God, not not me. But now, in general, if you follow the wisdom of Scripture and if you give part of what he is giving you back to him, he tends to reward that. He tends to bless that. It’s not a formula. It’s not 10 to 1. It’s not. There’s no formula to it. In fact, some would take this and say, he must always bless me. Well, there’s plenty of verses in Scripture that say life’s going to be hard. There’s plenty of verses that say it’s going to be very difficult. And in fact, there’s others that say, don’t get caught up in money. In fact, Luke 12:5, 12:15, one of those two, life does not consist in the abundance of possessions. If that’s your goal, there’s going to be an emptiness there. You’re not going to find true life there. And by the way, Luke 9:25, what if you gain the whole world and forfeit your soul? So there’s a balance of Scripture where you read to study what any individual thing says and understand it in light of what all of Scripture says. So we’re looking at what Proverbs has to say about money. But I’m also going to bring in, as Christians, as New Testament believers, we’re going to bring in how that balances out with how we follow Christ today. So we’re looking at Proverbs, looking at the topic of money. And I think the first place to start here is with this whole idea of what is the nature of money. That’s the next big bold section here on your notes. What is the nature of money? You know, try to. Define money. And if someone were to ask you, how do you define what is money? And you might say, pull out a dollar bill, but is that really money that that that piece of paper in itself doesn’t have much value. It represents something of value. And of course, that used to be tied to gold or silver, something else that has inherent value. But even that gold and silver, that’s just something we’ve assigned value to. We’ve agreed upon collectively that that has a value that we can exchange with one another. And here’s the thing about money that makes it helpful to know that it does have you do see positive and negative things about money in Proverbs and in life. One of the positive elements of money. And Wayne Groom has a great book on this where he talks about business to the glory of God. That business, assuming it’s a productive business, not a sinful business, business is inherently good because you’re providing for some something for someone else that they need. It’s it’s a service to others. And then in exchange, they hopefully are giving you back something you need. Money makes that exchange easier. I don’t have to show up at your door with a stack of books to ask for one of your cows, and you may go, I don’t want books. And I would say, why not? These are worth 100 cows. I just want one. But when we got to go back and forth like that, actually I need 20 not and back and forth or you gotta go find the person that has the thing that you want and you have the thing that they want. But money simplifies that exchange. It makes life easier. That’s a positive side. Also, when money is spoken of in Proverbs, one of the positives is the element of generosity. Look at this verse. In 1917. Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed. So we’re called to be generous, and money makes being generous a little easier at times. You may not know exactly what people need, but you know they can use paper. You know that they can use money to meet their needs. And we’re encouraged to be generous with. So money isn’t inherently bad. In fact, what’s the verse? Has it often misquoted and I know it. Valley view I can’t trick you on this. It’s often misquoted as money is the root of all evil. That’s right. So many of you are mumbling it. It’s the love of money that is at the root of all sorts of evil. So money itself is inherently an evil. However, going to the negative side of it, it does present itself for us with extra temptations. There’s something about money that has a temptation, Tim, tempting nature to our heart that draws out many things that are anti biblical out of our hearts. Here’s an example. Look at chapter 30, verses eight and nine. Here in the midst of chapter 30, this writer is really issuing a prayer. Give me neither poverty nor riches, lest I be full and deny you, and say, who is the Lord? Or lest I be poor, and steal and profane the name of my God? There’s something about money that stirs up within you feelings about God. If you don’t have enough, it could turn towards hatred, anger, blame. Why have you let this happen to me? And it could put you in a place where you dishonor God if you have too much. The temptation is you just completely forget about him. I don’t have any need for him any more. All my needs are met. All my physical needs are met. And so either spectrum, either side is a temptation of the heart when it comes to finances. Tim Keller said it this way. He said both affluence and adversity adversity will test you. Both of them are a test. We tend to assume that just getting money, getting more is always going to be better. That’s always a plus one. No no, no. Less us. Say, who are you, Lord? The temptation is to just forget him. And what Proverbs says here. What’s way better is to be in the middle. And I’ve read studies on this recently. In fact, this is true even just practically, even if you’re not a Christian. The studies have shown that once you get your basic needs met and then get just a little more to be able to enjoy life. And of course, we all love that phrase just a little more. That’s all. That’s all I need is just a little more. But they’ve actually put a number to it. They said once you get to that level, you really won’t get more happiness with more money. In fact, it’s more likely to do the opposite. They’ve actually put a number to it in our day and age now, and it’s right around $100,000. Once you get that amount of just I don’t know if it’s net or gross or whatever, it’s income and you get your basic needs met. Plus you get a little more to be able to just do a few fun things in life. Once you start getting more than that, it doesn’t really add measurably more happiness to your life. And we’re all saying, I’d love to test that theory. I know it’s true. Every single one of us who goes, yeah, I’d like I’d really like to see if that’s indeed the case or not. But the middle path, Proverbs says that’s actually the best place to be, so that I’m not pulled off course by either spectrum. So there’s a negative side. There’s a positive side to money. Part of the reason why money tends to pull our off hard off course is because of these other aspects of money. Look here, money can easily become our trust and security. So if you have a lot look and even if you don’t, you can put your trust and security in whether you will have it or not or when you have some. And by the way, I realize some of us are in places where you’re barely making it. I’m not trying to minimize that. I realize that is a really hard place to be. I mean, the, the, the Proverbs writer here was acknowledging that as well. That’s not a good place to be. You want to get out of that place, do all you can to get to a place where you’re not just getting by constantly under pressure, struggling all the time. Keep that in mind in the context of talking about people who have too much for just a moment here, because you’re going that don’t that doesn’t relate to me. Well, it does point to where our hearts tend to go. Money can easily become our trust and security trust. 1128 whoever trust in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like a green leaf. If I don’t have enough, and I’m trusting that if I had enough, everything would be okay. I’m still trusting in money, not in the Lord security. A rich man’s well, this is 1015 is his strong city. The poverty of the poor is their ruin. The temptation is to think that if I have enough now, I’ll be secure. Everything will be okay. Nothing can bother me. I read one pastor this week. I thought this was a really good quote. It’s a little bit of an overstatement at first. He said it this way. Satan’s goal is not to get you to believe in him. Now maybe it is. I don’t know. For the sake of the argument he was making the case. Satan’s goal is not to get you to believe in him. It’s to get you to believe in you. Self-Reliance, self dependance. And the more inward we go, the happier he is and the more miserable we become. And if money becomes my security, my stronghold, my trust me. And that’s pulling us away from the Lord. And it won’t last. Part of the nature of money we see here is it’s fleeting. Look at this next verse 23 four through five. Do not toil to acquire wealth. Be discerning enough to desist. When your eyes light on it, it is gone. For suddenly it sprouts wings flying like an eagle towards heaven. I think a lot of us can say, yeah, that that describes my money really well, especially if you’re in a season with young kids at home. It goes out the door faster than it comes in. It seems like it’s just flying away. Like with wings. Money comes and goes. In fact. Many of us have a number in mind. If I got to there, I’d be happy. That would be enough. But you get there and, well, just a little bit more would get me there. That moves as well. That flies away, that goal changes. And if your happiness is tied to that number, you’ll never be happy. It will keep changing. It’s fleeting. That’s one thing that’s really important to understand about money. Also, keep in mind here’s what it says. It has limitations. Chapter 11 verse four. Riches do not profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death. Money has limitations. On the day of wrath it is worthless. It can’t do nothing for you on that day. Money so worthless gold. They paved the streets with it in heaven. It has no value roughly there and it won’t accomplish anything for you. There’s this famous story of Erasmus wrote Erasmus was a writer in the 1500s, probably one of the most famous and prolific writers of that age. We’re still translating his works today from Latin to English. They’re already up to something like 70 large, thick volumes of his works. This guy just wrote and wrote and wrote super highly respected. He’s best known for publishing the first Greek New Testament, first printed Greek New Testament. Prior to that, you know, they didn’t have a printing press till mid 1400s. First printed Greek New Testament, which really revolutionized Bible study. LED to the Protestant Reformation with Martin Luther. It’s part of the reason we’re meeting in a Baptist church, or just generic Christian church, that all churches aren’t just Catholic, for instance. So it had a big effect. But Erasmus also loved to write satire. He really loved to write humor. He especially loved to make fun of the Pope, which I don’t know how he got away with that. Usually they put those people to death. Back then that wasn’t good territory to be in. But he tells this story and he published it anonymously at the time, but they’ve wisely so. It’s called it’s all about how the Pope tries to get into heaven with all of his money and his riches. In fact, the opening of the story shows him knocking on the door and saying, look here, I have my silver key. Why isn’t working in the luck? Look at my triple crowns, my vestments, my gold, my rubies. Open the door. And Peter says to him, those things don’t work here. We have no idea how the conversation actually goes. And I’m not saying Pope Julius wasn’t a Christian or not, I don’t know. I’ve never met him. I don’t know the whole story. The point being, money has its limitations. You can’t buy your way into heaven. You don’t give to the church to build up goodwill with God so that he’ll let me in. It has its limitations, and that’s something to be mindful of. Don’t be deceived into thinking it isn’t ultimately always going to be good and happy for you to have more. Also money. Look here at this last one on this side of the page, amplifies and exposes the heart. It amplifies and exposes the heart. Look at this. Verse 1311 wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it. I think what this points to is you’ve seen this. I had this experience when I was working at a little grocery store. A family won $1 million lottery ticket at our grocery store, and you watched them go from just a normal, happy family to just their lives fall apart. For money on their situation, it exposed the heart. It wasn’t long before the marriage had split up. All the fancy new cars they had were falling apart pretty quickly. It exposed what was already there. There wasn’t a deep, rich love and dependance on God to begin with. By the way, it does take skill to handle a large sum of money. Those are skills most of us don’t have because we haven’t had extra money to know how to handle it or to deal with it, but there’s a skill set of using money to make money handling it well, being a good steward of it. It’s not necessarily a blessing to get a windfall. You see that with lottery winners, most of them end up bankrupt pretty soon. You see that with pro sports players. Within a few years of getting out of the league there, most of them are bankrupt. It exposes, it amplifies what’s already there. Now what we want to do is turn from just seeing some of what is the negative reality of money, but now starting to think through the lens of a Christian perspective. How should a Christian think about money? How should we be approaching it? I think there’s two words that stand out that we see in Proverbs. First is the word better. And you see this in these first three verses. Better is a dinner, better is a dry morsel. Better is a little better, better, better. There are things in life that are better than money. Money’s not the greatest good in life. Look here at 1517, better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a fattened ox and hatred with it. You know one thing that’s better than money? It’s love. Love. Loving relationships. People who sincerely and deeply love you. Infinitely more valuable than than money. You can have all the money in the world. You have no one who loves you. You’re empty. You’re dead. You’re miserable. Health. I mean, people will spend whatever money it takes to get their health right. Way more valuable than money. Of course, money helps to have good health at times. In certain ways, I get that. But health is still far more valuable than money. Relationships look at 17 one. Better is a dry morsel with quiet than a house full of feasting with strife. In fact, one of the best predictors of joy and happiness in life is the quality of the relationships of the people closest to you in life. It’s not even money or education levels or income. Income and money are the same, is it? It’s relationships. And if you have good, rich relationships with those closest to you, likelihood is you’ll have a rich and meaningful life. Wisdom is better than money honoring God 1516 better is a little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure and trouble with it. And then lastly on this list and these are just a few I picked out. These aren’t all of them. Peace. No peace. The ransom of a man’s life is his wealth. But a poor man here is no threat. Meaning if you have great riches, you may get in a situation where you do need to be ransomed. You’re more likely to face the challenges of being kidnaped per se. But a poor man hears no threat. No one is coming to kidnap a poor person. You don’t have to worry about that. There’s a level of peace in life. Again, assuming you’re not just barely making it and have all kinds of troubles related to that. But peace is more valuable than money itself, and money doesn’t necessarily bring peace. It may bring the opposite up to a certain level. So as a Christian, we approach money knowing there are things in life that are better, that are more important. But all the allure of the world. Look, everything you see in social media, on TV, all of it is designed to make you unhappy. That’s the whole point. Everything, every commercial you see is trying to make you feel like what you have isn’t enough. And look, it’s okay, keep watching it. But don’t be naive to that. They’re trying to make you feel like what you have now. That device you got last year, which was cutting edge and the best thing ever now is worthless. And you are worthless as a result. And you need this new thing to be happy, meaningful, purposeful again in life. That’s the message you hear in subtle ways, over and over and over and over again. We’re battling that all day long. So you’re hearing that all day long. We’ve got to speak the truth to ourselves, that life does not consist in the abundance of possessions. That’s not where I’m going to find life. So there are things better than money. Also, though, the word I think the second word to take note of is the word steward stewardship. We are called to view our lives and our finances as stewards over them. It’s not my money. I’m a steward of his money. Look at chapter 27, verse 23 and 24. Know well the condition of your flocks, and give attention to your herds for riches. Do not last forever. We’re called to be stewards. We’re called to be stewards of our finances. But also first Corinthians six also of our lives. We’re not even meant to view our lives as our own. Look at this verse. Do you not know your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you whom you have from God? You are not your own. You were bought with a price, so glorify God in your body. I should approach all of life as a steward. It’s this isn’t my life. This isn’t my money. This isn’t my family, my car, my books, whatever. There he is. I’m called to just be a momentary steward for it. I experience this almost every day. I walk in the church. I walk in, and as I’m walking in, I can see there’s a stone out on the edge of the old sanctuary, which used to be over that way that we met in when I was a kid here in church growing up. In fact, we have VBS next week. One of my earliest memories here is lining up in the back of that old sanctuary for VBS as a little bitty kid, and when I’m walking in, I can see that stone on the corner of the building that says Valley View Baptist Church, 1967. And if you could see it on that building further down from it, it says 1957. It’s blocked by bushes there. But I see that stone every morning when I’m walking in, I’m reminded this thing was here long before you. Not real long, I guess. That’s just six years before I came around. But it was handed to us. Yeah, I’m the pastor of the church, but it’s not my church. You see, we’re here to steward it for a season, to pass it on to the next generation. Other people did that. They passed it on to us. They cared for it. And our goal is to be faithful to God’s word, to walk by the power of the spirit, to submit to his word, to follow Christ, submit our lives to him. And if he gives us favor, we will have something to pass on to others. We’re just a temporary steward. If we have that mindset, I think it approaches life very differently. I’m going to end by giving four quick antidotes to the negative temptation the negative pool of money. I think there are four biblical antidotes to that that we can use practically. You see here first is generosity. Chapter 11 verse 24 says, one gives freely and grows all the richer. Another withholds what he should give and only suffers want. There’s something about generosity that unlocks the stranglehold money can have on our soul. And of course, you’ve got to have some to be able to give it away. You’ve got to have a little extra to be able to give it away. I get all that, and sometimes we’re generous with our time. If we don’t have finances or maybe we have extra stuff we don’t need any more, we’re generous with that. The key is I want to have a generous heart, one that is giving, that unlocks the stranglehold money can have on your life. Second is identity. Colossians three two through three says, set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Know that my identity is not on my possessions. It’s not on what I own. It’s not on my 401 K or 4 or 3 B or whatever you have or your Roth IRA. It’s not. My identity is rooted in him first and foremost. In fact, some of what Scripture praises, if you look at Matthew five, that’s actually verse three, not verse eight, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God. Blessed are those who are dependent on God, not self dependent. So there’s an identity issue. We need to make sure our identity is rooted in Christ. Number three gratitude. Going back to that whole reality of every commercial is meant to make you unhappy, ungrateful for what you already have. Ephesians five four. It’s so powerful because it links immorality to a lack of gratitude. Why would you want to move toward sexual immorality is because you’re not happy with what you have. You’re not happy with what God has given you. You’re ungrateful for what he has done. You want to fight the battle against the unhealthy approach to money. Move towards gratitude. I’ve got a friend recently. I met with him and he said, John, I have been starting my day. Every day I open my journal and I take whatever time it takes to write down eight things I’m grateful for. That happened yesterday. I thought, that’s awesome, and that’s a lot of hard work. I mean, if you haven’t done that before, look, do it for a week and then you’ve exhausted everything in your life. Now the next day you got to go through it again. Well, I’m still grateful for my wife. I’m still grateful for my kids. He said, no, it’s got to be something new every day. Something that happened yesterday, eight things. And he said, John, sometimes it takes me a long time. But I got to tell you, that has been such a gift to my soul in this season. If you want to move away from a state of anxiety, a state, maybe you find yourself in this place of where you’re just unhappy and unsatisfied in life. I focus on gratitude. Focus on being grateful for what he’s already given you. Focus on what he’s already done rather than what he hasn’t done, and you will see him do some amazing things in your heart. You really will. My friend Tim saw that you will as well. Now lastly, for antidotes to the pull money has on our body, on our lives, faith is the last. Second Corinthians five seven says, we walk by faith, not by sight. We don’t just take steps that only we can see or figure out in our own strength, in our own intellect. We’re called to walk by faith. That’s true spiritual. It’s true of our spiritual, as we’re called to take the initiative with people, take the initiative in faith spiritually. But it’s true of our finances as well. I saw yesterday was May 31st. Two years ago was the day we started taking down all those well-loved walls in the fellowship hall down below us. That was the day they started dropping to the floor. We took a big step of faith there as a church. That was my first year here as a pastor. All my friends were saying, don’t do anything new. The first year, don’t do anything new. We won’t don’t worry. We’ll just raise enough money to fix our whole fellowship hall. At first, you. We took a step of faith. It was a big need for the church and God provided. It was an exciting time to see him provide. I believe there’s other things like that out ahead of us. He will call us to take a step of faith. This isn’t a set up for some big ask, but I think you all know there’s plenty around here that needs to be worked on. There’s plenty that God wants to do in our community, in our church, and that’s going to call for us to walk by faith, not just by sight. That’s part of how we’re all wired to be, is dependent ultimately on Christ. We walk by faith, trusting that he is the one in charge, not me. And so when we look at Proverbs and see what it says about money, we’re also filtering it through the lens of Who is Christ? How do I submit my life to him? How do I follow him day by day? That’s where I’m going to find peace, love, hope, purpose, joy, meaning, significance, life, abundant life to the fullest. Life everlasting is in him, not in the things I think will bring me joy on this earth. Keep all that in mind. This is a slice of a bunch of verses in the book of Proverbs. We haven’t covered everything about money in the Bible, but the hope is over the weeks of looking at the book of Proverbs, here’s the goal. And this is what we started out saying. What do we want to find in the book of Proverbs? What are we looking for? Wisdom. We all want wisdom. At the end of the day, wisdom comes from submitting ourself to Christ. Let’s pray. God, we thank you for your word that guides us, gives us wisdom, gives us ancient wisdom from modern times. We need wisdom. And even if we’ve been successful financially, we need wisdom to know how to be a good steward of what you’ve given us. And if things are really rough and we don’t have enough and we’re tempted to dishonor you, we need wisdom for how to live. And even if things are right in the middle and all our needs are met and we don’t have too much, we still need wisdom. How to not become self dependent now to not just go on cruise control, but to walk by faith day by day. God, I pray each person here today would hear from you. What is it you want each of us here today to hear from you? What wisdom to each of us need around our own finances. What are you calling us to do? Would you guide each of us? I even pray just right now. Each of us would. Since your presence around us, we would. Since you were here with us. Many times we feel alone. I pray right now. God, would your presence just fall upon us? We would. You know that you’re with us and help us to sense. You were right there. Help us to walk with you today. Jesus, we love you. Amen.