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Proverbs 30:8-9
8 Remove far from me falsehood and lying;
give me neither poverty nor riches;
feed me with the food that is needful for me,
9 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.
(ESV)
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Good morning, everybody. My name is Thomas Ritchie, and I'm an elder at Redeemer, and my mission today is to preach through everything that the Bible says about money. Out of 31,000 verses in the Bible, there are more than 2,000 about money. The verses aren't straightforward. A lot of times, they point in different directions, and applying them to our lives is not a simple thing.
Caleb Chancey:Obviously, we can't possibly get through all of it. We couldn't begin to get through what Proverbs says about money. And so what I wanna do today is really take one text and use it as a key and see if it will unlock some biblical wisdom for us and use that to to look through several verses in proverbs and and elsewhere and see if we can't gain a little bit of practical advice from the Bible about how we can honor Christ with our money. Now I'm gonna start by reading the last text that is in your worship guide. We're gonna be jumping all over the place.
Caleb Chancey:I checked after the last service. I don't think I even hit all the verses that are in the worship guide, but I hit a lot of ones that aren't. I'm not a full time preacher. You have to forgive me. But read with me, or I guess I'll read for us Proverbs 30 verses 8 and 9.
Caleb Chancey:Remove far from me falsehood and lying. Give me neither poverty nor riches. Feed me with the food that is needful for me, 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. This is the word of the lord.
Caleb Chancey:Let's pray together. Oh, God, you see me, and you know what I am. And these people here, they see me, and they know what I am. And God, I I do not have words of life. Only you have those words.
Caleb Chancey:So God, will you open your word to us? Holy Spirit, will you open our ears? Will you open my mouth? We count on you. We depend upon you in all things.
Caleb Chancey:May we see Christ in these texts, and may we obey his word. In Christ's name, amen. Alright. So I wanted to start with this last text from Proverbs 30 because there's one line in there. There's a prayer that I think has such wisdom in it, and it caught me off guard, and I think it makes no sense in this present age.
Caleb Chancey:Give me neither poverty nor riches, the author pleads. Okay. Give me give me, you know, no poverty. I get that. But don't give me riches.
Caleb Chancey:Has any of you ever prayed that before? God, please keep me from inheriting a vast sum of money. God, I pray that my portfolio continues on its downward trajectory. Please keep any raises that come my way moderate, and whatever happens, withhold a large bonus. Right?
Caleb Chancey:It's funny. Right? It's like a joke, But yet, that's what this man's praying. That's what God has preserved for us, and it's alien to us. Why would someone pray, God, give me not riches?
Caleb Chancey:And, hopefully enough, the author tells us why he prays as he does. He asked that God would not give him riches, but instead would give him what is needful for him. Because if he doesn't have what he needs, if he has too little or too much, he might land in one of 2 perilous places. One, he calls being poor, where the authors know that his will might fail him, and he would profane God by stealing to get more. In the other place, we might expect to be called being rich, but that's not what he says.
Caleb Chancey:He says, lest I be full and deny you and say, who is the Lord? If he's merely full, not even rich, he's worried that he will forget God and count on his riches instead. This is a subtle and a powerful text, and, again, I think it gives us a lens that we can use to see all of what the Bible says about money. Because what the Bible says about money isn't about money. Money is not the issue.
Caleb Chancey:The wisdom here is not that money is good or that money is bad. No. The author is concerned about how his heart will respond in different situations. And that might be a different spot for all of us. I might become full far sooner than you do.
Caleb Chancey:I might become so poor that I deny God sooner or later than you do. We see this same point in Proverbs 1022 when it says, the wage of the righteous leads to life, but the gain of the wicked to sin. That same situation, right, receiving money, has opposite effects on people depending on the state of their heart. It's not about money. It's about the heart.
Caleb Chancey:It's always about the heart. Your heart is key. And money works on the heart in a particularly powerful way. Jesus makes this link very expressly when he says where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The order is really important.
Caleb Chancey:It says, if you want to find your heart, follow your treasure. I sometimes wish it were the other way around, that my loves would drive my spending and my investments. But Jesus, who knows my heart and who made my heart, says that that's not how it works. The strong link between money and the heart is not just in these passages. It's in many others.
Caleb Chancey:1st Timothy 6, which is a great chapter about how to live with money in light of the gospel, says that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. It's not that money is the root of evil. It's when it gets into our hearts. And earlier in that same book, as Paul is listing the qualifications for elders, he doesn't say that elders should be poor, or that they should be rich, or that they should be somewhere in the middle. He just says that they should not be and they must not be lovers of money.
Caleb Chancey:And then there's the story of the rich, young ruler who came to Jesus asking how he could obtain eternal life. And Jesus said to him, you know the law. And the guy says, yeah, I do know the law, and I've kept the law since my childhood. And Jesus says, there's just one thing you lack. You need to sell your possessions, give to the poor, and come and follow me.
Caleb Chancey:And then Mark, the gospel writer, who almost never gives details, gives this one little poignant detail. He says that the the man went away disheartened. He went away disheartened because of his great possessions. Money was in his heart. And God highlights this link between money and the heart because money is an almost perfect idol.
Caleb Chancey:It can be anything that we desire, and it promises to provide us everything, safety, food, fun, comfort, health, attractiveness, relationships, long life, and power. If you want approval, money will give you a literal score for your life. Money opens doors. It also closes and locks them. And I think all of us in our culture, Christians and non Christians alike, implicitly believe that the path from where we are to where we want to be is a toll road, and money opens the gate.
Caleb Chancey:Not just that, money asks for our faith. Trust in me, it says. Build your life around me. Leave me as a legacy to your children. Teach your kids about me.
Caleb Chancey:Think about me when you lie down and when you rise up. Store me up against the day of trouble, and you will be secure, it says. I will give you rest, it promises. You get the point. Money promises what God promises, but it can never deliver.
Caleb Chancey:God is sure and faithful, and money inevitably fails. Proverbs 11/28 says, whoever trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like a green leaf. Proverbs 11:4 says, riches do not profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death. And then there's this wonderful pair of Proverbs 18 10 and 18 11. 18 10 says that the name of the Lord is a strong tower.
Caleb Chancey:A man runs into it, and he is safe. And 18/11 is almost identical. It says, a rich man's wealth is his strong city and like a high wall in his imagination. Right up until the end, you're tracking, and it looks good. Money is just as good as God until all of a sudden, it's not anymore.
Caleb Chancey:It's imaginary, and you're let down, and you are destroyed. Money is an idol, a false god that promises everything and can deliver only counterfeits and temporaries. It cannot deliver what it promises. But here's where it gets complicated. Does that mean that money is is bad, that we must not have it, that we shouldn't participate in the economy?
Caleb Chancey:No. In fact, I think the Bible says that money is a good thing and that the number one way that God provides for us is by letting us make money. And one of the chief ways that he provides for those around us is by the economic system that he's placed us in. We have a chance to seek the welfare of our neighbors by trading with them, by buying and selling, by investing, by planting and growing and making. Proverbs 11 25 and 26 says that a blessing is on the head of a person that sells his grain and doesn't hold it back.
Caleb Chancey:Participating in economic life is a way to love your neighbors. It's a way to help people, and it's a way to obtain a blessing yourself. I would go so far as to say that most Christians, maybe not all of us, but most of us should be involved economically in contributing to the welfare and prosperity of our communities. Indeed, the picture of heaven in Isaiah 60 is all the nations bringing their wealth and the work of their hands to Jerusalem to worship God. We could go still further in this direction if we look at Proverbs 13/23, which says that the fallow ground of the poor would yield much food, but it is swept away through injustice.
Caleb Chancey:So working and investing with the poor is a way of combating injustice and bringing a more just social order, not just to increase wealth, but to actually work the redemption of our city. We don't naturally think this way. We're we naturally fall into this mode of thinking that's godless, that says that we trust in money, and so we use other people to serve ourselves. Because we trust money, we use people to to to serve ourselves. And God wants to click the wheel over 1.
Caleb Chancey:He says, don't don't trust money. Trust me, he says. Trust in God, and then use money to serve others. It's subtle, but it makes all the difference in the world. Trust God, and then use money to serve others.
Caleb Chancey:We don't have the option of not being engaged with money. It's all around us. We find ourselves like the people in the parable of the talents, that God has given us money, and we are to do something with it. And it is the faithful servant that takes that money and goes out and multiplies it for the good of his master. And it is the wicked servant who buries it in the yard and hides.
Caleb Chancey:Moreover, I think living wisely often leads to prosperity. Proverbs 818 says that riches are with wisdom, enduring riches and righteousness. Proverbs 14/24 says that the crown of the wise is their wealth. I need to be careful here because I don't think that obedience is always going to make you rich in this life. To the contrary, I think obedience to Christ might make you poor.
Caleb Chancey:I can look at obedience in my own life and say that there's a cost to it. We should expect that. Maybe not to all of us, but to some of us, we might hear the same words that Jesus said to the rich, young ruler, that the cost of following him is selling all your possessions. At a minimum, when we read in Proverbs 16 16 that the gain from is better than gold. We should expect that sometimes we will have to choose between wisdom and gold.
Caleb Chancey:But yet I am on solid ground to say that if I am obeying Christ and being wise with money, I will be better off most of the time than if I am obeying Christ and being foolish with money. But in the end, if we have the right perspective, we can see that getting endlessly isn't the goal. Our prayer should not be for endless increase, and wisdom knows when to stop. Proverbs 23 4 says, do not toil to acquire wealth, but be discerning enough to desist. At some point, we're content to stop.
Caleb Chancey:Instead of endless increase, we should ask God to give us what is needful for us, as the prayer says in Proverbs 30. God, what do you have for me, and will you give me what I need to accomplish those things? Or as it says in Proverbs 15 16, better is a little with fear of the Lord than great treasure and trouble with it. I believe this is the first instance of more money, more problems in the Bible. But there's truth in that.
Caleb Chancey:Right? If your wealth crowds out obedience and dependence upon the lord you are not richer you are poorer you have filled yourself as it says in isaiah 55 with the bread that does not satisfy. Though we might desire money for all the good that we think it will do for us or for all the good that God can do through us, God cares immensely about how we get money. Money obtained through deceit is always bad. Proverbs 10:2 says that treasures gained by wickedness do not profit, which is another way of saying treasures gained by wickedness are not treasures.
Caleb Chancey:Proverbs 16:8 says, it's better to have a little than great revenues with injustice. And Proverbs 21 6 is wonderfully subtle. It says, the getting of treasure by a lying tongue is a fleeting vapor and a snare of death. Because the temptation, when you want to cheat to get money, You hear that voice that says, it's just a small, momentary bad act. It's just one lie.
Caleb Chancey:And then, I have the money, and it's mine, and I get to keep it forever. But this proverb inverts that. It says, no, no, no. That money that's obtained by deceit is itself a fleeting vapor. It's almost immediately gone.
Caleb Chancey:But you get trapped, and you're stuck, and it kills you. More than that, we see over and over again warnings about getting rich quick in Proverbs. Here's one of them. It says wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it. That's Proverbs 1311.
Caleb Chancey:And the same warning appears with inherited wealth in Proverbs 2021. An inheritance gained hastily in the beginning will not be blessed in the end. There's something about our hearts that need to be conditioned slowly to receive money and to handle its temptations. It's a tool we have to learn to use. And if we're just dumped in our laps, we struggle with it.
Caleb Chancey:That's the story you always hear about lottery winners that end up bankrupt a lot of times. Not only does God care about us having money and how we get it, he cares immensely about what we do with our money, particularly when it comes to caring for the poor. Proverbs 14:31 says, whoever oppresses a poor man insults his maker, but he who is generous to the poor honors him. It is astounding to me that God, to whom all money belongs, identifies himself with the poor. It says, if you want to honor me, give to those who bear my image who happen to be poor.
Caleb Chancey:Find people who have less than you and seek their good. That honors me. Or again, in Proverbs 22 16, whoever oppresses the poor to increase his own wealth, or who gives to the rich, will only come to poverty. And here, we see eternity starting to peek through the economy. Because, certainly, you're like me, and you've seen people who curry favor with the rich with their money and who oppressed the poor.
Caleb Chancey:And yet, they only seem to grow more and more and more prosperous. And yet God promises that that ends in poverty, if not in this life, then in the age to come. And the last text that I wanna kind of run through as I've been slaloming through Proverbs is Proverbs 3. And I wanna slow down here. I'm gonna read, what it says in our worship guide.
Caleb Chancey:It's our first text that's printed there. This is from Proverbs 39 through 14. It says, 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. My son, do not despise the lord's discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father, the son in whom he delights.
Caleb Chancey:Blessed is the one who finds wisdom and the one who gets understanding, for the gain from her is better than gain from silver, and her profit is better than gold. So, there's a sermon that Tim Keller preached from this passage, and I think he calls it the 2 great tests. And it's a fantastic sermon. I made the mistake of listening to it this week, and now I feel really insecure about standing up here and preaching. You should go and listen to it.
Caleb Chancey:You can just Google it up and find it. It's out there, and you will know why I feel insecure when you do that. But, actually, I want to take a different approach and even disagree with Keller's approach a little bit, not because he's wrong, but because the wisdom of God far exceeds what any man can can squeeze from it, in one sermon at least. Because Keller sets up these first two couplets of verses as these 2 great tests. When we find ourselves in times of prosperity, will we remember the Lord and give from our wealth?
Caleb Chancey:And when we find ourselves in times of testing or in times of want, will we remember that the Lord loves us, and will we continue to trust him? Him? And he's right about that. But I think he's missed something in the first part, the first couplet of verses when it says, honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of your produce, then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine. That command is not just for sometimes.
Caleb Chancey:That's for always. The command to give of your wealth and your income is for all of us, whether we are in seasons of plenty or seasons of want. In fact, I think it makes particular sense to interpret this passage as a challenge to those of us who are feeling poor. Because look at the promise that comes at the end, The promise of barns filled with plenty and vats bursting with wine is not a promise you give to a rich person because they already have a full barn and plenty to drink. It makes more sense if given to the poor, the person who lacks.
Caleb Chancey:And that interpretation's also consistent with what we see about generosity, especially in the New Testament, when examples of generosity that are often pointed to are not the rich who gave of their plenty, but the poor who gave out of their lack. Think of the widow's offering in Luke 21 or the Macedonian Christians in 2nd Corinthians 8 who gave to support others even though they themselves were very poor. And the point, I guess, is this, that that biblical wisdom about money often looks like giving when you don't think you have enough. If we're going to trust God more than money, sometimes we have to trust God when it looks like foolishness in the eyes of the world. Sometimes we have to trust God instead of money when those two things are in conflict.
Caleb Chancey:It means we have to give when we can't afford it. Okay. So, practically, what can we make out of this soup of verses? What can we do differently? How can we be biblically wise with money?
Caleb Chancey:I wanna hit on just a few ideas, and I want us to end at the table of communion looking to Christ. The first point of application is this. Recognize that the natural bent of your heart is towards money. If you are going to trust God instead of money, you will always be walking uphill against your flesh and fighting your natural inclinations. If you want to sing, as we're gonna sing later, riches I heed not, you have to intentionally and constantly remind yourself of the line, thou and thou only, first in my heart.
Caleb Chancey:Treasure god intentionally. Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Tell yourself, remind yourself that you don't want the false things that money buys, but you want the true things that God provides. And a part of having this perspective requires remembering eternity. That's the advice that Paul gives in 1st Timothy 6 or 7, where he recognizes that he brought nothing into the world and will take nothing out of it.
Caleb Chancey:So he sets his level of contentment at enough to wear and enough to eat. Eternity changes our perspective. If this life were all that there were, then sure, pile up all the gold you want. But when there is life beyond and nothing goes with you, you view material possessions and money differently. Jesus said, store up treasure in heaven, treasure that lasts.
Caleb Chancey:As John Piper put it, invest your money in a way that pays you the most back. Get the biggest return you can. Just make sure that it doesn't run out in 1 year or 10 years, but it's still paying you in a 100 years and a 1000 years and a 100000 years. I'll admit that I'm a little weird about this and maybe morbid, but when there's a time that I have to spend a lot of money, I think about my death. And I think about what I'm doing in light of the fact that one day, I'll be dead.
Caleb Chancey:What good is this thing that I'm spending money on when I'm gone? What does it profit me? What does it profit anybody else? What does it profit my family or my neighbors, my city, or the world? It is wise for us to think about the end here at the beginning.
Caleb Chancey:The second point of application is this. Give your money away. I have lots of opinions and even a few strong convictions about how much and where we should give, but those issues are secondary. We can talk about where to steer and how, you know, hard to push the gas once we've cranked up the engine and we got this thing rolling. Give your money away.
Caleb Chancey:Give so much that you can't buy the things that you want. Give more than you gave last year. Give in a way that it never comes back to you on earth. Let it go. You are free of it.
Caleb Chancey:Act like it. 3rd, let people that you trust know how much money you make and how you spend it. This is something that I don't do. So I don't wanna be a hypocrite and stand up here and say that this is a great practice and it's helped my life a lot. This isn't true for me.
Caleb Chancey:My life is not the measure of biblical wisdom, as I'm certain that all of you know. It's a taboo subject, and it's really awkward to talk about money. But if we want to honor God with the tool of money, we need others' help. We have to recognize that money is not a scorecard for your life. Having a lot of it doesn't make you good, doesn't make you wise.
Caleb Chancey:Having less doesn't make you less, doesn't make you foolish. Proverbs 2811 says a rich man is wise in his own eyes, but a poor man who has understanding will find him out. So I say particularly to those who want to follow Christ and who find themselves rich, find a poor man with understanding who can find you out. Want that. Desire it.
Caleb Chancey:Because we have blind spots. And if we hide our finances away from the light of relationship, those blind spots will grow, and we will end up sinning with our money. And for as much as the Bible says about money, it doesn't tell you how much you should make. It doesn't tell you what you should spend it on. It doesn't tell you what to save or invest or where you should live.
Caleb Chancey:Working out these complicated answers requires working together in community, not just with, you know, professional help, but with someone that knows you and loves you and loves Jesus. And lastly, let's end here. The most important thing to remember always is that you and me stand penniless before the cross. Nothing in our hands and nothing in our pockets. The one thing that we eternally need is right standing before God.
Caleb Chancey:And we've lost it, and we can't buy it back. If I had all the money in the world and bought all the bread, it would never feed my deepest hunger. Proverbs 22:2 says that the rich and the poor meet together, and the Lord is the maker of them all. No matter what we have or what we lack, we stand shoulder to shoulder before the Lord with one hope and only one hope, and that is the saving work of Jesus Christ on our behalf. As it says in Isaiah 55, in Christ, we have access not just to bread, but to wine that brings joy, and to milk, which is rich provision.
Caleb Chancey:Eternal riches, lasting riches are found in Christ alone, and any wealth outside of Him is no wealth at all. It is a vanity. It is a vapor. Through Him and only through Him can we join the eternal feast and share in the boundless inheritance that He has prepared for us at the cost of his own life. He who was rich became poor for our sake.
Caleb Chancey:He bought for us what we could never afford, and no pile of gold will ever match that gift for you. No feast could ever equal the body and blood of Christ given for you. And with the assurance of that truth, let us come now to His table. But before we take, will you join me in prayer? God, whom have we in heaven but you, and on earth, there is none nothing we desire besides you.
Caleb Chancey:Our flesh and our heart may fail, but you are a portion forever. Thank you for giving of yourself so freely, For becoming poor on our for our sake. That we might be made rich in the only way that matters. Not with wealth that impresses people that we don't know, but true blessedness. We have been made right before you and not only have we been removed from death and protected eternally, But we have been brought near, even into your own family and made co heirs with Christ in a kingdom that cannot be shaken.
Caleb Chancey:There is nothing that compares to this gift, and may our hearts treasure Christ as we receive it. Lord, give us hearts of repentance that we may follow Christ all of our days. In his name. Amen.