How to Make Life Work - Wisdom from Proverbs: Wisdom and Wealth | Proverbs 22
Phil Krause | July 28, 2024
Well it is truly an immense privilege for me to bring you a message from God’s word today. I want to invite you to open your Bible to Proverbs 22.
This summer we’re in a series called, How to Make Life Work: Wisdom from Proverbs, and today, Wisdom and Wealth. What God has to say, in the Proverbs, related to wealth and money and possessions, or lack thereof. He actually has a lot to say. Depending on how you count them, there are upwards of a hundred and thirty verses in the Proverbs alone that have to do with money and wealth.
Jesus spoke often about money, and it plays a prominent part in the epistles as well. So that’s a good thing because money affects all of life. Just think about how many times in your day that thoughts come to you that are somehow related to money—either the lack of it, the making of it, or the saving of it, or the spending of it. We think about money a lot, and for better or worse, it looms large in our lives.
Now, the fact that the Bible hits this topic a lot of times from a lot of different angles, actually means we have to be careful not to jump to some wrong conclusions. For example, if you focus only on a certain set of passages to the exclusion of others, you could make the argument that it is God’s will for you to be rich and healthy in the here and now—if you’re not prospering then it must be because you are somehow sinning. This is an extreme. This is an error that we call “Prosperity Theology”. Job’s friends in the Bible slipped into this kind of thinking.
Or, if you focus on a different set of verses, again, read only by themselves, you can make it sound like it’s somehow more holy to be poor. They glorify being poor and it is the wicked who get rich by oppressing the poor and it’s what you could call “Austerity Theology”.
So, there are some dangers to avoid. And how do we do that? Well, we do that by remembering that the Proverbs are general principles, not ironclad guarantees, and by being careful not to be selective in our use of scripture. Scripture balances out scripture in this. Okay?
Let’s dive in. Turn to Proverbs 22. You’ll pretty quickly get a feel for how many different topics are covered in just a few verses in one chapter in Proverbs alone.
Proverbs 22:1-2:
“A good name is more desirable than great riches;
to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.
Rich and poor have this in common:
The Lord is the Maker of them all.
The prudent see danger and take refuge,
but the simple keep going and pay the penalty.
Humility is the fear of the Lord;
its wages are riches and honor and life.”
Skip down to Proverbs 22:7.
“The rich rule over the poor,
and the borrower is slave to the lender.
Whoever sows injustice reaps calamity,
and the rod they wield in fury will be broken.
The generous will themselves be blessed,
for they share their food with the poor.”
Now Proverbs 22:13:
“The sluggard says, “There’s a lion outside!
I’ll be killed in the public square!”
Verse 16:
“One who oppresses the poor to increase his wealth and one who gives gifts to the rich—both come to poverty.”
Look at verse 22:
“Do not exploit the poor because they are poor
and do not crush the needy in court,
for the Lord will take up their case
and will exact life for life.”
And then verses 26-27:
“Do not be one who shakes hands in pledge
or puts up security for debts;
if you lack the means to pay,
your very bed will be snatched from under you.”
This is God’s word.
Now we’re going to be all over the book of Proverbs today, but I wanted you to just get a feel for that shotgun approach sort of thing that we find in Proverbs and the wide range of subjects that can fall under these concepts of wealth and money management.
So, with a hundred and thirty verses in Proverbs on the topic, it can actually be a little bit daunting to try to distill them into some kind of a simple outline, so I looked at a variety of ways that people have done it and do it, and I really appreciated the approach of pastor and author, Kevin DeYoung. So the concepts of how these are organized and some of the points themselves are borrowed from him in a sermon he preached and a related article that he wrote.
So here’s my simple outline of ten principles on wealth and money from the book of Proverbs. They are arranged in order from least mentioned to most frequently mentioned in Proverbs, so that way we’ll end with the ones that Proverbs, at least, gives more weight to. So ten principles—do you think we can do it? My buddy back here doing the slides said, “This is a record number of slides—74 slides.” Yeah, it’s a lot of verses.
1. Watch out for the extremes. Proverbs 30:7-9 says,
“Two things I ask of you, Lord;
do not refuse me before I die:
Keep falsehood and lies far from me;
give me neither poverty nor riches,
but give me only my daily bread.
Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you
and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’
Or I may become poor and steal,
and so dishonor the name of my God.”
Do you see the two extremes there? The author in this case is a guy named “Agur”. It was a bucket list like prayer for him—“These are the things I want to be true of me before I die.” And what was it? He said first, make me a truth speaker at all times. Secondly, keep me from either being too poor on one hand, or too rich. He recognized that when you have wealth, you can be tempted to forget God or stop feeling as dependent on him as you actually are. But on the other hand, the desperation of extreme poverty could tempt you to steal.
Notice that in either case, Agur here is concerned about his relationship with God. He says, “I don’t want to disown you. I don’t want to act like I don’t need you, nor do I want to dishonor your name.”
So that’s the first principle. Watch out for the extremes. And, just a quick comment about wealth and poverty. If you have a roof over your head and food on the table and indoor plumbing and clean water to drink, you are wealthy compared to the poor in other parts of the world or throughout history. Keep that in perspective. You might not feel like you’re wealthy, and yeah, you might have trouble making ends meet, but if you’re hearing my voice right now, you are. Okay? With our blessings then—with our wealth—comes that temptation to stop trusting the Lord.
2. There is better business than show business.
There’s better business than show business, right? Here’s what I mean: sometimes we spend money to maintain an image or try to make ourselves look like we’re better off than we are. Proverbs 12:9 and 13:7 both speak to this idea of doing things for show.
Proverbs 12:9, “Better to be a nobody and yet have a servant than pretend to be somebody and have no food.”
Proverbs 13:7, “One person pretends to be rich, yet has nothing; another pretends to be poor, yet has great wealth.”
The keyword in both of these verses, in fact, it happens three times in just two verses, is that word “pretend”. Have you ever seen a ramshackle, rundown house that’s about to fall over, with a car sitting in the driveway that is extremely expensive, like possibly the car is worth more than the house? Or, maybe you know someone who dresses in expensive clothes and drips with jewelry, yet you know they’re not making much more than minimum wage.
Now, we can’t judge heart motives. There might be good reasons for those scenarios. But on some level or another, we all do this with lifestyle choices, our car, our house, our clothes, the photos we post on social media, or whatever. We tend to want to make our situation look better than it is in reality. God says, “Don’t do that. Don’t pretend.”
The financial choices we make are reflections of what’s going on in our hearts. Jesus said that in the Sermon on the Mount, and we’re going to look at that in a few minutes. So, it’s good to check our heart motives. Why am I making this purchase? Is it to try to make a statement about myself that’s not accurate? Am I pretending to be someone that I’m not?
I’ll illustrate this from classic literature—okay, classic children’s literature, Dr. Suess. Have you ever heard the story about the Sneetches? Here was a whole society of creatures called “Sneetches” who sorted themselves into two groups, right? The ones with stars on their bellies in one group, and the ones with “none upon thars” in the other group. Everyone wanted to be a “Star-bellied Sneetch”. And then—spoiler alert—here comes this conman, huckster, trickster guy named Sylvester McMonkey McBean and he has come into town with his Star-On machine. Well, you’ll have to read it for yourself. But let’s just say that chaos ensues and he’s the one who profits from it all, right?
But that story is a not so subtle satire, a jab at what we often do. We’re the “haves” and the “have-nots”. Everyone wants to have and nobody wants to be without. God is saying to us, “Stay away from that kind of show business. Don’t play the comparison game.”
Now that principle is balanced out by principle number three.
3. The rich and poor are not that different.
Let’s read Proverbs 22:2 again. “Rich and poor have this in common: the Lord is the Maker of them all.”
Closely related to that, we see in Proverbs 29:13, “The poor and the oppressor have this in common: the Lord gives sight to the eyes of both.”
So you see God gives the blessings of life, and sight, and you could maybe take this metaphorically and say, understanding to all. Put another way, there is nothing either superior or inferior about having lots of money or not having money, being wealthy or poor. We are all made in God’s image. That gives everyone dignity, value. We all belong to the category: human. Right? A rich person can’t somehow pay extra and get extra blessings or extra measure of grace. You might have heard the saying, “We all put our pants on one leg at a time.” Right?
We are more alike than we think. We’re not that different. So we need to guard against a class mentality. Don’t look down on someone who’s in the other category, whichever one that is. Especially, the Bible has a lot to say about not looking down on the poor.
James 2, “My brothers and sister, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, ‘Here’s a good seat for you,’ but say to the poor man, ‘You stand there,’ or, ‘Sit on the floor by my feet,’ have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? [verse 9] But if you show favoritism you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers.”
So we’re all made by God and we have much, much in common.
Okay, on to wealth principle number four which has to do with generosity.
4. You cannot outgive God.
Look at Proverbs 3:9-10. “Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops. Then your barns will be filled to overflowing and your vats will brim over with new wine.”
Now this concept of firstfruits was super familiar to Old Testament Jews. God had commanded this in the law. There was a feast of firstfruits—basically the literal firstfruits, the first part of their harvest, their crops—belonged to Yahweh.
But it’s not too much of a stretch for us to apply this to ourselves, to extend it and to say, “Give to God first.” Give him the best. This is a question of where our priorities lie. Yes, God generally blesses that kind of generosity.
This verse is along the lines of what Jesus said in Matthew 6:31, “So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ for the pagans run after all these things and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
So the verse in Proverbs about honoring the Lord with your wealth is like the Old Testament version of, “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness.” Honor the Lord. Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. All these things, like full barns and vats of wine, will be added to you. You can’t outgive God.
You might say, “Well, how do we actually do this? How can I honor the Lord with my wealth?” Well, you can give to his work. You can give to this church—your tithes, your offerings. You can support missionaries. You can make it a priority to cheerfully give to God and you’ll never outgive him.
Look at Proverbs 11:24-25. “One person gives freely yet gains even more. Another withholds unduly but comes to poverty. A generous person will prosper. Whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.” Again, these Proverbs are general principles, not tit for tat guarantees.
We saw this already, Proverbs 22:9. “The generous will themselves be blessed, for they share their food with the poor.” You can’t outgive God.
To borrow a concept from the late pastor, Tim Keller, he is a prodigal God—he extravagantly lavishes his wealth on the objects of his love.
Or to borrow a concept from the Apostle Paul, “He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”
Let’s pick a number—a nice small income amount. Let’s say you make a million dollars a year. Alright? You decide in your heart that you’re going to give twenty percent back to the Lord. Well, my new math tells me that that’s two-hundred thousand dollars a year. So over the course of the year you faithfully write out your checks to Redeemer Church or Life Plan or wherever to total two-hundred thousand dollars. Do you think God’s impressed with how generous you’re being? No way! Brother, sister, he gave you his only begotten son! He gives you life every day. He gives you freedom from slavery from sin. He gave you the down payment, so to speak, of the Holy Spirit living in his people. Do you understand, two-hundred thousand dollars—a mere two billion dollars is nothing to God? “Put me to the test,” God says in Malachi 3, “And see if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.”
We can’t outgive him. When we give, he blesses. It won’t always be material blessings, I can guarantee that. But the bonds of your spiritual storehouses will be swollen until they’re about to break at the seams and the fruit of the Spirit in you is going to produce the most sweet, the best, the most soul gladdening wine.
Here’s the fifth principle related to wealth in the book of Proverbs.
5. Poverty stinks. Prosperity is sweet.
Proverbs 10:15, “The wealth of the rich is their fortified city, but poverty is the ruin of the poor.” Basically, do you need protection? It’s going to help to have some money, he’s saying. There are some advantages.
What about Proverbs 14:20? “The poor are shunned even by their neighbors, but the rich have many friends.” This, unfortunately, is human nature at its finest—or not so fine. Should it be this way? No. But is it? Yes. People are hanging out, they just like hanging out with rich folks. Maybe you can buck the trend and reach out and be a friend to someone who doesn’t have as much.
Proverbs 19:4, “Wealth attracts many friends, but even the closest friend of the poor person deserts them.” Again, this is not how it should be. It’s just how it is way too often. And remember, we already read that passage in James 2 about not showing favoritism, not discriminating. This is also a warning against a sort of romanticized view of poverty. Being poor stinks! It’s hard. So God’s telling us to have compassion on the poor. Be diligent to avoid poverty yourself. There are advantages to having a cushion in the bank.
On the other hand, Proverbs has a lot to say about principle number six.
6. Wealth can’t provide you with ultimate security.
In other words, financial security in the ultimate sense is a myth. Now this flies a little bit in the face of what retirement experts and financial advisors will say—and if you’re one, I’m not trying to offend. You’ve got to do your job. But I have observed that they make it sound like if you plan just right and get the right amount of money in the bank and in these investments, you won’t have to worry about anything ever again for the rest of your life. Well, yeah, keep that in perspective, right?
And there are some really great Proverbs about saving up. We’ll look at some of that in a few minutes here, but don’t expect your bank accounts or your investments or your insurance policies to be your ultimate savior. That’s what this is saying.
So what does Proverbs have to say? Proverbs 18:11, “The wealth of the rich is their fortified city, they imagine it a wall too high to scale.” The keyword here is that word “imagine”, right? They think that they’re safe in this walled city that no enemy can get into, but that’s only their perception. Wealth can’t get you complete security and money could never buy you protection from your most serious vulnerability which is your own sinful heart.
Proverbs 11:28 says, “Those who trust in their riches will fall, but the righteous will thrive like a green leaf.” Here we see that riches absolutely will let you down if that’s what you’re putting your trust in.
And then, Proverbs 13:8, the ESV says, “The ransom of a man’s life is his wealth, but a poor man hears no threat.” This is talking about how the possessions of the wealthy tie them down. They are like a ransom that you have to pay in exchange for your life. The poor person doesn’t have those kinds of threats because he has fewer things to encumber his life.
In the 1980s Rich Mullins sang, “The stuff of earth competes for the allegiance I owe only to the giver of all good things…” Owning things isn’t wrong, but the more you have, the greater amount of energy and time and effort and money you are going to have to spend maintaining it all. It competes for the allegiance that we owe to God.
Pastor and author, Randy Alcorn, often uses the illustration of a concept from physics. He says, “The more mass something has, the greater a gravitational pull it exerts on things around it.” Right? This is what keeps us on the ground and keeps the moon going around the earth and keeps the earth going around the sun. It’s because of mass—gravity.
Well, the same is true in our own lives. The more possessions we collect—the more we amass to ourselves—the more pull those things exert on us. Pretty soon we can find ourselves in orbit around our things rather than the other way around. So we get it backwards. Instead of our stuff serving us, we start serving our stuff and it has kidnapped us and we are paying the ransom.
Jesus said it like this, Matthew 6:19-. “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moths and vermin destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moths and vermin do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” So, wealth can’t provide you with ultimate security.
7. God hates those who get rich by injustice.
Proverbs 21:6, “A fortune made by a lying tongue is a fleeting vapor and a deadly snare.”
Or how about Proverbs 22:16, “One who oppresses the poor to increase his wealth and one who gives gifts to the rich, both come to poverty.”
Proverbs 22:22-23, “Do not exploit the poor because they are poor and do not crush the needy in court, for the Lord will take up their case and will exact life for life.”
The Lord hates those who get rich by injustice. I think if the Proverbs were being written today, God would have some harsh things to say about gambling, casinos, lotteries, things like this, because the studies have been done and the statistics are out there. Gambling and lotteries affect the poor disproportionately, a lot more than the rich. So, what about predatory lenders that charge exorbitant interest rates? Don’t get me started. This is a problem in our day. God hates those who get rich by injustice.
Next, the eighth principle on wealth in the Proverbs.
8. God loves those who are generous to the poor.
Now all through the scriptures, not just in the Proverbs, we see that God’s heart is tender toward the most vulnerable in society. He cares about the widow. He cares about the fatherless, the foreigner, the poor person.
Here are three or four representative passages from Proverbs.
Proverbs 14:21, “It is a sin to despise one’s neighbor, but blessed is the one who is kind [the ESV says ‘generous’] to the needy.”
Proverbs 14:31, “Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their maker, but whoever is kind [or again, generous] to the needy, honors God.” Think about that. Do you want to insult—do you want to mock God? Well, oppress the poor. You say, “How is that insulting to God?” Well, he made them and he made you. On the flip side, do you want to honor God? Be kind, be generous to the needy.
Proverbs 28:27, “Those who give to the poor will lack nothing but those who close their eyes to them receive many curses.” Now I think just about every Charles Dickens novel that at least I’m familiar with has kindness or cruelty to the poor at least as a subtheme, if not the main plot of the story. You have, for example, Mr. Brownlow in Oliver Twist who kindly used his money to help Oliver Twist escape his life of poverty and crime. Or in Bleak House you have the benevolent John Jarndyce who helps sweet Esther Summerson and young Richard Carstone who’s obsessed with getting money in an inheritance dispute that he thinks is going to come to him though this court case. It all falls apart. The only ones who profit from the case are the attorneys.
In story after story Charles Dickens paints a really stark contrast between those who are generous and kind and those who take advantage of the poor. So I highly recommend a Charles Dickens book if you would like to read something and if you’re not that much of a reader, the BBC has produced wonderful TV series on many of his novels.
So God loves those who are generous to the poor. Practically speaking, how can you and I here at Redeemer do this? Well, I’m so glad you asked. Redeemer has a fund called the Diaconate Fund. It’s specifically for helping families or individuals with needs. So here are two ways that that money has been used in recent days, just to give you an idea.
A family in our church needed to remediate lead in their house because they had lead based paint and it was affecting their children and the church was able to help—not only with money, but also with labor. There was recently an elderly couple on a small, fixed income that were victims of a scam and the church was able to help them.
I could go on, literally, for hours. Those are just the types of things the Diaconate Fund is for. You can designate a gift to that fund. You just write your check to Redeemer Church and write “Deacon Fund” or “Benevolence” in the memo line and Rachel, our church treasurer, will make sure it’s added to that fund. You should know that the money is handled carefully and prayerfully. It’s not just handed out willy-nilly to whomever.
Another way—you can donate non-perishable food items to our food pantry. There’s a pretty steady stream of needy individuals who come from our community to get food here throughout the week.
And you can give to compassion ministries who specialize in helping the needy. Locally, I’m thinking of Hope Ministries and Life Plan. God loves those who are generous to the poor.
Proverbs 19:17, “Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord and he will reward them for what they have done.” There again, let that sink in. Being kind to the poor is like lending to God. If God borrows from you, do you think he’s going to pay you back? That’s like the safest loan you could ever make, right? Yeah, you better believe it! Again, this goes along with what Jesus said in Matthew 25. “Inasmuch as you’ve done it to the least of these my brothers, you’ve done it to me.” So give to the poor. God loves that.
Here’s another principle we see in Proverbs.
9. Hard work and wise decision making usually lead to increased wealth.
Proverbs 6, “Go to the ant, you sluggard! Consider its ways and be wise. It has no commander or overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. How long will you lie there you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man.” So learn from the hard working ants. Don’t be lazy. Plan for upcoming needs.
Have you noticed like I have that our needs come in batches—like groups? Why is it that right about the time that the transmission in the car needs to be replaced is when you also need a new roof and maybe the kids need braces or whatever. These things pile up and we should be anticipating that as much as we can. Wisdom sees those needs coming and prepares for them. So be like the ant and save up. Work hard. Your parents were right. Dave Ramsey is right. Scale your lifestyle back so that you can live on less than you make.
Proverbs 10:4, “Lazy hands make for poverty but diligent hands bring wealth.”
And Proverbs 22:13, “The sluggard says, ‘There’s a lion outside. I’ll be killed in the public square.’” Now I don’t know what excuse you’re tempted to use. Teenagers, for example, if your parents ask you to go mow the lawn, I don’t recommend trying this one. “But Mom, what if a lion gets me? What if I slip and the lawnmower chops off my…?” We all do this too, right? We can all find excuses for not working hard. That’s because deep down inside we love to pamper ourselves and hard work can seem like the opposite of that.
Proverbs 13:11, “Dishonest money dwindles away, but whoever gathers money little by little makes it grow.” I love that “little by little.” There was a commercial in the 80s which you’ll remember if you’re as old as I am. You may not have been alive yet in the 80s, but it was for an investment company, Smith Barney. This older gentleman was like, “They make money the old fashioned way—they earn it.” Remember that? You and I need to make money the old fashioned way. We need to earn it. It’s part of gathering money little by little and making it grow. Don’t look for the easy fix. Get rich quick schemes are awful. Guard against consuming everything you make.
We see this in Proverbs 21:17. “Whoever loves pleasure will become poor. Whoever loves wine and oil will never be rich.” In other words, if you’re eating up or using up everything that you own, there’s a problem there.
Proverbs 21:20, “The wise store up choice food and olive oil but fools gulp theirs down.” Learn this phrase—delayed gratification. There’s value to not giving yourself everything you want as soon as you feel the desire.
Now this verse shows us how unwise choices can have a sort of a cascading, a building, or a compounding effect on us. Proverbs 14:24, “The wealth of the wise is their crown but the folly of fools yields folly.” My wife sometimes says, “Sin begets sin.” In this case, foolishness begets more foolishness.
And to warn us against the desire to get rich quickly we see this in Proverbs 28:20, “A faithful person will be richly blessed but one eager to get rich will not go unpunished.” Or your translation could say, “One who hastens to be rich will not go unpunished.” This is at the heart of what I was talking about earlier with gambling. It’s the desire for a huge, immediate, sudden influx of money—money which, by the way, is coming to you at someone else’s expense with no exchange of goods or services, right? So, yes, hard work, wise decision making usually results in increased wealth.
Now in the midst of it we need to be good stewards, good managers. Proverbs 27:23-24 says, “Be sure you know the condition of your flocks. Give careful attention to your herds, for riches do not endure forever and a crown is not secure for all generations.” Keep in mind, in the ancient Middle East people's wealth was measured largely on how much livestock they owned. There were other measures too—silver and gold and so forth, but knowing the condition of your flocks was like saying, “Know your financial situation.”
I don’t know if this is true for you, but when Christy and I have been looking long and hard at our budget and how much—or how little—money we have, that’s when we’re a lot more likely to go around and turn off all the lights, or take other steps to be frugal. Why is that? Because at that moment we’ve just been giving careful attention to our herds, so to speak. So be a good steward. Have the mindset that you are just managing some things that belong to God and manage them well.
10. There are things better than wealth. Money doesn’t satisfy.
Proverbs 23:4-5, “Do not wear yourself out to get rich. Do not trust in your own cleverness. Cast but a glance at riches and they’re gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle.” It’s saying, don’t put your trust in something that is suddenly gone. It’s not going to satisfy.
Proverbs talks about things that are better than wealth. First, wisdom is better than wealth. Proverbs 8:10-11, “Choose my instruction instead of silver, [says Lady Wisdom] knowledge rather than choice gold, for wisdom is more precious than rubies and nothing your desire can compare with her.” She continues in Proverbs 8:19, “My fruit is better than fine gold. What I yield surpasses choice silver.” So wisdom is better than wealth.
Secondly, righteousness is also better than wealth. Proverbs 10:2, “Ill gotten treasures have no lasting value but righteousness delivers from death.” And then Proverbs 11:4 has the same idea. “Wealth is worthless in the day of wrath but righteousness delivers from death.” And we know from the New Testament that when we read these passages in the Old Testament about righteousness, we know that it’s the righteousness of Christ that's going to ultimately satisfy, right? Our own righteousness isn’t going to cut it.
Another thing, integrity and truth are better than wealth. Proverbs 19:22, “What a person desires is unfailing love. Better to be poor than a liar.”
Proverbs 20:17, “Food gained by fraud tastes sweet but one ends up with a mouth full of gravel.” I love that God’s word is so descriptive and it really does cut across so many cultural and time barriers that we could otherwise have. It’s never pleasant in any culture or in any age to have a mouth full of gravel. That’s what it’s saying—food gained by fraud tastes sweet but you’re just putting sand in your mouth.
Proverbs 28:6, “Better the poor whose walk is blameless than the rich whose ways are perverse.”
Here’s another one. The fear of the Lord is better than wealth. Proverbs 15:16, “Better a little with the fear of the Lord, than great wealth with turmoil.”
Another—humility is better than wealth. Proverbs 16:19, “Better to be lowly in spirit along with the oppressed than to share plunder with the proud.”
And finally, good relationships are better than wealth. Proverbs 15:17, “Better a small serving of vegetables with love than a fattened calf [nice Ruth’s Chris steak] with hatred.” Right?
And similarly, Proverbs 17:1, “Better a dry crust with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting with strife.” So yes, good relationships are worth way more than being rich.
Again, those are ten principles about money found in the book of Proverbs. I did mention that these are borrowed from Kevin DeYoung, who is currently the Senior Pastor at Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina. I borrowed his structure and sort of paraphrased his points but let me close by quoting him directly. He says,
“You cannot understand the biblical view of money, especially in the book of Proverbs, unless you are prepared to hold a number of truths in tension. For example, you’ll probably acquire more money if you work hard and are full of wisdom. But, if all you care about is money, then you are the biggest fool. Money is a blessing from God, but you’ll be more blessed if you give it away. God gives you money because he is generous and he’s generous so you can be generous with others and then, if you’re generous with others, God will likely be more generous still with you. It is wise to save money and work hard for money, but don’t ever think that money can give you security. Wealth is more desirable than poverty, but wealth is not as good as righteousness or humility or wisdom or relationships or the fear of the Lord.”
DeYoung goes on to say,
“Money can’t give you any of the things you ultimately need. It can’t make you holy. It can’t make you righteous. It can’t save you from your sins. Wealth is a sign of blessing but it’s also one of your biggest temptations because it entices you to boast in yourself. It promises to be your self-worth and promises to make you self-sufficient. It invites you to boast in something or someone other than the Lord. So through and through, money is an issue of faith. Believe that doing things God’s way is the best way for you. Believe that if you give your money away, he can give it back. Believe that money can be good but don’t you dare believe it is everything. Money is a gift from God but the gifts you really need can only be found in God.”
I think that’s so good, so helpful. Let’s not forget either, that the infinitely wealthy Son of God, who is wisdom in the flesh himself, humbled himself. 2 Corinthians 8:9, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor so that you, through his poverty, might become rich.” And we could say rich in the ultimate sense.
Let’s pray.
Father, thank you that you haven’t left us in the dark about how to use our money. Our money matters to you and how we use it matters to you and you want it to matter to us. In today's economy it could be that financially things are really hard for someone here in this room today. Would you provide for them? You promise in Psalm 68 that you are a father to the fatherless and the defender of widows. So be the support of those who feel defenseless and vulnerable. Some are without jobs. Would you meet their needs? Some have physical needs. Would you help all of us to minister to one another? Help us to manage your money well so that we can have money to give to others and so that we can give to support the expansion of your kingdom, both locally here in Michiana, and all around the world. Thank you for Jesus, who completely and perfectly showed us the surpassing, the ultimate satisfaction of a life lived completely according to your will and for your glory. Thank you, Jesus, for being our treasure—our ultimate best, satisfying treasure. Make us more like you, we pray. It’s in your name we pray, amen.
Phil Krause
