More Money, More Problems?
Transcript
You are what you wear. I don't know if anybody's ever experienced this before. You are what you wear. At least that is what I thought was the case when I was younger when I was in middle school. When I was in high school. You see, in a world before fast fashion and labelless clothes there was a world in which we lived where the bigger the brand, the better. Some of you remember if you were there, you know that we walked around like walking billboards for these companies. And I remember in high school there was this very particular hierarchy in the world of adolescent fashion. Now, perhaps this is particular to the school that I was a part of but let me know if it rings true to you. For those of the average middle class, you maybe shopped at Aeropostale. Anybody?
That's kind of where you used to shop. That's where you live. However, if you were able to shop at American Eagle you were quickly climbing the ranks to the cool kids, right? Aeropostale, American Eagle just above it. For those who really wanted to impress you knew that Hollister was where you needed to be, right? Grab a puka shell necklace and hop in line on your way to popularity. But if you were there, you know that without a doubt. You know, in the early 2000s, there was nothing cooler than Abercrombie and Fitch. I mean, why not pay over $100 for pre-ripped jeans, right? It's at least what our parents would say to us. As a teenager, I wanted nothing more than to shop at any one of these stores. Maybe you felt the same tension, right?
All I wanted was that name brand, that label on my chest. However, this wasn't exactly in my family's budget, we'll put it that way. So the majority of my wardrobe was non-brand name clothing perhaps bought at a blue light special. Nothing wrong with it. Absolutely nothing wrong with it. My parents gave me their absolute best. But for me, as a teenager, it wasn't brand name. I had two different jobs in high school. First, I was a sandwich artist at Subway for a record-breaking three months. I still smell like it, I think. And then, for a little bit longer, I was a barista at a coffee shop at the mall called Nancy's Coffee Cafe. Pumping up angsty adolescent on espresso. What could possibly go wrong? But I remember saving up my hard-earned paycheck.
This is back when minimum wage was, like, 515. I remember scraping it together all so that I could buy one outfit from Hollister. It's so silly thinking back on it, right? You used to wear hollister. Okay, it's silly thinking back on it. But let me tell you, I felt like Superman changing in a phone booth. When I put that outfit on, I felt like a million bucks. I felt like I was finally able to achieve what I had wanted. For so long because I felt that the label that I was wearing or the image that I was projecting said a lot about my worth and who I was. I didn't have a lot of money growing up, and it's not something that I'm, like, ashamed of. It's it's part of my story that I'm proud of. You know, I I never went hungry.
I never went without a roof over my head. I had a loving family, but I certainly felt the stress and the insecurity of living below the poverty line. Listen, I've had my share of government cheese. Some of you know what I'm talking about. I remember when food stamps were literal stamps, these paper things that you would rip out of a book. And in the midst of all of that, all I wanted was to feel like I could be one of those brand name kids living in the suburbs. Listen, if you had a pool at your house, I thought you were, like, the richest kid. And then I grew up, and I realized how much pools cost to maintain, and I'm like, all right, you are a rich kid, right. The best boat is having a friend with a boat, right? All right.
To this day, there are parts of me deep within that still operate out of this scarcity mindset, parts of me that try and seek status or seek security in money. Although times change and trends come and go, I am more than willing to guess that you have likely found yourself measuring your merit by the amount of money that you have, much like myself. Maybe this started off when you were younger, by comparing your clothes to other kids in school and realizing that maybe they have things that you don't, or they have access to privileges that you don't. And as we grow up, all of a sudden, it's not just Aeropostal and American Eagle and Hollister and Abercrombie and Fitch.
It's the type of car that we drive or the phone that we use or the house or the neighborhood that we live in or the types of vacations that we take with our family. All of them, we feel, speak directly to our value and our worth as people, our merit in our money. For the majority of us growing up, hearing that we have to go to college and earn a good degree so we can get a good job, so we can get a good paycheck, so we can buy all these different things to impress people that really don't matter at all. For the majority of us, more money has become our greatest goal and motivation. No matter our current level of income, it always feels like just a little bit more money would bring more status, would bring more security, would bring more satisfaction.
Have you ever felt this way? There's always this us and them mentality. There's, like, the rich and the poor, and the rich is just anybody that makes marginally more than you. But as a wise man once said, money, mo problems. Man, I've been looking all over the Bible for that. I still haven't found it. Yeah, it's in there somewhere. Yeah, but money, work, possessions, income, investments, they're all such an integral part of our life experience. But to be perfectly honest, I have tended to kind of stay away from preaching directly on this subject because I have seen firsthand so many churches mishandle and abuse their voice of influence when it comes to faith and finances. However, the Book of Proverbs, which we have been in for the past month, how many of you are still keeping up on your Proverbs challenge?
One chapter of Proverbs a day over the month of July. As we work through this book together, you have likely noticed that the Book of Proverbs has a lot to say about hard work and money has so much to say about being wise in our work and wise with our wealth that I figured it was time for us as a church to have a conversation about money. Now, don't start squirming. It's not going to be weird. I'm going to make it as practical as I can. But I want us to tackle that question what does Scripture say about money? As you can imagine, we're going to live primarily within the Book of Proverbs. But I'm going to be jumping around just a little bit, sometimes on purpose and sometimes just because this fan keeps blowing my Bible pages around.
But we're going to beginning in Proverbs chapter 30, verses seven and nine. Proverbs 30 says this as we jump in, two things I ask of you, deny them not before I die. Remove far from me the 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. The first thing that I want us to kind of understand as we venture into this topic is that both prosperity and poverty have their problems. So often we kind of highlight or exalt one over the other as perhaps being more Godly or Christlike than the other. But both prosperity and poverty have problems.
Like this verse says, give me neither poverty nor riches. Verse nine says, lest I be full and deny you. I think we can all understand how riches often lead to self reliance. Look what I have built for myself. Look what I have achieved. Look what my hard work has accomplished. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to invalidate anybody's pride for their hard work. But it does get to a point where we neglect to give credit where credit is due. We cannot let our prosperity push God out of the picture. And so there's this problem when we have so much that we feel like we have achieved. We push God out of the picture. But then there's the other side of things where I believe that poverty and our rags, if you will, rags, can lead to resentment.
You see, when things go well, we often take the credit. This is what I've accomplished. This is my hard work. These are the things that I have earned or achieved in my life. But when things go poorly, we are quick to place the blame on God. God, how could you do this to me? I work just as hard as them. How come I'm not able to achieve the same measure of success? How come my life doesn't match up to theirs? I'm just scrolling through instagram and seeing like, everybody has way more time off than me. How do people afford these vacations or these houses or all these other things? The two extremes of poverty and prosperity both have their problems. However, you may have noticed that most Christian teaching leans or trends towards either poverty theology or prosperity theology.
I want to talk about these for just a moment. Poverty theology gives the impression that poor people are the Godly people because they're blessed with contentment. And then prosperity theology gives the impression that rich people are Godly because God has blessed them with wealth and health. Likely at one point or another, whether we have known it or not, we have experienced or been taught or have been influenced by one of these ideologies. So to pick them apart just a little bit prosperity theology, it sounds harsh, but it's a perversion of the Gospel of Jesus that claims that God rewards increases in faith with increases in health and or wealth. Tell that to the apostles that died or burned at the stake. Matthew seven, verse seven. This is kind of where some of this ideology comes from.
It says ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you. The implication is that if you don't have, you simply have not asked enough, you don't have enough faith. So in prosperity theology, our money in the bank becomes our measure of blessing. This look, I can prove to you that God loves me because look what's in my bank account. Faith in God and following Jesus means an increase in blessing both financially and in your health. But do you see the danger here? I know a lot of great people that live below the poverty line. Does that mean that they are not faithful? Does that mean that God has not blessed them? Does it mean that they simply do not have enough faith?
I know a lot of great people that are way above the poverty line. Does that mean that God loves them more? Poverty theology takes a little bit of the opposite approach. Also from within Matthew, we see one of the verses that kind of can lead us to this pattern of thinking. Matthew 1923 and 24. Jesus is talking to his disciples and he says, truly I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter into the kingdom of God. Again, I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter into the kingdom of God. Within the context and the thinking of poverty theology, money is not seen as a blessing, but something that blocks us from fully living for God.
Therefore, in order to follow Jesus to the best of our ability, we must forsake all of our worldly possessions, our wealth, our money. And so this morning, what I want us to do is to be able to find some sort of middle ground. And so right off the bat, I want you to understand that I do not want us to land at either one of these conclusions that somehow that money is seen as like your mark of holiness in blessing, or somehow the less that you have, the holy. You are right. I don't want you to arrive at either prosperity theology or poverty theology. What I want us to see, as we learn in Proverbs, is that there is worth in hard work. There is worth in hard work. As we continue on, I need us to remember that Proverbs are not promises.
Because as we read this, if you look at it as a prescription or a promise, you might get frustrated. Well, it says, if I work hard, I will be blessed and have money. That is not always the case. Proverbs are not promises. We're going to look in Proverbs chapter ten, four and five says a slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich. He who gathers in summer is a prudent son, and he who sleeps in harvest is a son who brings shame. We have to be very careful here because some of the hardest workers that I know work minimum wage jobs. And all of us know we've had a boss or a corporate executive in our lives that has a terrible work ethic but a great paycheck.
And so again, this Proverb is not a prescription for wealth or a blanket explanation for poverty, right? We will never, ever say that the reason that somebody is experiencing or in the midst of poverty is because they do not work hard enough. Wealth does not always equal wisdom and poverty does not always mean that person has a problem. Okay? Are we clear? Throughout the book of Proverbs, we find four different types of people as we explore this topic of there being a lot of worth in hard work. There's the Godly poor, the ungodly poor, the Godly rich, and the ungodly rich, the Godly poor. Those are people that work hard, that do their best, that are faithful and obedient to God, yet they're still struggling with poverty.
And then there's the ungodly poor, the ones that are slack handed or who sleep in harvest, as Proverbs would say. Those are the ones whose poverty is a direct result of their approach and their work ethic. Then there are the Godly rich, the people who steward well what God has given them. But then there's the ungodly rich people who maybe make a profit off others. Proverbs, chapter six, verses six through eleven, says, go to the ant, O sluggard, consider her ways and be wise without having any chief or officer or ruler. She prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest. How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep?
A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber and want like an armed man. What I want us to understand from these verses is that God wants us to work hard. He doesn't necessarily want us to burn out or abandon our families for a bigger paycheck, but he wants us as people to just be diligent in our work. But we need to understand, will our work always make us wealthy? No. But is that the proper approach that we need to take just in every context of our life? Being wise, being diligent? The whole book of Proverbs is all about insight and understanding and how to live better in God's world. So God wants us to work hard. Proverbs 27, 23 and 24 says, know well the condition of your flocks.
Give attention to your herds, for riches do not last forever, and does a crown endure to all generations. Here we see the worth in being wise with your wealth and with your investments. Know well the condition of your flocks. Look for far too long. I would go uncomfortably long without checking my bank account because I didn't want to have to deal with what I would see. Anybody else, right? You're like, I'm not going to go to the mailbox because I know that there's an overdue bill there, and if I don't see it, I don't have to think about it. If I don't open the bank app on my phone, I don't have to reconcile that I'm not happy with what's in there.
But there's a merit to being wise with your wealth, knowing the condition of your flocks and giving attention to your herds, because that's not going to last forever. We need to be able to invest it in other things that do so as followers of Jesus, we need to be the best workers. We need to be the best workers because we know what matters most. There's a lot of people that take the approach that I will only work how do I phrase this? I will only work as much as I feel my paycheck requires of me. Minimum wage, minimum effort. I'll work harder. If you pay me more. And don't get me wrong, there is a measure of truth in that. I believe that people should be paid what they are due.
But I feel like regardless of our position, regardless of where we're at in our career, if we work hard and are diligent and steward well, what God has given us, people will begin to notice that something is different. About us that people can actually know that you are a follower of Jesus before you even speak his name. That there's just something about you and the way that you conduct yourself. And it doesn't seem like money is your motivation. What is your motivation? Just being faithful to what God has called me to. Proverbs 23, four and five says, do not toil to acquire wealth. Be discerning enough to desist. When your eyes light on it is gone. For suddenly it sprouts wings flying like an eagle toward heaven.
That's what I'm going to think of the next time we need to buy formula for our baby. There it goes with wings flying like an eagle towards heaven. Do not toil to acquire wealth. Look, money, believe it or not, does not mean everything. It's something that a lot of us are willing to say with our mouths, but in our hearts, we don't really feel that money doesn't mean everything. Well, it certainly feels like it, because like this verse implies, our possessions are not permanent. Our possessions are not permanent. We might have it nice for a while. There's certain things that money can do. We need to acknowledge that right now that there is a measure of good that money can accomplish. Money can be a tool for the greater good.
There's a lot of good things that we can accomplish in organizations and nonprofits and ministries that we can bless and give to our money can be a blessing to others. One of the things that I'm passionate about is being a good tipper. You can literally change people's lives in the service industry by tipping well. I know people seem to be like flipping around these iPads. Just fill out a couple of things at every single place that we go. It's just a couple of bucks. I promise you. You can make their day, if not their week or month by being a good tipper. Money can be a blessing not only to others. Money can be a blessing to us. Look, I do not believe there is anything wrong with providing well for you and your family.
I know I kind of mentioned that comparison game that we play with vacations. I'm not saying don't take vacations. Love your family well, provide for your family well. Money can accomplish so much, but money cannot bring holiness. Money cannot build up righteousness. Money cannot repair relationships. If your marriage is on the rocks and you take a trip overseas to Italy, you know what? You have a marriage on the rocks in Venice. Right? Like it's just you're arguing in a different place and in a different time zone. Money cannot satisfy and secure. Proverbs eleven, verse 28 says whoever trusts in his riches will fail, but the righteous will flourish like a green leaf. Whoever trusts in his riches will fail, but the righteous will flourish like a green leaf. All throughout high school don't worry. This is fake money. Don't worry, don't worry.
Don't freak out. This is not the tithe from last week or anything. All throughout high school, I thought that money was my measure of my worth, and that if I just had the right brand name, that would say that I'm worthy to be loved. If I just had that right pair of shoes, that people would think the right things about me. And then as I grew older, man, if my wife and I were able to afford that loft apartment downtown and people would come over and they would think so much more of us because of the place that we lived and gosh, I really don't want to have android phone. I better cough up and pay money for an iPhone so I can have a blue circle, right? Amen. We're an iPhone church.
I don't know if you caught onto that, you just kidding, but maybe we need to have the right car to drive and keep our kids safe. But there's also that part of me that just wants to have a nice car to impress the people around me, whatever it might be. We begin to have money be our master in so many different ways. And if we walk away from anything this morning, I want you to remember that we can never allow money to be our master. We see it all throughout Scripture with so many different things. This is a whole other sermon and topic, but just for example, the topic in use of alcohol. I personally take the stance in the position that you can partake responsibly as your convictions and as your relationship with God allows you to.
But we need to refrain from allowing alcohol or other substances to be our master, right? Scripture says a lot about not being drunk. It doesn't say the same thing about drinking. Right, but again, that's a whole other topic. But the same principle applies with money. Money can be used for good, it can be used as a blessing, it can cause a lot of helpful things to happen, but it can also cause harm. And so I believe that ultimately God desires from us, or he desires for us to live a life of freedom. This means freedom from sin, freedom from shame, freedom from addiction, and freedom from debt. Please hear me out. Look, I got a lot of debt, right? A lot of student debt. Thanks. Government, right?
And so I believe that there's a level of debt that's healthy, that's just understandable in our level of society. But if debt becomes our master and we're not able to continue to follow what God has for our lives because we are slaves to debt. That's not good. Then money is our master. Then we need to do everything that we can to be wise and diligent with our money to get out of debt or at least in a healthier position with our finances. But the opposite is true as well. If God has blessed you and you're doing very well financially, before you know it, you realize that your money has replaced God as your primary focus and motivation. We begin to worship what should simply be a tool in our lives.
And so we cannot allow money to be our master, whether it be debt controlling us and our ability to be obedient to God or having too much of it, that we lose focus on our primary motivation. But the goal of the Book of Proverbs is to give us practical insight and wisdom and understanding in how we can live well in God's world. And so I promise you right now that I will never tell you exactly how you should spend your money because it would be very dangerous if I did. I don't believe that the church should do that. But I want to encourage you to hopefully make wise decisions. I want to encourage you this morning to spend your money well, save your money well and steward your money well. Spend, save and steward wisely what God has given you.
Do you see how this can be applicable to any of us at any season of our life no matter what our income is? Maybe you are grinding it out at that minimum wage job. You know what you can do? You can spend well, you can save well, you can steward well what God has given you. Have you climbed that corporate ladder? Are you still excited about that recent promotion that you got that bumped you up into that next tax bracket? You know what you can do? You can spend well, you can save well and you can steward well what God has given you. You can continue to work hard and be obedient to Him, not allowing money to be your master, spending well, saving well, stewarding wisely what God has given you means working hard.
It means being a blessing to those who have less. This means being wise with your wealth. This means giving credit to God. This means investing and leveraging what you have to help make a difference in the kingdom of God. No matter who you are, no matter where you're coming from or what you're in the midst of, remember that you are worth more than your wealth, that you don't need that brand name to tell you that you're loved. You don't need that fancy car to tell you that you are worth something. You don't need those possessions to tell you that you have purpose can your life benefit from these things, sure, but never ever boast in them. Scripture in one corinthians wanted it tells us to boast in the Lord.
If we ever find ourselves boasting in anything else, we need to reexamine where we're at, where our motivation lies. Because money can do a lot of things. I can spend money, I can enjoy money. It can bring a measure of happiness for a moment, but money cannot make me holy. Money cannot change the struggles or the addictions that I'm facing and burying deep down inside. Money cannot make me more righteous or improve my relationship with God. And money cannot save me from my sins. Sure, wealth sometimes can be seen as a sign of blessing, but it is also one of the biggest temptations because it invites me to boast in myself. So this morning, believe that doing things God's way is the best way for you.
Believe that if you have money and you give it away, that he can give it back to you. Believe that money can be a tool for good, but do not allow money to be your master. Don't you dare believe that money is everything. Money is a gift from God. But the gift that you really need can only be found in a relationship with God. Amen. So imagine the impact. Imagine the impact that this church could have if we all just paid a little more attention to the way that we handle our money when it comes to things like survey or different projects or initiatives that we support. Imagine the impact that we could have if we spend well, if we save well, if we steward well, if we worshiped God with our best and then we thrive on the rest. Amen.
And so we're going to worship just with one more song together. And I want us to sing this out of a specific perspective. The words of this song say you take what the enemy meant for evil and you turn it for good. You know how I'm going to sing that, man. I grew up feeling the pain of poverty, but God has used that to turn around to change my understanding of how to steward my finances. God, you took some of the hardest seasons in my life and you turned it around that I may love other people well who are experiencing the same thing. So let's sing this together. Whatever life has brought you through, I want you to see how God can take it and turn it for good. Amen. Let's sing this together.