Wise Money

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Father there’s so much waiting that is even recorded for us in Scripture the saints of old looking to the first advent of your son and us now looking to the second advent of your son and we are In a constant state of waiting and yet it is appropriate for us to And we do pause annually to celebrate your advent the coming of your Son in the flesh for our sake. And it is because of this work that He did on earth that we have a sympathetic high priest, that we have one who can relate to what we have gone through and we too go through. And we know that there are a host of ways that you would have us to apply your word and to be faithful.

And of course, numbered among those would be being stewards of what you have given, whether it is of our minutes or our bodies or of our dollars or anything else. And tonight, as we do open your word together, we pray that we would find clear application in it and that we would do so with open minds and humble hearts ready to receive. And we pray this in Christ’s name, amen. So we continue with our study of Proverbs on Sunday evenings and I have the opportunity tonight to talk about money.

This is not going to be a message that is full of all kinds of hot tips as much as it will be about principles drawn from the book of Proverbs. And then hopefully we can find clear application in them as we examine different ways that the Lord uses money. Money, of course, gets a bad rap in our culture. And is money itself good or evil empirically? Or is it simply a tool that, like a hammer, can be used for good or for evil, depending on its user? Should money itself be an aim? Or should it be an object of our pursuit, or should it rather than be a fruit of something good, like the children are a fruit of the love of their parents?

Well, we do find answers to questions like these, along with a bunch more questions, in the book of Proverbs, and looking for lessons, as a matter of fact, on money from the book of Proverbs is a bit like looking for sand in the desert. Finding lessons is not hard. Actually, it can be kind of overwhelming. And I might do a bit of overwhelming tonight. Stop from Proverbs. From Proverbs alone, we learn that money, wealth in particular, is a gift, a blessing, a curse. And it’s inferior to wisdom. It’s of far less value than integrity and a good name. Of course, each of those would merit a deep dive on its own. But as we consider what all of these aspects of wealth holding common together, it’s clear that God uses wealth in our lives in a host of ways.

We affirm that God ordains whatever comes to pass. And as the omnipotent sovereign of the universe, all creation is accountable to Him. And all that happens does so by His decree according to His will. Further, God has at His disposal infinite resources that He has created. And he uses these resources to bring about his will. He ordains means as well as ends. And of course, sometimes those means include money. Means in fact sometimes is used to refer to money. God allows money to be present in or absent from our lives. And Proverbs helps us to see when and why and how. God uses money in the lives of his people to bring all sorts of good.

Even if that good sometimes simply involves bringing wickedness to light. Sometimes the greatest good is in fact the exposure of wickedness. And tonight we’ll be searching for some answers from Proverbs considering together how God uses money in our lives. And I’ll be reading a host of verses. In fact, we have about, just a tiny bit more than 30 passages to look at together. And so we’re going to be just looking at the verses and I’ll be doing some commenting on many of them. And as I do, I will be plucking the verses from a greater context of the book of Proverbs or even the writings of Solomon himself. Solomon does supply us with some pretty fantastic one-liners.

But in many cases, taken by themselves and apart from the whole context of the rest of even Solomon, let alone the rest of the Bible, they could appear misleading or even contradictory to other scriptures. So we have to take care with this. We have to take the whole of scripture as complementary of itself, allowing scripture to interpret scripture. I’ll spend most of my energy here trying to understand what the passages say on their faces but also realize that other verses will in fact inform our understanding. So again, for instance, if Solomon says, the hand of the diligent makes rich, is that a proverb or is it a principle by which to operate?

Have you ever met a diligent person who wasn’t rich? It’s not a guarantee that all diligent people will in fact be wealthy, but it is proverbial. It is full of wisdom, and it does actually give us a little bit of the mind of God on the matter of diligence. Make sense? Hopefully that’s fair enough. So bear with me as we fly over these passages together. If you’re a note taker, we do have some headings that you can scratch down, or you can write down references if you see one that’s interesting and you want to look at later on. Otherwise, for pity’s sake, don’t try to write down all of the verses. And my headings themselves are not exhaustive or inspired.

Several of them, several of the passages we’re examining could actually fit pretty well under more than one of them. So you’ve been warned. There you go. So now let’s consider how God uses money in the lives of His people. So the first heading we’re going to hang our thoughts on is that God uses money to bless us. Chapter 10 verse 4 says, a slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich. The man who is diligent will be blessed materially from the Lord. So I gave my disclaimers earlier so I won’t have to give them throughout, but that is what he’s saying here. The lazy man should expect to starve.

It is tempting to overthink this, wondering why the wicked so commonly seem to prosper. Well, in a lot of cases, in much overthinking, there is folly. We can become so presumptuous and start to demand answers of God. Well, we would do well to be faithful with what is before us and not be surprised if and when material blessings follow. Again, be faithful with what is before us and not be surprised if material blessings follow. God measures out these blessings according to His good pleasure. The size of a blessing is not always commensurate with faithfulness, except when God is doing the measuring. So, it’s commensurate with exactly what He wanted to give.

You may be more faithful than your neighbor, even though he’s got a big house and a boat, while you have a cardboard box and a kayak. Look at verses 15 and 16 of chapter 10. A rich man’s wealth is his strong city. The poverty of the poor is their ruin. The wage of the righteous leads to life. gain of the wicked to sin. In this context it does not seem as though the rich man is idolatrous in his security. There is a passage we’ll look at later on when Solomon uses the exact same wording and it actually is sinful. But here he’s saying it’s a good thing. His wealth is a blessing from the Lord and it offers a degree of earthly protection. The strong city here of wealth is a good thing. And we’re aided in this by looking at verse 16.

The wage earner is at the mercy of the wage giver and in this case God is the giver of the wage to the righteous he gives more life and fruitfulness and blessings To the wicked he gives more sin perhaps to their ruin Look at 11 verse 4 riches do not profit in the day of wrath but the righteousness delivers from death when judgment comes and And men must give account for their sins. Believers will point to the work of Jesus and his atoning work on the cross for us. And that is the only thing that will impress God in that moment, meaning riches won’t profit them. Christ’s imputed righteousness will. Yes, it’s true, righteousness delivers from death, and that is true of men, and it is true of Christ’s righteousness for us.

For the blessing that they may signify, as blessings from God, riches simply cannot compare with righteousness in terms of their spiritual value. And yet it is also fitting to put this under the category of blessing. It also suggests that righteousness and riches are not the same thing, even if they commonly go together. 1128, whoever trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like a green leaf. themselves on never to be the object of our dependents. We should depend on the one behind the blessing. We should pursue righteousness. Look at chapter 18 verse 11. A rich man’s wealth is his strong city and like a high wall in his imagination.

So this is quite different from chapter 15 verse 16 when it looked like a bad thing. A rich man’s wealth could introduce a false sense of security if he comes to depend upon that. So when we read of God using riches to bless us, there’s two sides to that. And we’ll see later on as well that with blessing comes the temptation to be independent in our thinking. Look at chapter 21, verse 20. Precious treasure and oil are in a wise man’s dwelling, but a foolish man devours it. Wealth is a blessing for the wise. If you see a wealthy man, of course he is blessed by the Lord, but he also might be really wise. Not uncommon at all.

The foolish man, however, squanders the Lord’s blessings. Chapter 24, verses 3 and 4 say, “…by wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established. knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches.” And that’s a support of the same of the same idea that he puts forth in chapter 21 verse 20. Wealth is a blessing from God to the wise. The contrast with the fool follows in verse 7. Wisdom is too high for a fool in the gate he does not open his mouth. Wisdom builds up. Foolishness tears down. Chapter 30, verses 7 through 9. Two things I ask of you, deny them not to me before I die. Remove from me, remove far from me, falsehood and lying. Give me neither poverty nor riches. Feed me with the food that is needful for me and I will, lest I be full and deny you and say, Who is the Lord? Lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.

The wise man here captures potentially the greatest danger that often accompanies blessing. We see it in America at present, the sin of presumptuous independence. And this is a problem not with riches themselves, but with our hearts. So he is explicit that there are problems with riches. The arrogant man, the arrogant rich man may ask, who is the Lord? That’s kind of the fear here. And there are problems with poverty, stealing, and profaning God’s name. This happens when we focus idolatry on the gifts themselves rather than on the giver. If your focus is on God as the giver of the blessing of wealth, then it is wrong-headed to steal.

Stealing to increase blessing from God is like sinning the grace may abound. And Paul addressed that in Romans 6. So God uses money, we see in these passages, to bless us. But there are two sides to that as well. There are the obviously there’s the blessing on its face, but then there’s the danger of independence and that comes with that sort of security. The thrust of the passage I’ve read here is that these blessings are intended to promote dependence and Thanksgiving. When we feast, we don’t delight chiefly in the steak and the butter rolls. We enjoy them while we enjoy the one who gave them our enjoyment of them should remind us of who gave them and what we deserve.

So don’t trust in your riches, but do enjoy them as a blessing from the Lord. God also uses money, second, to enable us to bless others. Money is a tool that we can employ in bringing good to other people. And this is all by God’s design. Chapter 13, verse 22 says, A good man, I like this one, A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children, But the sinner’s wealth is laid up for the righteous. Perhaps the first group we should be seeking to bless would be those who are in our direct charge, our children and their children. It is the hallmark of a good man that he make an effort to do this, even if he remained poor his whole life.

His aim ought to provide for them. A strange sort of inverted application here is also in view, and that is that God will use the wealth of the wicked to bring blessing to the righteous. You see it there? sinners wealth is laid up for the righteous. We’ve already established that God uses wealth to bless people but sometimes in ways that we don’t anticipate. Chapter 14 verses 20 and 21 say, the poor is disliked by every by even his neighbor. But the rich has many friends whoever despises his neighbor is a sinner but blessed is he who is generous to the poor. Everybody likes the rich guy right? But this is just as much about what the rich guy does with his money as anything else, and when he is generous to the poor, he is blessed.

The poor is disliked by his neighbor, but the rich man has many friends. 1431 says, whoever oppresses a poor man insults his maker, but he who is generous to the needy honors him. The poor of the world tend to have fewer resources to defend themselves, making them easy targets of oppression by others. And God regards the oppression of the poor as an insult to Himself. When one person oppresses the poor, He does injury to the image of God in that person. When we oppress others, we insult God. That’s a bad idea. Don’t do that. The reverse is also true. The one who is generous to the needy renders honor to the man, and by extension he renders honor to God.

And money is a common tool in the blessing of others. chapter 19 verse 4, wealth brings many new friends but a poor man is deserted by his friend. You can also see verse 6, as with the great Jay Gatsby, everyone likes the rich guy, they’ve already said that, but this is a superficial relationship that does not endure hard times. With poverty too often comes the desertion of those so-called friends. It also happens to speak to the potency of covenantal relationships. A faithful married couple has a relationship that is founded on Christ. That couple is then well equipped to endure the trials of prosperity and the trials of poverty.

Both alike bring trials. Chapter 22 verse 9 says, Whoever has a bountiful eye will be blessed, for he shares his bread with the poor. And I really like this one. The man with a bountiful eye is the one who is looking for ways to bless other people. He is proactive in doing good for others. He is like David who sought out somebody from Saul’s household whom he could bless for Jonathan’s sake. While the devil may prowl around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour, according to 1 Peter 5, verse 8, the man with a bountiful eye is doing the opposite. He is on the hunt for people to bless. And what does this say here?

The one with the bountiful eye will find people to bless? No, it says he’s the one who will be blessed. He will be blessed for he shares his bread with the poor. Those folks who are proactively doing good for others are commonly on the receiving end of blessing. Chapter 22 verse 16 says, whoever oppresses the poor to increase his own wealth or gives to the rich will only come to poverty. Well, whoever oppresses the poor to increase his own wealth or gives to the rich will only come to poverty. Exploitation is bad. It’s a bad idea, don’t do it. The suggestion in this verse is that people who give to the rich usually do so for their own gain.

Jesus says that there is great value in blessing people who don’t have the resources to return the favor. In Luke chapter 14 verses 12 to 14 he said, when you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you’ll be repaid. When you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the blind, the lame, the blind, and you will all bless them? No, you will be blessed because they cannot repay you.

For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just. Chapter 25, verses 21-22 say, if your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat. If he’s thirsty, give him water to drink. For you will heap burning clools on his head and the Lord will reward you. Wealth can be a coal shovel for your enemies. With wealth from the Lord, you have the resources to bless and administer to those who hate you.

Even if they never come and say, Thank you, or maybe they never come to faith in Christ Still the Lord rewards this sort of favor to other people He was rewards a sort of favor extended to other people. They may not reward you but the Lord will Chapter 28 verse 27 says whoever gives to the poor will not want But he who hides his eyes Will get many a curse as they say you can’t outgive God But you can invite his chastisement when you refuse to do what you know is right and A man who turns his a blind eye to the needs of the poor Will invent invite this chastisement. He will get many a curse Says the proverb What do you think about that? I think it’s kind of unnerving and I think we could all find ways to apply it Ways that we need to apply it So we see here that God uses money to bless us And he uses money to enable us to bless others.

Next we’ll see that he also uses money to expose our hearts. God uses money to expose our hearts. Jim is often saying that you can tell a lot about a person’s loves by looking at his checkbook, right? By looking at how he spends his money. Well it’s because it does in fact expose our loves. Chapter 21 verse 17 says, whoever loves pleasure will be a poor man. He who loves wine and oil will not be rich. Well, yep, that’s bad. So now, what’s not bad is pleasure or oil or wine. Those are not bad. Just because it’s good doesn’t mean we get to love it idolatrously. Pleasure is good. Wine and oil are good. The love of them is bad.

It is lawful, however, to receive it as gift, loving the gifts out of our love of the giver. That’s sort of the magic of thanksgiving for Christians and it is, that’s the decoder ring, is knowing God. And others who practice thanksgiving are only going through the motions or performing an exercise. They’re even in their silence still giving a hat tip to some giver though. It’s not sinful for a wife to exclaim, I love it, when her husband gives her a necklace, because she loves him. If she loves the necklace more than she loves him, that’s probably a problem, right? Neither is this sinful for us to love what God gives, because we love him.

But if we love oil and wine and other creature comforts for their own sake, we will not be rich, according to this proverb, because our hearts in the wrong place. Chapter 23 verses 4 and 5 say, 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 toward heaven. There is a tricky balance here. Do not toil to acquire wealth. Then why do you toil? Well, we’ll see actually from Proverbs later on that in all toil there’s good, there’s benefit. And work is a good thing. But should money be the object? It seems like no.

We ought not to pursue wealth like the villains of so many Christmas stories. Scrooge had no family and no way to exhaust his wealth. neither does Henry F. Potter. The wicked gather and they hoard idolatrously and selfishly. The industrious and the diligent often find that wealth comes to them as they are faithful. Neither am I saying that an entrepreneurial spirit is bad. Entrepreneurs are used by God to build culture and bring good and opportunity to others.

faithful wealth building is as different from idolatrous greed as the marriage bed is different from the bed of a prostitute. And like the love of a harlot, the pleasures of money are short-lived. They ought not to be an end in themselves. The dangers of idolatrous wealth are clear in chapter 30 verses 7 to 9. There’s a little finer print. Two things I ask of you, deny them not to me before I die, 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? Lest I be poor and steal and profane in the name of my God. Poverty and riches can be as spiritually toxic as falsehood and lying. Crazy, huh? They’re right here in the same passage indicating that there’s dangers of both of them. Prosperity too often leads to sinful and presumptuous independence. We’ve already talked about this. The man who has more than he needs often forgets the source of his blessing. So in a hundred different ways, money can expose our loves. It exposes our hearts.

It shows what is on the inside. The last heading before we try and drive home a few takeaways is that God uses money to reward faithfulness. God uses money to reward faithfulness. And though this may seem awfully closely tied to bless us heading number one, I think it is a little it’s different than nothing that it deserves its own heading. It’s also unavoidably clear in Proverbs that God rewards faithfulness and often with money. Why is it Christians are weird about this? So I feel that even now a strong temptation to qualify all my language because there’s gonna be some church ladies who are gasping that I’m using these words. God uses money as a vehicle of blessing for faithfulness. I I’m not making this up. There’s such a strong temptation to come back and qualify, but yeah, but I’ve been faithful and I’m poor. Well, that happens too.

Right. However, maybe there’s an area where you can grow. There does seem to be though an emphatic message that the Lord wants for his people to get because I’m just laying the verses out here and it seems to be pointing to this pretty clearly. God blesses faithfulness and one common means, not the only means, but a common means is money. And what are you going to do with it? It sounds greedy to say it as though I’m peddling some sort of prosperity gospel, but it’s true even if it’s not completely universal. To the one who has much, much will be given. Jesus said as much in Matthew 13 to the one who has more will be given and he will have an abundance but from the one who has not even what he has will be taken away. Why is that? Why is that? Could be because the one who has has received it as a blessing from the Lord and has demonstrated faithfulness and excellent stewardship and can handle more. Maybe. The faithful can handle more responsibility. That is true. And that doesn’t deserve qualification. The

faithful can handle more responsibility, like the stewards of the talents in Matthew 25. Looking at the following verses, we see that money is often a reward for faithfulness, and at the same time it is used to humble the wicked. Look at chapter 3, verse 9. Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of all your produce. Where do the first fruits come from? The first fruits come from the Lord. Wealth is a blessing from Him in the first place. And as stewards, it is our duty and ought to be our delight to honor Him with our wealth. 1118, the wicked earns deceptive wages, but the one who sows righteousness gets a sure reward. We can cry out with the psalmist, wondering why God allows the wicked to prosper.

We see wicked people getting rich all around us. Well, one thing we can know is that their Where wages will earn them no eternal reward, we can also know that those wages may soon be in the abecan counts of the righteous. Those deceptive wages go as easily as they come. Look at chapter 13 verse 11. Wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it. A portfolio grown slowly through patience, diligence, and faithfulness is better than finding the winning lottery ticket. We’ll come back to this. In order to gain little by little, you have to keep showing up. You have to be faithful, diligent, and patient.

If that happens, the one who’s worked hard is also well positioned to appreciate what he has earned and what God has blessed him with. You’re able to appreciate your earnings and God rewards that sort of faithfulness. This one’s really good too. Chapter 14, verses 23 to 24. In all toil, there is profit. Work is good. But mere talk lends only to poverty. The crown of the wise is their wealth, but the folly of fools brings folly, which has inspired redundancy.

Even if you never get rich, the sort of behavior that makes the faithful rich will always be profitable. Even if you never get rich, the sort of behavior that makes faithful people rich will always be profitable. Again, we see that the wise man often is also wealthy, though it is not a guarantee. In the house of the righteous, chapter 15, verse 6, in the house of the righteous, there is much treasure, but trouble befalls the income of the wicked. The wealth of the righteous is more secure than the wealth of the wicked. It’s less likely to disappear. that is more stable like the owner.

Chapter 20, verse 21, an inheritance gained hastily in the beginning will not be blessed in the end. This is like 1311. Are you seeing a pattern here? Wealth gained hastily or gained wickedly is not secure. Nothing is ultimately secure, I get that. But the wealth that is gained little by little as a reward from God of faithfulness is given to a certain kind of person with the right kind of character, and that is less likely to flee away, to fly away from his grasp because he’s able to handle it more, like the faithful steward. That is why there’s so much to be said by just putting in the time and growing a portfolio little by little, saving, saving, saving, rather than squandering your dollars, gambling, or trying to earn a quick buck.

The sort of work that we do when working faithfully and diligently year after year after year shapes us and we become the right sorts of people, the right sorts of stewards by God’s design. Look at chapter 21, verses five and six. “‘The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, “‘but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty. “‘The getting of treasures by a lying tongue is a fleeting vapor and a snare of death.

I’m running out of ways to qualify this or explain it. It is so insanely clear. Chapter 23, verses four and five. Do not toil to acquire wealth, be discerning enough to desist. Yes, we use this one already, and it was inspired then too. When your eyes light on it, it is gone. For suddenly it sprouts wings flying like an eagle toward heaven. It’s fun to look at these different passages through different prescriptions. And this time under the heading of a rewarding faithfulness, if we are faithful, if we are faithful, God will take care of us. And when it comes to money, we will have enough. And what if you don’t?

That is where the body is to take care of itself in love. We need and pursue money as an end in itself. Yes, you need money to buy bread to feed your children. But if you’re working diligently in the normal pattern of things, it will come. It will come in the normal order of things God will provide. Chapter 28, verse 19. Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread. But he who follows worthless pursuits will have plenty of poverty. That cash, that one’s really good too. Plenty of bread versus plenty of poverty. Working your land is hard. And following worthless pursuits, that is in the idea, maybe, of making a quick buck.

But that would definitely apply here. So these verses taken together show us that wealth acquired through patient, diligent, faithfulness is more to be desired than a quick buck or money gained in wickedness. Because as I mentioned before, like the man, so is his wealth. The man who gains wealth quickly is an unstable man. The man who gains it slowly, little by little, through diligence and faithfulness, is also himself more stable. Whoever trusts in his riches will fail, will fall, but the righteous will flourish like a green leaf. You should pursue wealth in the same way that an excellent student pursues good grades.

The grades are not themselves the point. They are intended to be a metric of faithfulness and success. Likewise, we should be diligent, humble, generous, and faithful and pursue the wealth that evidences that faithfulness. As I bring this in for a landing. It’s important to remember that these are proverbs, words of wisdom. They offer direction on how to honor the Lord. They do not promise an easy life. But if the overwhelming thrust of proverbs is that faithfulness leads to blessing, and oftentimes that blessing is material, we should pursue faithfulness. We take the whole of scripture together and realize that wealth and poverty alike are from the Lord.

God would have us act as stewards of what we have for sake of those around us. If the Lord has blessed you with money, act like you are a steward of it and how you manage it. If He has blessed you with poverty, by all means, try to get out of it. But remember that He may just be freeing you of the trappings and the distractions that money brings. We know that money is a gift from the Lord, and it is our responsibility as His children and as His stewards to manage that, to use it to bring good to others. How can you do that if you are a slave to money? How can you bring good to others if you are living paycheck to paycheck?

Unless you live within your means, you have no wiggle room within your budget to bless others, whether planned or spontaneous. Let me just offer a few ways to put these things into practice. These are just ideas. This is not inspired and it’s also not exhaustive. Hopefully there’s a lot more. But reckon yourself a steward. I really like the word reckon because it is no-reck-and-yield. It is when we behave as though it is true, even when we don’t feel like it. You are a steward. God has given you what you have and your job is to manage it. The old hymn says, all that borrows life from thee is ever and thy care. I like that.

We borrow life. Life is borrowed. When we reckon this to be true, we walk out our days as though it is actually the case. We put this reality into action. We are stewards. The dollars that we have are the Lord’s and it is our job to manage them and to do so with wisdom and with faithfulness. This is the sort of thing where if you would just stop and think about this before making your purchases, it could be revolutionary. It could profoundly change our living and our financial situation if we just are mindful of this reality. Another, write a budget. If you have a budget, revisit it. Look at it. To be able to account for all of your dollars before they’re spent is a very good exercise.

There’s great value, and obviously, just like a diet in moderation, counting your calories is telling, and it doesn’t fix everything. If you don’t have a healthy relationship with food, you can still count your calories and kill yourself. And if you write a budget and it is consistently, you’re consistently budgeting for a deficit every month, you’re kind of missing the point. You still need to have a healthy relationship with food, have a healthy relationship with money. But writing a budget is a good exercise. There’s great value, whatever it is that you’re doing, in doing it on purpose with intentionality, whether it is work or it’s parenting or it’s eating or it’s spending money, whatever it is.

Too many of us just let life happen to us. We are reactive where we should be proactive, and if you wish to grow in this area, like writing a budget is a good, practical step in that direction. Related to that, budget to give first to the Lord. This is not about patting the coffers of TEC. It’s between you and the Lord how much you give, but we do know that the Lord wants it to be both cheerful and sacrificial. And each time you give, sacrificially and generously, you are taking a step of faith. You are trusting the Lord to provide for you, and He loves to honor that sort of trust. Another is budget to bless others.

This is not a tithe. This is beyond that. Maybe have an envelope or a line item in your budget where you put $50 or $100 every month for the purpose of blessing somebody else every month. If it sits idle for a few months, it may be because somebody you know actually needs three or four months’ worth of your blessing. Let it grow. Take someone out to dinner, slip a Fred Meyer gift card into somebody’s pocket whom you are struggling to appreciate, or who you know could use it. Buy 25 Christmas meals at the Everett Gospel Mission. Give to the Deacons Fund. Give to the Project 92 Persecution Relief Fund. These are among the ways that Christians care for one another and bring good to the world.

If we believe what we read earlier, you do that and you may end up blessing somebody else but the real blessing is going to come down right on your head. Plan to do good. This is related to the last one. But it’s more broad than just money. Doing good is something that should happen spontaneously, of course, for the Christian. But it is also something that we should plan to do. If we believe that God uses money to reward faithfulness, then we should pursue faithfulness. And don’t be surprised if wealth comes with it. It’s not a guarantee that it will. But don’t skip the faithfulness part on your path to wealth. To do so is actually to invite, well, chastisement.

You be classified then as a wicked man. So there’s a lot to be said, obviously, and the Proverbs do say a lot about this, and tonight, I’ve just tried to look right at the verses and see what they say together. But overwhelmingly, faithfulness ought to be our aim, and then not be surprised when the blessing that comes involves money.

So, and if you have questions about any of this or you wanna know what this looks like in the SAR household, like we can tell you, I’d be happy to talk about that. Sonya would as well, and she’s not here tonight, but we’d be happy to try to show you what that looks like on the ground for at least one family. So, let’s pray together. Father, we are grateful for your faithfulness to us and any sort of faithfulness that we can, I guess, be marked by is a self and evidence of your gracious work in us. And we do thank you for entrusting to us all sorts of things of which we are stewards. And we want to be wise and purposeful and plan to do good to others.

Father, we want to pursue blessing, but we know that doing so necessarily means sacrifice, and we also need to be faithful along the way. So help us to have the right loves, help us to have the right aims, and to be diligent, and to have a blast while doing it. May the world see our blessing monetary and otherwise and because it scratches head in disbelief. And we do think of faithful saints the world over who have the cards stacked against them and whose faithfulness is actually bringing about their poverty as they are persecuted. Thank you for how you have prospered us and positioned us well to be a blessing to them and help us not to turn a blind eye to the needs of the poor but to be the one with the abundant eye looking to bless others.

May that be a hallmark of our church as it ministers one to another. We pray that you be honored in all of it. We ask this in your son’s name. Amen.