Last week we looked at some of the foundational issues related to money.  We said that the most important issue in life is not so much what you own but what or who owns you.  You have to get the basics straight before you tackle the other issues.  If you missed last week, I highly suggest that you get a copy of the message from the guys in the back or that you go online and listen to it or read it that way, because last weeks message was absolutely foundational to understanding the biblical concept of money.

Let me start us with this question. Who did you learn about how to handle money from? How did you learn to handle money? And then this basic question, “are you doing it right?”  And then this one, “How do you know?”

This week we are going to be looking at the book of Proverbs for some wise counsel in the handling of money. Let me tell you a little bit about Proverbs.  Proverbs has many short micro- bytes of wisdom on many topics.  It is not really arranged topically.  The Proverbs, or wise sayings, are organized like a tossed salad, they’re just scattered throughout the book. So this morning we are going to take a number of these pieces and try to put them all together.  We are not going to look at every verse in Proverbs that has to do with money, but we are going to take a few glimpses of some of the wise sayings in Proverbs.

Many of the Proverbs were written by Solomon, but some were written by other authors as well. Here we go

Do not wear yourself out to get rich; have the wisdom to show restraint.  Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly into the sky like an eagle. Proverbs 23:4-5

Those are some great words of wisdom. Wealth is short-lived, it’s momentary.  There is only one guarantee that is given in this verse and it’s this, “Wealth will be here today and gone tomorrow, so don’t spend time going there.” Don’t spend too much time worrying about how much money you have because it won’t be around forever anyway.

How many people spend all of their lives working hard to get money and then life hands them something they had never foreseen.  What if life ends tomorrow? What will be worthwhile? Will it be all the things that you have or the money that’s in your bank account that will comfort you? 

Here’s some great wisdom.  Take a break; don’t wear yourself out to get rich.  Show a little restraint.  Don’t constantly beat yourself up by telling yourself that you have to make more money.  You actually don’t have to make more money!  You don’t have to make every dollar that you could make.  It is OK to be able to make more and make the decision to not make more.  Imagine making that kind of decision!  Talk about something completely unheard of!!

 

The man who Shannon, my wife works for would love her to go from part time to full time. She has told him “No”. Why because there are many things in life that are more important than money. Very early in our marriage we learned the Biblical aspects of managing money God’ way. Those principles have always blessed us and so we can say “No” when other opportunities come to make more money.

There is a point when enough is enough.  Don’t get on the treadmill of needing to work a little harder to make a little more.  Don’t feel that you are a failure if you are not continually making more.

Imagine the peace of mind that could come from this one principle.  Imagine if you replaced every thought that you have for making more money with the thought of thankfulness for what money and possessions you do have.

Imagine if you replace the thoughts of what you would do with more money with thoughts of enjoying what you are already have. Wealth is here today and gone tomorrow so don’t get bent out of shape making as much money as you can. Lighten up and take a break because it is temporary.

 

A man’s riches may ransom his life, but a poor man hears no threat. Proverbs 13:8

 

Possessions begin to own us. Maintaining our possessions consumes us. Big houses take longer to clean and they take more money to heat, cool and maintain. Smaller houses require less work. For everything that I buy, I have to store it and maintain it and that takes time away from the people that I love, and it takes away from being on mission for God.

I like to woodwork. Right after Christmas I bought a new router. It was my dream router and I was so happy to be able to purchase it, but even before I bought it, I began to dream about the accessories that go along with the router. I had to catch myself, because I didn’t even have the router yet, and I was beginning to strategize on how I might get the accessories for the router as well. A man’s riches may ransom his life. Our riches enslave us, but a poor man is free from being entangled by his wealth. A poor man has more time. He’s not enslaved by his possessions, so here’s the question, why do we keep striving for more?

Here’s another Proverb.

 

Better is a little fear of the Lord than great wealth with turmoil.  Better a meal of vegetables where there is love than a fattened calf with hatred. Proverbs 15:16&17

Here’s another one like it

 

Better a dry crust with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting, with strife.

Proverbs 17:1

 

Money doesn’t bring peace of mind.  We have visions that money will make life enjoyable and satisfying but the wisdom of this Proverb contradicts that. 

A fattened calf during the time this was written portrayed a huge party.  It portrayed a huge festive event with lots of celebration. It was a high caliber party.

Here is what Solomon is saying, “Better to have a party where there is harmony in relationship and all you eat is salad and vegetables than have a party with the best prime rib and have all kinds of fighting and turmoil going on. 

Better to have rich relationships and be poor, then to have poor relationships and be rich. But so often we spend so much time with things – shoveling the driveway, mowing the grass, cleaning the house, fixing the house, the car, playing video games, spending endless hours on the computer and we spend so little time developing and growing our relationships, both at home and those beyond our home.

It is better to have authentic, caring, and transparent relationships than to have lots of money.  It is better to enjoy life with honesty and a sense of being genuine and maybe not have all of the possessions than to have all of the possessions and be caught up in strife and relational turmoil.

It doesn’t matter how much pleasure you can afford or not afford or what kind of parties you can throw.  You can always be a person or a family where there is genuine love and concern for others.

Now, just because money is not everything does not mean that it is nothing.  Money matters a lot.  It is an important part of our lives.  God recognizes that.

Put both verse on the same slide

Dishonest money dwindles away, but he who gathers money little by little makes it grow. Proverbs 13:11

 

Lazy hands make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth. Proverbs 10:4

 

Proverbs encourages diligence when it comes to issues like earning and saving.  Again these are not iron-clad promises – there are always exceptions.  Lazy people do win the lottery.

But the way life generally works is that if you work hard and save wisely you will be provided for sufficiently.  It all comes together both in working hard as well as saving money.

Lots of people never save for two reasons.  One is that they think that saving only begins after you basically have everything else that you want.  Once you pretty much have what you would like to have – that is the time that you can begin to save.  That is not the case.  In order to save you need to begin saying “no” to things that you want or that would make your life easier or better today so that you can say “yes” to the long-term benefits of saving. 

The second reason is that people have the notion of why start saving money when I can’t save very much? If you can’t begin saving a thousand at a time why start at all?  The encouragement of Proverbs is very real here.  Start with $5.00 a week or $10.00 a week.  That may not seem like much but you need to start somewhere even if it is a little at a time. Where can you say “No” to something in your life so that you can begin to save some money?

Proverbs simply says, “Start where you are even if you think that amount seems small to you. Begin small and continue to pray for ways to grow what you save. Most of us begin to spend small and then begin to learn how to spend more, but the Bible tells us to do it the other way around.

 

The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty. Proverbs 21:5

 

What this verse says is think ahead.  Plan well.  Have a game plan of how you are going to approach financial decisions.  Otherwise we tend to act on impulse.

This proverb is saying, “Don’t make snap decisions.”  Don’t make quick decisions especially about major expenditures.  Plan ahead.  Don’t ask the question, “What can I afford.” Instead ask the question, “Does this purchase fit into my long term financial goals.” 

You may be able to afford the payment, but maybe you need to afford something less and commit more money to a savings plan.  “Can I afford the payment?” is not the only question to ask.  You may be able to afford the payment. 

The bigger question is this, “Is this a wise expenditure of money in light of my overall financial plan including savings, giving, and retirement.” So often we purchase things because it feels good. I want that new boat or that new car or that new house, or that new router, or that new outfit and it looks good and I think it will feel good if I have that, so I buy it, often times without any thought to whether or not it fits into my financial plans. We think in the moment instead of with longer-term goals in mind.

Get this. We buy things in the same way that a man or woman becomes an adulterer. A man or woman becomes an adulterer because they pay attention to a strong emotional desire to feel good. We may go out to eat often because the food tastes good and it feels good not to have to prepare it, so we continue to go there even when we can’t give as God calls us to and we can’t save as God calls us to because we fail to say NO to strong emotional desires that pull us in a given direction.

I am not sure how this can work in any way other than by making a budget and tabulating expenditures.  Most of the time we really don’t know how much we are spending. How much did you spend on clothing last year?  How much did you spend on dining out or entertainment last year?  How much money did you spend on spontaneous purchases that you didn’t intend on buying, but it caught your eye and you just had to have it. These items may not be wrong to spend money on, but they can keep you from using the money the way that gives you financial freedom. We need to keep a record of our spending, so that we know what we’re doing with our money, so that we can make proper decisions.

One of the things that we have done is to categorize as many of our expenses as we possibly can.  We have as few “cash” categories – or miscellaneous categories as we can.

 

He who loves pleasure will become poor; whoever loves wine and oil will never be rich. Proverbs 21:17

The principle is not that you are not allowed to enjoy life; the point is that you need to be especially cautious when it comes to entertainment, recreational, and dining expenses. 

We are encouraged by our culture to never say “no” to our desires.  If you have a desire, then fill the desire.  Don’t be harsh to yourself by saying “no.”  This is where delayed gratification fits in.  Delayed gratification simply means that saying “No” to present desire so that a future desire can be fulfilled.

If we are not tracking the sorts of things we need to, then we have no clear understanding of where our money is going.

You should spend to enjoy things.  That is appropriate.  God has given us many things to enjoy, but we should be cautious about how much we spend and when we spend it.
Do not be a man who strikes hands in a pledge or puts up security for debts; if you lack the means to pay, your very bed will be snatched from under you. Proverbs 22:26-27 (NIV)

Be very cautious about borrowing.  Don’t be a slave to what you owe.  Make these decisions wisely. In our world, people go into debt for almost everything – Tv’s, stereo systems, furniture, vacations, bass boats, cloths, cars, houses, we load up a mountains of debt on our credit cards or mortgages and then we wonder why we feel so enslaved by our finances. We wonder why we have so much fear about our jobs. We get angry because we have to work long hours in order to feed the monster called debt, and we wonder why life is so hard and why there is so little joy and so little peace in our lives.

The old saying is: “I owe, I owe, so it’s off to work I go” is so true. We become slaves to those people who lend us money. It oppresses us, it enslaves us and it robs us of our joy, peace, and love. Debt is a curse; God makes that very clear. God created money so that it could be a blessing, not a curse, but we must listen to his truth about money in order to be set free from the life sucking power that it holds onto us with.

 

Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the first fruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine. Proverbs 3:9 

 

What is the definition of honor?  The principle in the Bible is that we honor God with 10% of what he has blessed us with.  That doesn’t mean that we set our entertainment budget and clothing budget, and automobile budget and then see what is left for God.

Proverbs says that we are to honor God first with all that we have, and one of the strongest ways to do this is by making God the greatest priority of your budget and then working backwards into the other areas.  

 

A generous man will himself be blessed, for he shares his food with the poor. Proverbs 22:9

 

This is an interesting principle.  The Bible says that God will bless the person who is generous toward other people.  The person who uses what they posses to share with the poor and to meet the needs of those who are disadvantaged – God will bless that person. 

That is an amazing principle.  The Bible says that you don’t necessarily get more by continuing to make more and hoard more.  This is true throughout the scriptures when we are generous toward God and generous toward other people. God tells us that there is something going on here that is not rational. There is something going on there that does not make sense. There is something going on here that defies logic and reason. There is something here that defies all the principles of the universe, and that is this, God will bless those who generous towards him and others who are in need. Basically God is saying this: If you are not selfish with what I’ve given you to manage.

Remember we said last week, we do not own anything that we have. Instead, we are managers of God’s resources. Everything that we have is God’s and when we uncurl our fingers off of the resources that he has given us and unselfishly give it to him and others, he will give us more.

Here’s the last proverb we’re going to look at. One man gives freely, yet gains even more; and another, he withholds unduly, but comes to poverty.  A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed. Proverbs 11:24&25

 

This is a similar principle.  One guy gives generously and as time goes on he ends up with even more.  Someone else seems to hoard every last dollar that they make and in time they come to poverty.

You really get the sense that God is involved behind the scenes when it comes to how we use our money.  You get a fairly clear indication that God kind of arranges things in his own way.  He sees to it that things work out maybe a little differently than what we had planned, but they work out none the less.

When we seek God’s will, when we seek God’s mission and we begin to love God with all that we are – even with our finances, and we begin to love our neighbor – those people all around us – even with our finances, God is behind the scenes bringing more of heaven to earth

Life Link:

Remind your group that the sermon series was picked while New Community was doing well financially.

How did you learn to think about money?

Was there a particular Proverb or teaching from Sunday that struck you, challenged you, or that you completely disagree with?

Do you find it hard to save money? Why do you think this is true?

Do you find the following statement true, “The more you own, the more it owns you”. Explain

Whenever you generously give to God or others, have you ever tested God and found that he always gives you more back? How do you think that happens? Why would God do such a thing?