Money Wisdom (Part 1)

[00:00:00] Proverbs chapter three. We are going to study, we are going to go into a new study today in, in our major themes, study of proverbs. Last several weeks we were talking about subject of alcohol and strong drink. And this week we are going to pivot into another subject which is very common in the book of proverbs. There's at least a couple of dozen verses in the book of proverbs that in some way touch on this subject. And so we're going to look at them and see what kind of principles we can derive from these repeated verses that deal on this subject. And the subject is money. Money. [00:00:51] Let's read verses nine and ten of proverbs chapter three, and then we will get into our study here. [00:00:59] The Bible says, honor the Lord with thy substance, and with the first fruits of all thine increase, so shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine. All right, let's pray together. [00:01:19] Father, thank you for the opportunity to gather together as your people, Lord, where the church of God can meet and can serve you together. We thank you for the opportunities this week to serve you and the opportunities this coming week, too, to also serve you together to express our love, especially for the Muxlows and for brother Ken and to give honor to Sister Sarah and her life. Thank you for the chance to meet together, to worship, to sing songs to your glory and honor. Lord, I thank you for the opportunity to hear your word and to respond to it together. Lord, I pray that your people this morning would indeed all of us would respond to your word. [00:02:04] Lord, would you please bless our Sunday school, not just this class, but also Sister Priscilla's class, Sister Pam's class, and Sister Beverly's class downstairs. I pray that you'd help the students to arrive and help them to be ready to hear and help the teachers, Lord, and just fill them with wisdom and understanding as they try to give your word to the various students. [00:02:26] Lord, would you please bless our study on this subject? This is a very important subject in your word and one that has implications that touch many other parts of life as well. So, Lord, I pray that you would open our hearts and give us understanding and a desire to do your will in these things. [00:02:44] In Jesus name we ask. Amen. [00:02:48] Now, of course, the subject of money is we can talk about money, but really, money is not just as Paul said in Philippians four. [00:03:00] It's not about when you talk about money from the scripture. It's not really a discussion of the amount of money. It's not really a discussion of the value of the money. It's not really a discussion of how the money is used from God's perspective. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills and he owns everything. God doesn't need our money. It's funny, I wrote in Cambodia, the first gospel track that I wrote contained a line in it that said it was touching on the subject of idolatry, but indirectly. And it was saying, I wrote in the track that God from acts, chapter 17, how that God needeth not any man to worship him. And I talked about how that God doesn't need our worship. God doesn't need. He doesn't need anything from us. And one of the things I said is, God doesn't need our money. And someone. This literally never happened. I think this is the only time anyone ever called me from a gospel track in Cambodia. But it was a Christian, right? It was always a Christian who calls and gives you trouble. It was a Christian who said, why do you say that God doesn't need our money? Why do you say that God doesn't need our worship? Well, because he doesn't. He doesn't. [00:04:16] So when we talk about money and when the Lord addresses this subject, there is a lot more here than just a subject of how we use our money, where we spend our money, it speaks to a greater subject than just dollars and cents. And again, the Lord doesn't need our money. But money is reflective and representative of a lot of other things in our life. And money is a huge motivator. What's interesting, what I was going to say is money is a huge motivator for what we do. [00:04:57] Now, you think about all the things you do in your life. How many of them are driven by money, bills you got to pay and things like that. That's the reality of living in this world. [00:05:09] But in other ways, in a lot of other unnecessary ways, money is a huge motivator for mankind. And so it's an important subject. Interestingly enough, when I was preparing this, the message this morning kind of dovetailed right on this particular subject. Now, in the morning service, we're not going to talk about money per se, but it illustrates what I'm saying right now. So if you all just kind of put it in your hat and you'll come back to it when we have the morning service. [00:05:41] But probably what I would say is probably one of the most significant principles in the book of proverbs is in chapter three, verses nine and ten, because it deals with the subject of money as it relates to the Lord as it relates to the Lord. We're going to see a bunch of other things later about money and how it relates to other aspects of our life. But really I think it's best to start here with our money as it relates to the Lord. Now we know in verse nine, honor the Lord with thy substance. Just as a reminder, we went through the subject of honoring one's parents. Right. On Wednesday night, we were talking about the fourth commandment. That's the fourth, 3rd, fifth. I think it's the fifth. Maybe you'll have to correct me. I think it's the fifth. [00:06:31] When we looked at that subject, we looked at the definition of honor. What does it mean to honor? It means to demonstrate due respect or reverence for something. Okay. So when we talk about honoring our parents, we're talking about saying treating them with kindness, treating them with respect, speaking to them as a superior. Right. Speaking to them with respect. And we discussed that. [00:07:00] And then we also talked about how not only speaking to your parents with respect, but speaking about your parents with respect, doing things that living your life in such a way that it is consistent with the values and ideals that your parents taught you. These are always ways that you can honor your parents. Well, one way that you can also honor your parents, and we talked about this on that Wednesday night, was with your money. When your parents are in need, the Bible says that we are to requite our parents. That means to pay them back. In other words, they invested in us. In Cambodia, again, I hate to bring this up, but in Cambodia they call it is, which is basically the cost of the milk. [00:07:47] In other words, you're repaying them for the milk they gave you. That's what they mean by that. [00:07:52] And indeed, one way we could honor our parents with our lips and say, oh, man, my mom's great, my dad's great, and all this stuff. We could honor our parents like that. But if in their time of need, if we're not willing to put our money where our mouth is, that honor is just honor with our lips. So at some point, here's the point. At some point, honor, at some point, honor has to have legs. [00:08:16] At some point, honor, the wheels of honor have to touch the road and we have to put our money where our mouth is. This is the point here on the subject of honor, but toward the Lord in verse number nine. Now we know there are many ways we honor God, right? We honor God by seeking the Lord and asking for his wisdom and guidance before we make decisions, right. And doing what he tells us. To do. That's one way we honor him. We honor him by the way we use his name. We honor him by the priorities in our life. Right? We honor him by the person we choose to marry. We honor him by what we choose to do and to not do. [00:08:58] When we've been talking about alcohol, one way you can honor God is by staying away from alcohol. That honors God. You honor God by taking part in the church ministries to glorify God. So there's many, many ways we honor God. [00:09:13] There are many ways we honor God. [00:09:16] But the Lord does not let us forget that one of the ways, in the same way with our parents, one of the ways we can honor God is with our financial means. [00:09:27] Our financial means. [00:09:30] So the Lord says, honor the Lord with thy substance. In other words, as I said, put your money where your mouth is. Put your money where your mouth is. Listen, we cannot pick and choose in what ways we are going to honor God. But see, that's what Israel wanted to do. In Isaiah 29, the Bible says, verse 13, wherefore the Lord said, forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me. And their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men. So they honored God only with the words. They were willing to say the right things, but they weren't willing to do the deed. [00:10:16] And the Lord pointed that out to them and said, your honor is not true. Honor. [00:10:23] Here's the truth of the matter. If we are truly honoring God in our decisions, in our life, in the sum total of our life, if we believe and know and understand that our life is God's, we are bought with a price. [00:10:43] It belongs to him by virtue of redemption that Christ paid for us not just to save us, but he paid for us to make us his. [00:10:53] But also by virtue of his creation, we belong to him. Every person belongs to God because he is their creator. [00:11:02] He is every person's creator. So for both of those reasons, we belong to God. [00:11:08] And so that includes our substance. That includes our wealth, our money. [00:11:14] The Lord says, you honor me in all these other ways. Well, honor me in this way too. Honor me in this way too. Now, in what ways do we honor the Lord with our substance? In what ways do we use our financial means to bring honor, to use our financial means in such a way that God is revered, God is respected, and God is prioritized in our life. [00:11:45] Okay, so there's a few verses we want to look at here. Look at chapter 14 of proverbs, if you would. [00:11:53] Chapter 14, verse number 31. The Bible says, he that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his maker, but he that honoreth him, that is his maker, hath mercy on the poor. [00:12:11] You see that? He that honoreth the Lord honoreth his maker, hath mercy on the poor. So one way you can honor God with your substance is by helping those who are poor. Now, we got to say right here, and I've said this before, I stick with it. I believe it's a fact there are very few poor people in America, truly poor, biblically poor people in America. There are people that might not have what you have, but that does not mean they're poor. And that, of course, just because somebody's literally not starving doesn't mean you can't help them. But what I'm saying is you don't have to feel obligated to give to help every person that's asking for money. People absolutely use that for ill to support drug habits and alcohol and things like that. So you just got to be careful. But on the other hand, the contrast to that is there are people who are in need. [00:13:08] Ironically, though, and you'll probably agree with me by experience, what we usually find is the people that need the most are the people that aren't saying a lot about it. That's often the case. [00:13:19] And we've also seen, as we've studied the scripture in different places, that for a believer in a church setting, that the people of God have priority when they have needs rather than just the public at large. And, of course, as much as we have opportunity, let's do good to all men, especially those who are of the household of faith. Look at proverbs 22, verse two. [00:13:48] Proverbs 22, verse two. The Bible says, the rich and the poor. The rich and poor meet together. [00:13:56] The Lord is the maker of them all. [00:14:01] You see that? [00:14:05] See, by giving, when we combine these verses and the principles in these verses, we see that when we give to those who are poor, in other words, because we have to give, we assume, well, we're doing okay. And I know that's not always the case, but we're doing okay. So we're helping those who are having a hard time. Okay. But by doing that, what we're acknowledging is there's not really any difference between that person and this person. There's a difference, maybe in circumstance, financially, but God is the maker of the rich and the poor. You see, there's an equality there. There's an equality there, and this is a biblical principle. This is not an american principle. [00:14:47] The fact that God makes the rich and the poor means that their value is equal before God. [00:14:54] This is a biblical principle. And this is why oppressing the poor is a reproach to God, because God is the maker of that person as well as the maker of me. God made us both. [00:15:09] God made us both. Look at proverbs 19 and you'll see a new aspect to this. [00:15:22] Proverbs 19, verse 17. The Bible says, he that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord. [00:15:32] And notice what it says in the second part. And that which he hath given, will he pay him again? Now, just note that. We'll come back to that in a little bit. But it says, he that pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord. You know what that tells us? That tells us that when we honor God with our substance by means of helping those who are poor, God counts it as giving to him. [00:15:57] Right? [00:15:58] So if Miss Judy say, for instance, Miss Judy was poor and I gave her money, the Lord is behind Miss Judy and the money is actually being given to him. That's what it says, lendeth to the Lord. So the Lord is looking at us and he sees what we're doing, and he's noting it as if we gave it to him. And so by doing that, we are honoring God. It's a way we actually give to God. You say, well, I'm giving it to miss Judy. Yeah, but that's not how the Lord's seeing it. [00:16:29] That's not how the Lord's seeing it. Look at second Corinthians, chapter eight, if you would. We will be back in proverbs in a minute. But second Corinthians, chapter eight, two Corinthians, chapter eight and chapter nine deal with the subject of the church, the churches of Macedonia and Akaya. Macedonia is where we're at in acts, chapter 16. And Akaya is where Corinth is. And this is dealing with how the churches of Macedonia gave to the poor saints of Jerusalem. Remember? Poor saints. Right. You see those same principles repeated? Okay, now when you look down at verse, let's see where we want to go. [00:17:19] Drop down to verse number, chapter eight, verse 19. Look at what it says. [00:17:26] And not only that, and not that only rather, but who also was chosen of the churches to travel with us. [00:17:36] Chosen of the church to travel with us with this grace, talking about the money they had provided for the poor saints, which is administered by us to the glory of the same Lord. [00:17:48] So the church had taken an offering a gathering and had designated that gathering to give to the poor saints that were in Jerusalem. And they sent some of their people to take that to the poor saint Jerusalem. And God says, that glorifies me. They're honoring the Lord with their substance, helping someone who is in need. Okay? And you go down to chapter nine, verse seven. Notice what this says. Every man. This is a familiar verse. Every man, according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give, not grudgingly or of necessity, for God loveth a cheerful giver. Now I want to ask you a question. To whom are they giving in these verses? [00:18:30] To whom are they giving? [00:18:33] They're giving it to other believers. [00:18:36] But notice, God is taking note as if it's being given to him. Read the next verse. And God is able to make all grace abound towards you, that ye always abounding, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work. So God noted that they had given it to them. And God says, okay, you've lent this to me. Now I'm going to take care of you. But notice in order for God to respond like that, that means God is accepting it as if you've given it to him. [00:19:04] All right? So the one way we can honor God with our substance biblically is by giving to those who are in need. [00:19:15] Okay? [00:19:17] Second thing is by giving to God's work. [00:19:20] Now, I want to show you something. Go back to Genesis. [00:19:24] I want to show you a few principles here. Chapter four. [00:19:33] Genesis, chapter four, verse three is the very first time that someone brought an offering to God, gave God something. [00:19:41] The very first time someone gave God something. [00:19:47] And ironically enough, it was Cain. [00:19:51] And in process of time, it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. [00:19:59] Giving God an offering. Okay, this is kind of where we're going with this. Okay? He took of his substance. Now, in this day, they probably didn't have money yet because there were only four people on earth, but he took of his substance. That's why we have to understand, when you give offering, when you give something to God, it doesn't necessarily have to be money. There's other ways you can give to God as well. [00:20:24] But this is the first time that someone gives something, an offering to God. Now look at chapter 14, verse 18. This is when Abraham meets Melchizedek. [00:20:50] Chapter 14, verse 18. The Bible says, and Melchizedek, this king of Salem, brought forth bread and wine, and he was the priest of the most high God, and he blessed him and said, blessed be Abraham of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth. And he blessed the most. And blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he, Abraham gave him MeLchizeDek. Tides of all. ABrAHAm just came out of a battle. [00:21:22] AbRaHAm has spoils. ABRaham has all these things. In other words, God has just delivered AbRaHAM, right? [00:21:32] He meets MeLCHiZEDeK, which is by many believe that MELCHIZEDek is a pre incarnate appearance of Christ. And that's probably a good idea. [00:21:41] And so ABRAHAM, of his own free will, gives MeLChIzEDek a 10th of everything he had. [00:21:53] Of his own free will, he gave. Now we're going somewhere with this, but this is the first example of tithing in the BiblE, where a servant of God of his own free will gives one 10th of those things that he had. But he does so in this context as a matter of thanksgiving for what God had done, how God had delivered him in this battle in chapter 14. Now go to chapter 28. [00:22:26] Chapter 28, verse number. [00:22:36] This is here, JaCOb, before he even gets to where RAchel and Leah are. Of course, JaCob, he's a scoundrel at this point. He hasn't gotten everything right with the Lord. But here's what we see here. Verse 20. And JaCOb vowed of owl saying, if God will be with me and will keep me in this way, that I go and will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then shall the lord be my God. And this stone which I have set for a pillar shall be God's house. And of all that thou shalt give me, I will surely give the 10th unto thee. [00:23:14] So abraham gave MELCHIZEDEK, who is christ. He gave him a 10th of his substance. Now, does ChriST need it? No. OKAY, JACOB, he says, I'm going to offer to God. If, assuming all these things happen and God is faithful to me, when all this is over, as a matter of thanksgiving to God, I'm going to give God a 10th of all that I have. All right, so this is also a free will offering to God. [00:23:47] These are the two times that you see tithe in the book of Genesis. They're both free will offerings, and they're both done in thanksgiving to God. In other words, they are voluntarily honoring God with their substance. And so you start to see a pattern here. Now, when you get to the law, later in the book of numbers, you'll see that God commands the tithe to Israel. It as a matter, if you look at it, it's kind of like a tax. It's kind of like every year or every three Years, they were to gather of all the stuff that they had grown. They were to gather it together and they were to. In other words, God had blessed them. The idea is the same. God had blessed them already. [00:24:39] They had gathered all of these goods in from their farming and animals and all that stuff. And so they set 10% aside to give to God. Now, God commanded them to do it, but the idea is they had already gotten all this stuff, so it was still a matter of thanksgiving where it should be. [00:24:56] And so they brought this to the lord, to the temple. And the idea is, does anybody know what the tithe in Israel was to be used for? [00:25:06] Where'd it go? [00:25:08] What's that exactly? It went to support the Levites, and then their tithe of that went to support the priests because they didn't have any inheritance in the land of Canaan. So basically, the tithe was given to them to support the work of God. So the levites could maintain the temple, right. And then their tithe could maintain the priests so that the work of God there would perpetuate. This is the principle we're seeing here. [00:25:40] So one way you can honor God with your substance is to give it to God for the work of God. [00:25:48] This is also a biblical concept, that money is used then, and the same is true here. When you give money to the church, here it is used to carry on the work of God, both physical and in the means of the spiritual work as well. [00:26:08] And here's a little thing that kind of messes up everyone's theology a little bit. I guess there were times when the tithe, God commanded them to bring their tithe every third year and to gather it and travel to Jerusalem and then eat it. [00:26:26] Not to give it, but to eat it. But either way, that was what God commanded it. But it was set aside to honor God. That's the point. Set aside to honor God. The third way you can honor God with your substance is by giving to those that are preaching and teaching the gospel. Giving to those that are preaching and teaching the gospel. Look at Philippians, chapter four. [00:27:04] Philippians four, verse number 16. [00:27:09] Paul speaking to the philippian church. Ironically, we're going to be in act 16, which is where Paul first goes to Philippi this morning. And it says in verse 16, for even in Thessalonica, you sent once and again unto my necessity, not because I desire a gift, but I desire fruit that may abound to your account. Now, notice that. [00:27:32] So Paul says, the church at Philippi sent once and again two times to Paul, who's preaching the gospel, to sustain him and support him. And the Bible says that God counts that all the fruit that Paul gains, like in his ministry, spiritual fruit, God counts it to them. In other words, God's not just looking at, well, party a is giving money to party b. No, God says, party a is giving money to God, which is then being used by party b. And because it was given to God, for God's preacher that's preaching the gospel, the fruit that he has, God is going to reward that person. So that means that God is. [00:28:16] God is receiving this or counting this as something given to him. Look at verse number 18. The Bible says this, but I have all and abound, I am full, having received of epaphroditis the things which are sent from you. An odor of a sweet smell. Notice the language here. A sacrifice, acceptable, well pleasing to God. Who did they give this money to? They gave it to Paul. But God says this is just like Cain and Abel's offering. Well, Abel's offering back in Genesis, chapter four, it was ultimately to God. Isn't it amazing that you can give to God, you can give to something that honors God and God counts it. It has a dual effect. [00:29:04] It has a dual effect because you're giving it to that person to honor God, but God's receiving it at the same time. [00:29:12] And this is also why we have to be very careful at our church to make sure that the money that we spend is spent to honor the Lord, because that's why we all give it. We don't give it to spend at our leisure. We give it to honor God. Now, sometimes honoring God means we have fellowships and do fun things, and that's fine, but we have to be careful that it's not misused because that's the purpose for which it is given. [00:29:38] But here, coming up in April, we're going to have a mission conference. [00:29:42] And this third point about honoring God is going to be in the forefront because we're going to be giving directly to missionaries as a way to honor God with our substance. Right? And God's going to see that. And the Lord is going to note it. [00:30:01] The Lord is going to note it. [00:30:04] You see, one of the reasons we honor the Lord with our substance is because that wherever our substance goes, so our heart follows. [00:30:16] Now look at Luke, chapter twelve. [00:30:29] Luke, chapter twelve, verse 33. [00:30:53] Verse 33 says, sell that ye have and give alms. Alms is that's given to the poor. Okay, so we've covered that. Sell that ye have and give alms. Provide yourselves bags which wax not old. A treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. All right, stop. Now, this, I'm sure, reminds you of Matthew six. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth. Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. Right? So that principle. But how do you lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven? [00:31:25] According to this? It's how you use your substance. [00:31:29] The picture here is that we can take our money and we can put it in the bank and let it accumulate, and that's treasures upon the earth. [00:31:38] A few bad days on the stock market. [00:31:41] Now, again, that doesn't mean saving money is bad. This is also we're going to see in proverbs. But there's a balance. These two things are kept in tension, okay? Because there's things that have to be. You have duties, and I have duties and responsibilities toward our family and things like that that we have to consider as well. But the idea is amassing wealth on earth by saving our money versus amassing wealth in heaven by spending our money. That is honoring the Lord with our substance. That's what we're talking about here. This is what it's saying. Why verse number 34, for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. It is a fact of human nature. Wherever our money is, that's where our heart is. [00:32:28] So in a way, you can control where your heart is by how you spend your money. [00:32:35] Where you spend your money is determined by where your heart is with the Lord. Yes, that's true. The priorities, right? The values. [00:32:43] But conversely, how you spend your money, also, it's tied to where your heart goes after it. [00:32:52] And that's why you and I, all of us, should be invested. I know that's like one of the most abused words these days, right? [00:33:01] It really means spend. But in this case, it is true. That's why you and I should be invested in God's work. And God's work, because by being invested in it, our heart is in it. We say, oh, I'm for it, I'm for it, but I won't give any money toward it. Well, there's a contradiction there. There's a contradiction there. Listen, everything I'm saying includes me. [00:33:29] Everything I'm saying includes me. [00:33:31] So I'll say one more thing, and we'll conclude if you go back to proverbs, chapter number three, verse number nine, the Bible says, honor the Lord with thy substance and with the first fruits of all thine increase the first fruits. You know what's interesting about the first fruits is when the first fruits come in, you don't know how much you're going to have, right? [00:34:05] When you go out to harvest a field and you take the first fruits, you don't know how that whole harvest is going to go, but you don't have to because you're doing it by faith. [00:34:18] Here's what giving the first fruits. So the tithe. When we talk about a tithe, you can only give the tithe when you know the total, right? You know the total. You have $100. You give ten because you know you have 100. But the first fruits is giving the beginning as a matter of priority, not knowing what the final amount will be. [00:34:41] Here's what the giving the first fruits means. It means placing priority on the things that please God and honor God above other considerations in how we spend our money. [00:34:54] And it also means we exercise faith that the promise that God makes, which is coupled with the promise about honoring substance, not only in proverbs and other places, too, that promise of God's provision will sustain us, even though we don't yet know what the full substance will be. [00:35:15] Now, when I got married, to be honest with you, I didn't know a lot about this stuff. [00:35:22] I mean, I was 19. [00:35:26] I was one month past one month, and no, two days shy of one month past my 19th birthday. [00:35:34] I didn't know how to manage money like, I had been in church and stuff, but not that long. [00:35:39] And that's just not something that we discussed at my house just prior budgeting and all that stuff. [00:35:46] You know what we started to do, and this is all me. It's not Allison. This is all me is we started spending money is, oh, we need to go grocery store. You spend money. We need to go, oh, you need this. You just go buy it. Go buy it. Go buy it. Had no budget, in other words, because there was no budget, you know what that means? There was no priority. [00:36:03] It was. You were just driven by the hunger pains of your belly, essentially. And we got into a bad place financially where we couldn't pay our rent in full. So I went to my landlord, a good man, a good, godly man, and I told him about it, and he worked with us, and he let me kind of get caught up, but it was kind of a crisis moment. [00:36:26] And then some people gave us some advice. And so what we did is we reoriented our whole financial situation and put it on a budget with the envelopes the envelope method, that's what we did. And I didn't make that much. I mean, we was po, man. We was po. [00:36:44] But because I put it on a budget, you know what I was able to do? [00:36:48] I was able to prioritize giving to God. [00:36:52] And so when I got my check, everything was going to go in a certain place, but the amount for the Lord that I was going to give to God from my heart as a matter of priority and faith. Because of this principle that came out of the top, the first fruit. Right. You know what happened? We stopped having financial problems. Now, that doesn't mean we had money, but we had all our obligations met. [00:37:24] It's just a matter of priority. But see, when I was doing it the first way, the Lord wasn't the priority. The first fruits, you see? So that's part of what the first fruits is about. [00:37:35] The first fruits of all, thine increase. Lord, I don't know how much I'm going to get, but you are able to take care of me, so I'm going to give it to you first. [00:37:46] And that's a biblical principle. It's a biblical principle and it works. Yeah, I've proven that, and I'm sure you have, too. Let's pray.