Money Part 2

Good morning! Today we come to the conclusion of our topical series exploring the wisdom of the book of Proverbs. This is also the second part of a two-part message on Biblical guidelines for wisdom in the area of finances. I want to start with a recap of some of the things we talked about in Part I, which we actually covered two weeks ago. (Last week was our monthly communion and sharing time and John spoke about hard hearts vs. hearts soft to the things of the Lord.)

Two weeks ago we looked at a variety of passages not only in Proverbs but also in the teachings of Jesus and came up with the following main points:

I. Seek the Lord in your financial decisions. – We talked about guarding against compartmentalizing our faith with regards to financial decisions. In every significant financial decision, we should pray and seek Biblical wisdom. This is simple to say but can be difficult to do, particularly if we have built up a habit of making financial decisions on our own.


II. Humble yourself in the area of finances. – The way we naturally think and act in the area of finances is significantly impacted by our experiences growing up. Some people are driven to save every penny because of traumatic changes that happened when they were children; others are driven to the other extreme, over eager to give their children everything they never had. The truth is we all have blind spots or “emotional baggage,” or whatever you want to call it. Being aware of our weaknesses and bringing them to God is the essence of humility.

a. The Lord sees our financial decisions. – Remembering this helps us to stay humble. The urge to buy on impulse, for example, can be lessened if we remember that God is aware of all of our actions, financial and otherwise.

b. Seek godly counsel. – I think this is an essential part of humility. God does not call us to be Christians in isolation, but in community, and one of the great blessings of such a community is that it gives us an opportunity to build into one-another’s lives. But we must be humble and open in order to benefit; we all should seek counsel from one another.

III. Worship the Lord through your finances. –Proverbs 3:9 which says to “honor the Lord with your wealth.” Giving to God is first and foremost an act of worship. It acknowledges Him as the source of our money and possessions and it prevents us from instead worshiping our stuff. We should be joyful givers, worshiping the Lord through our giving.

IV. Count the true costs of pursuing wealth and buying possessions. – Choosing a lifestyle indistinguishable from our culture puts us in a position in which we are constantly being pulled to think just like our culture. This is not to say that modern conveniences are all bad, but we need to be sober-minded and careful to not let our gizmos or our excessive pursuit of wealth change us or steal the hearts of our children. The threat is very real. (We opened our Proverbs series with a few fortune cookies that happened to – accidentally? – contain some wisdom. Here is one more: The cost of something is what you give up to get it.)

These are the areas we looked at two weeks ago. Let’s continue on and focus in on some specific areas of finances that are addressed in Proverbs. The first of these is debt. The following proverb directly speaks to the issue of borrowing money.

The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender. – Prov. 22:7

This proverb is like a “state of nature” – it is saying, “This is how it is.” Well, let me ask, “Is this how it is?” Absolutely!

Unless you are one of our younger listeners here, what I am about to say you probably all know. But I am going to go through it because it really does validate this first proverb. When you borrow money to pay for something, the lender makes money through the interest payment you must pay in addition to paying back the loan.

If at some point you stop paying back the loan, the lender can take whatever you have offered as security for the loan. In the case of a house, it is that house; in the case of a car, it is that car. And if the value of the security is less than what you still owe, they can go to court to get the difference from you. The court has the power to force you to pay it back; for example they can require that a portion of each of your paychecks goes automatically to the lender. If you are overwhelmed by excessive debt, in America you can declare bankruptcy but this is no walk through the park either. Not all debt is forgiven through bankruptcy (student loan debt, for example), and bankruptcy affects your ability to do many things for a significant number of years. Now, if you stop making payments on a loan but the item is worth more than the remaining amount of the loan, do you get the difference back when they take back the item? No.

Most average Americans today are in significant amounts of debt for what amounts to almost their entire lives. This means that for almost their entire lives, they are paying interest to lenders. This makes the lenders richer and the borrowers poorer.

As the borrower works throughout his life, you can think of it this way: a portion of every one of his paychecks goes to his lenders. In effect, he is working for his lenders. I think it is helpful to actually calculate how much of your workweek goes to paying your lenders. (This would be any of the following that applies to you: credit cards, car loans, student loans, mortgage, medical debt, and so on.) If you work 40 hours per week, how many of those hours are you working for your lenders?

This can be a powerful motivation to get out of debt. If you pay 40% of your paychecks to lenders, think of it this way: you work every Thursday and Friday for your lenders. You are their servants two days a week. You have to live off what you make Monday through Wednesday. Truly the rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender!

The Book of Proverbs also speaks of those who tie in their lot with others with regards to debt. This could be through a joint loan you and one or more other people make together, or it can be that you are helping someone else out by agreeing to pay if they don’t. Is this a good idea? According to Proverbs, absolutely not! Here are some verses that speak to this:

Do not be a man who strikes hands in pledge or puts up security for debts; if you lack the means to pay, your very bed will be snatched from under you. – Prov. 22:26-27

To strike hands in pledge is equivalent today to cosigning for a loan. Bad idea! There is also this passage:

He who puts up security for another will surely suffer, but whoever refuses to strike hands in pledge is safe. – Prov. 11:15

And then there is this passage, even more vivid:

My son, if you have put up security for your neighbor, if you have struck hands in pledge for another, if you have been trapped by what you said, ensnared by the words of your mouth, then do this, my son, to free yourself, since you have fallen into your neighbor’s hands: Go and humble yourself; press your plea with your neighbor! Allow no sleep to your eyes, no slumber to your eyelids. Free yourself, like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from the snare of the fowler. – Proverbs 6:1-5

It is interesting to me that although our culture parts ways from the wisdom of the Bible in many areas, in this particular area, a good number of people are very hesitant to cosine a loan even today. However, it does still happen frequently; one of the most common situations is that a husband and wife are jointly listed on several loans but later separate. This type of situation can cause all kinds of problems.

The other place this happens all the time is with small businesses. A small business may become an “Inc.” or an “LLC” but the bank will often still ask the owners to sign the loan personally. Because in our legal system such a business is like a distinct “person,” an owner who signs a loan stating that he is personally responsible is in reality cosigning that loan, the very thing that is being warned against in these passages. And many, many people have borrowed huge sums of money for their businesses, had their businesses not achieve the level of profit they were predicting, and as a result ended up personally in a severe financial crisis.

So is it wrong to borrow money at all? No. The Bible never says that it is a sin to borrow. In Deuteronomy, there were rules for the Israelites about lending to one another. This is a fascinating study in and of itself, but if I go into it now, I’ll never recover. Let me just say that the fact that there were these rules shows that borrowing was allowed. Similarly, Jesus often spoke of borrowing and lending in his teachings and parables, so there is no reason to think that borrowing is forbidden.

But we should be both wise and cautious about borrowing money. With regards to this, I am reminded of Jesus’ words about the one who wants to build a tower:

Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ – Luke 14:28-30

Now, I should point out that this talk about building a tower is not Jesus’ point in this passage; His point comes a little later, and it has to do with understanding the cost of being a disciple before you say you are going to follow Christ. But He tells the story to His listeners because it is something they would all agree with; that is, it is “common sense.” (Today it would be uncommon sense, because so many don’t follow it.) But before you borrow to buy a house, for example, you should really run the numbers and make sure you can comfortably make those payments along with all of your other responsibilities and also pay for everything that goes with having a house: utilities, repairs, taxes, insurance, and so on.

Of course, we should also practice the things we talked about two weeks ago: Bring it to the Lord in prayer. Be humble. Seek counsel. And count the “other” costs – could you get by with a smaller house or one in a less fancy area? How would a higher versus a lower payment affect your stress or how much time you must spend at work? And of course many of these questions apply to renters as well as owners.

Now, the various Christian financial ministries state that debt for a house is different than debt for a car, or a big-screen TV, or a pizza. They make the points that (1) when you live in your home, you don’t have to pay rent, and (2) homes don’t depreciate (go down) in value like cars, big-screen TVs, or pizzas. These are true, but as many people have learned that last few years, you can still lose a ton of money on a home. You can also get “stuck” if the value of home drops more than the amount of money you have put in it; in this case, unless you want to ruin your credit rating, you will not only not be paid to sell your house, you will have to put money in to sell it! One of the reasons going into debt for cars, big-screen TVs, or pizza is a bad idea is that this is even truer in this case. Cars depreciate very rapidly, especially new cars. Big-screen TVs, even more so! And only once in my life have a seen someone successfully sell a used pizza. It was someone in this church who did it! But I’m not going to tell you who it was.

Another reason it is unwise to go into debt for things like cars, big-screen TVs, or pizzas, is that there are cheaper alternatives. You can get a used car at almost any price range. And when you save up more money, you can upgrade to a better used car. As for big-screen TVs, you don’t need that at all. And the same goes for that pizza. Again, you are going to get poorer paying all that interest. Avoid debt and you won’t have to work several days a week for someone else.

And a third reason we should be wary of unnecessary debt is that it obligates us to do something in the future (keep making payments). But Scripture, common sense, and experience all tell us that we really don’t know what the future will hold.

Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth. – Prov. 27:1

This is reiterated in James.

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. – James 4:13-14a

This is true. What might happen tomorrow? Going further in that passage, James implies you might die. But you might also become injured and unable to work, or you might lose your job, or a loved one might need expensive medical care, and so on. John Farmer reminded us of this when he told us about his adventure with the giant tree limb last week. This week I had a bit of a similar adventure: Going out to take a walk, because dew was on the ground my shoes were slick, and maybe because God wanted to give me an illustration for this point in my sermon, I fell down the entire flight of stairs off of our deck. (I got some nasty bruises and think I rearranged my internal organs, but otherwise I am OK.) My point is that when we saddle ourselves with debt, a bad situation can become that much worse.

So how can we summarize this? I would say:

V. Use debt minimally, and don’t cosign.

The second area I want to look at today is the area of saving and investing and, in general, building wealth. Here is a proverb on this topic:

In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil, but a foolish man devours all he has. – Prov. 21:20

It doesn’t get much plainer than this. A wise person is one who doesn’t spend away all of his savings. He stores; he keeps some for the proverbial rainy day. In contrast is the person who doesn’t do this; this person is in deep trouble when that rainy day hits.

If someone has a steady income and yet does not save, there are only two things they can do: increase their income or reduce their spending. Neither is fun. Neither is easy. But, particularly if we are married, if we have a family, we have an obligation to do this, not for our own sake, but for the sake of those we love. Husbands are called to love their wives as Christ loved the church. That means dying to self for the sake of their families. It means going without.

Reducing spending will not only improve your financial situation, it will improve your walk with Christ as you learn more what it means to die to self. It will also improve your relationship with the members of your family, because learning to die to self is learning to love on a deeper level. Again, don’t make the mistake of separating areas of your life into categories. The decision to spend less can be one of the most spiritual things you can do.

So we need to learn to save. Next, I am going to look at a proverb that you may wonder how it applies today – don’t worry, we’ll figure it out together.

Be sure you know the condition of your flocks, give careful attention to your herds; for riches do not endure forever, and a crown is not secure for all generations. When the hay is removed and new growth appears and the grass from the hills is gathered in, the lambs will provide you with clothing, and the goats with the price of a field. You will have plenty of goats’ milk to feed you and your family and to nourish your servant girls. – Prov. 27:23-27

So what do we conclude from these verses? That we should all get a bunch of goats and sheep? Well, I did once get berated while standing in line at a supermarket buying multiple gallons of milk by a man who explained to me that I needed to buy a cow. He went on and on, explaining how much land I needed, what kind of cow to get, where you could get that kind, and so on. Maybe he was right; our family drinks insane amounts of milk. But no, I don’t think we all need to buy goats in order to take away the wisdom of these verses.

I think we can divide this passage into three parts. Permit me to substitute the word “investments” with “flocks” and “herds” and as we go on, I’ll tell you why I think we can do this. The first part of this passage says to know the condition of your investments, to pay attention to them. The second part of this passage says why: because cash (riches) will run out. Now we talked at the beginning how Proverbs are usually couplets, and I believe this verse about riches and a crown is the type of couplet where the second part is simply a restatement of the first part using different wording. I believe this because one of the meanings of the Hebrew word for crown, nezer, is stones of a crown, as opposed to the crown itself. So both are basically saying the same thing – that money or possessions that do not produce income will eventually run out if you use them.

But what about those goats and sheep? This is what the third, and longest portion of this passage is about. These things work for you. Goats and sheep multiply. And they can produce meat, and milk, and clothing, and you can sell the excess of both these products and of the animals themselves. (Plus they keep your lawn nicely mowed.) The point here is that this is an investment.

Are goats and sheep the only investment? No. There are a variety of ways to invest today. Now, a general principle of investment is that if you have to pay other people to do lots of the work, your investment will have a significantly smaller return than if you could do the work yourself. This is true for goats and sheep. If you don’t take care of your flocks yourself, if you hire people to do it, and you pay someone else for the use of his land, and so on, you might not make much money.

As a general principle this is true today as well. Buying mutual funds is kind of like this, but it is also the easiest way to invest. And it is an investment, because you are buying pieces of companies that produce things (just like the sheep and goats). Unless you have the time, the motivation, and the expertise, this may be the only kind of investing you can reasonably do. The more “hands-on” an investment is, the more critical it is that you do the first part of this passage, pay close attention to them and actively manage them.

Isn’t that a neat passage? One of the takeaways I get from it is that savings and investments are not the same thing; and if you only produce savings, you may run out. The other takeaway is that all investing requires some attention on your part, some knowledge, and the more “hands-on” it is, the more critical it is that you “keep on top of it.”

The next passage I think speaks powerfully to our culture.

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

What is haste, when it comes to investing? It includes buying something because a salesman told you a good story. It includes an appeal to greed, when someone tells you that you need to buy stock XYZ now because it is going to go up very soon and you will miss out. It includes buying something that sounds too good to be true (because it is). And it includes buying something because it went up in the past.

Haste also includes playing the lottery, or partaking in some other form of gambling and calling that your “investment plan.” Haste also means making purchases quickly and impulsively. I am vulnerable to this last one. When an appliance breaks and is beyond repair, I just want to replace it with minimum time and hassle. Sometimes I do not adequately look at what is available now and make less than the best decisions. I am like a number of other guys I know who, when they enter a store, measure success by how few minutes were spent inside it.

In contrast to all this is the diligent. Notice it says the plans of the diligent. Some of us might say, “Plan? What’s a plan?” The diligent have plans. They invest in what they understand and do not fall for the latest fad. They do a little research before they buy what they need. All of these things are signs of wisdom.

An inheritance quickly gained at the beginning will not be blessed at the end. – Prov. 20:21

Now, the NIV translates the word nakhala as an inheritance, but this word goes beyond an inheritance to describe any significant possession. This passage is not really limited to inheritances; it speaks of any sudden change in fortune in which a person suddenly becomes relatively wealthy. An example of this is lottery winners.

And so, what is the message of this verse? It is that this kind of sudden, unearned change in fortune usually goes badly. Now, we know this to be true of lottery winners; I have read story after story of how the typical lottery winner ends up worse off than they were before they won in only a handful of years.

On a purely pragmatic level, one big reason for this is that the skills needed to slowly and steadily build wealth are very closely related to the ones needed for managing and holding on to wealth.

How can we summarize these verses on investing and wealth-building? How about this?

VI. Learn to save and invest wisely.

Now, as we wrap up, I want to remind you of a principle we must not forget that is embodied in the New Testament, especially in the teachings of Jesus. Here is my final point:

VII. God’s economy is frequently upside down.

What do I mean by this? Well, look at this verse:

Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. – Luke 6:20-21

It is important to remember that there are two reasons for trials, two reasons for suffering, two reasons for challenges involving money. One of them is as we have been seeing in these proverbs, the situation in which a man does it to himself. But there is another reason, and that is because God is doing something. And in that second case, as it says in Luke 6, our struggles are God’s blessing.

Some of us are in life situations in which saving and investing are impossible. Whether the cause is our own mistakes or situations outside our own control or some combination of these, God does not expect you to do the impossible. If you are going through trials, God sees and He says you are blessed.

In addition, even when we contribute or, even more, completely cause our misfortunes, that does not mean that God is not at work within us; God is using these things, our weaknesses, to cause us to cry out to Him and let Him display His good work within us. As it says in I Cor. 1,

Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.” – I Cor. 1:27-31

Why do I remind you of this? Because neither God’s love for us nor His desire to use us to build the Kingdom is based on our financial resources or our financial history. It doesn’t matter what mistakes we have made in the past. It doesn’t matter how much our income is or isn’t. The book of Proverbs is true; it shows us the way of wisdom, and going forward, we will have fewer trials – at least, fewer trials of our own doing – if we begin to humbly apply the teachings in this book. I highly encourage you to take to heart all of the teachings we have had from the book of Proverbs, and if you have missed any, to listen to them or read them online. And beyond this, I would highly encourage you to read from the book of Proverbs from time to time. If you apply what you read, you will be blessed.

But even more than this, I want to remind you that we are first and foremost Christians, people who have been bought by Christ. We serve Him. He is our master, our Father, our brother, our everything. And He loves us and seeks to take us Hand in hand through this crazy adventure of life whether we start from a place of wisdom or utter foolishness. As we grow in loving Him, trusting Him, and taking steps to follow Him, He will begin to take care of the really impossible stuff, including the changing of our deepest faults from within. And more than this, He will carry us into eternity, and there we will be like Him, and He will wipe away every tear, and we will be amazed at how much we will love Him.