One of the most complete teachings on money is found in Prov. 30:8b-9. What these verses show is that money itself is really neutral. Money is neither good nor bad; it is our attitude toward money that is the problem. If we have too much money we might begin to think that we have all we need and therefore we don’t need to trust God for anything. With too much money we run the risk of turning away from God and simply trust in our wealth, or in our ability to create wealth, but there is also a danger when we have too little money.
Proverbs 30 also says if we don’t have enough to live on we might become so desperate that we would steal. Let’s broaden that out and understand that having too little money could also lead us to cheat or lie or engage in other unethical dealings to get more money, but it is not just our actions that can get compromised, our attitudes can as well. With too little money we have to watch our heart and make sure we don’t become bitter toward God or jealous of others. Poverty can cause us to compromise our honesty and integrity in thought and deed as much as greed can, so there is a danger in having too much money and a danger in having too little, which really means that we need to watch our attitude towards money at all times.
Whether we have too much money, or too little, when money becomes the focus of our lives – we actually being to lose our lives, that’s what we see in Proverbs 1:19. The principle here is that if our focus and pursuit in life is simply to get more money and more stuff, then we will lose the things that are most important to us like our family and friends. Maybe you have seen people who have sacrificed relationships and even their health in their pursuit of riches and here’s what’s really sad, even if we were to gain it all, even if we were to amass great wealth in this world, the proverbs remind us that all this wealth is fleeting, it simply doesn’t last. Proverbs 23:4-5. The economy of the last few years has certainly taught us this. What we have one day can all be gone the next, so we can’t place our security in our money, stocks, IRA’s and pension programs – while it is important to plan for the future, we also need to make sure our faith and trust is in God alone. So the underlying truth we need to remember about money is that it can never be the focus of our lives because the love of money will lead us to wanting more and it is that kind of greed that will rob of us of life and relationships.
Instead of always wanting more, the attitude that the proverbs encourage us to have is contentment; look again at Proverb 30:8-9. Are we content with what God has given us? There are signs all around us that we are not content and the clearest sign of this is the amount of debt that the average American carries today. When you look at credit card statistics, there is mixed news. The good news is that 40% of credit card holders carry less that $5,000 in debt, but the bad news is that 37 % of credit card holders carry more than $10,000 in debt. Anyway you look at, one of the things we begin to see about ourselves is that we seem to want more and we want it now. In other words we aren’t content with what we have so we buy things today whether we can afford them or not. This burden of debt creates its own financial stress, job stress and family stress which can cause us to either work more or buy more, but the cycle just continues.
So what the proverbs clearly tells us is that we need to make sure that money is not the focus of our lives and that we learn to be content with what we have at this moment and not become consumed with wanting more and more. We need to see our money and wealth and resources as a gift from God and we need to give thanks to God for all we have and we need to trust God for all that we will need in the future. Getting our hearts right toward money is an issue of faith not finances, and it is this faith issue that we need to have in place before we can turn to any financial principles.
Once our heart is right toward money, we can turn to the proverbs and find 3 basic principles on how to use our money. Now let me be clear that these are broad financial principles that have to do with how God wants us to use our money, but I am convinced that if we will follow them, it will lay the groundwork for other financial steps that can help us no matter where we are in our financial life. The first principle is this: give to God.
Proverbs 3:9-10. We are to honor God with our wealth by giving God the first-fruit of our crops. We are to give God the first and the best portion of our wealth – not what is unused and left over. Now we give to God not because He demands it but because it should be a natural response of a thankful and faithful heart. If you go back to Genesis 4:2 it says that in time Cain and Able offered the first and best portions of their harvest to God. Cain brought forth fruit from the soil and Able brought forth part of the fat from the first born of his flocks. God had not called Cain or Able to do this, he didn’t demand they make an offering and there was no law given at this point directing them to do this, they simply did it as a response to God’s goodness and grace. They did it to say thank you.
In many ways it is this offering of Cain and Able that is the foundation for the worship of God. There were no worship services at this point, no organized devotion of God, no hymns to sing, or scriptures to read, or prayers to pray, so worship was really just one thing – offering. So the most ancient ritual of our worship service today and maybe the most important part of worship isn’t the prayers, or scripture, or hymns or even the sermon – it’s the offering. The offering is the heart of worship and every time we give a portion of our lives to God we are taking part in an ancient practice of worship that literally goes back to the beginning of creation. It is my hope that we can see the offering that way and learn how to make giving ourselves to God the true heart of worship.
Now over time, God has given more direction on how to give and how much to give and the principle that God established is called a tithe. The tithe is first mentioned with Abraham, who after being victorious in a battle gave a tenth of the spoils of the war to the priest Melchezidak as a way to honor God. Later on Jacob gave a tithe to God and then God set the tithe into law as part of the offerings that were to be made at different times of year. Now in the New Testament we are set free from the law, so the tithe is not a commandment, but it continues today to be a sound guiding principle for us to consider. Giving 10% to God is a biblical and intentional and consistent way for us to give ourselves to God as a way of saying thank you, and it shows God that we are willing to trust him more than we trust ourselves. The tithe says, God all I have has come from you, so I give this offering back to you in faith, and I trust that you will continue to provide for all my needs
I know many of you do tithe and you can testify to how God has always provided for you as you have done this. I knew that when I started as a pastor in Altoona that there would be no way I could stand here and hold it up tithing as a biblical principle for others to follow unless I did it, so for 17 years I have tithed to the church and then given beyond that to local missions, ministries, charities and friends who serve as missionaries. During these 17 years I can say that I have never been in need financially, in fact I have always had more than enough to live on and instead of stopping at 10%, God challenges me to even move beyond the tithe to give more. As I have given to God, God has always been more than faithful and returned more to me.
The second guiding principle to biblical money management that Proverbs gives us is hat we are to give to the poor. Proverbs is full of saying calling us to care for and give to the poor. I’ve listed several of them for you, but let’s just look at 19:17. Kindness here isn’t a smile or a helpful word, it is an action and it is giving. Over and over again God calls us to care for the poor, and there are many ways we can do this. We can give to the poor in our own community through support of the FaithCentre, and the food bank. We can help working families by supporting child sponsorship programs at our own Daycare and Playschool. We can help the working poor around the world by buying fair trade coffee and chocolate, we can support world hunger agencies or any number of missions through the church. There are people in need all around us and all around the world and God calls us to reach out in ways that will help them and even during tight financial times, this kind of giving needs to be part of our money management program.
The third guiding principle we see in proverbs is the call to give generously. Proverbs 11:24-25. When we are generous in our giving to God and others, we will prosper and it won’t just be in the area of finances that we will prosper, we will prosper in all of life. When we are generous we will feel good about ourselves and the reason we will feel good is because when we give generously we are reflecting the heart of God. Our God is a generous God. Just look at Communion – God gives his all everything he has here. In communion God gives us his love; he gives us grace and forgiveness, and even the gift of eternal life. God gives all he has here in the gift of his son Jesus and when we are generous, when we are giving all we can - we are following in the footsteps of God and God will bless us in many different ways.
When it comes to being generous, the example set for me came from my Grandmother who when it came to leaving a tip in a restaurant soften aid, I have never felt bad for leaving too much, but I have often felt bad for leaving too little. Being generous means never feeling bad because we gave too little of our money, or our time, or our service, or our love.
I am convinced that if we get our heart right toward money and then follow these 3 basic principles of giving to God, giving to the poor and those in need and giving generously, then may of the other financial issues we deal with will begin to fall into place. Things may not turn around over night – but we will be moving in the right direction, and when we move in God’s direction, God will bless us and fill us with life.
