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Jun 03, 2018

Financial Wisdom

Passage: Proverbs 22:1-2

Speaker: Brian Land

Series: Proverbs

Category: Grace Brevard

Keywords: fear, hope, idols, money, wisdom

We all spend our lives pursing satisfaction, love, peace, acceptance and value. For the rest of our Proverbs series we will unpack the “idols shell game” where we lift us various shells in the hopes of finding this valued treasure of life. We begin with money, one of the most enticing and devious shells. Money is the subject of about 10% of Jesus’ recorded teachings, more than heaven and hell, because of it’s universal timeless lie that it will protect and provide for us like only God can. Money in itself is a gift, not a curse, and is made to be used as a tool of love. But, like all gifts, we are tempted to use it for self-centered satisfaction, bloating ourselves rather than serving The Kingdom. As we realize that we’ve already received the greatest inheritance of all by being adopted by the King into this Divine Family because of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, we will begin to live open-handed lives, trusting in God’s provisions over our own.

Worship Order

Call To Worship: Psalm 136:1-4,23-26

Songs: Forever, Come Thou Fount, God I Look to You, Cornerstone

Reading: Matthew 6:19-21 ESV

Central Text: Various Proverbs on Money (see Notes)

Sermon Title: Financial Wisdom

Illustrations: 

Response:

Benediction: Numbers 6:24-26 ESV

Related Scriptures:

2 Corinthians 8:9

2 Corinthians 9:6-8

James 1:16-17

Ecclesiastes 5:10, 15, 19

1 Timothy 6:10-11

Matthew 6:25-34

Discussion Questions & Applications:

  1. Are you more prone to saving or spending? How is it that both of these can be a sign of over-dependence on money?
  2. How can money and possessions be a gift as well as a curse?
  3. What does it mean to be a good steward?
  4. The very word “steward” implies that we are taking care of somebody else’s valuables. How would understanding (believing) this change how possessive we are of “our” resources?
  5. Why is it hard to be generous? (the answer to this will reveal what we are hoping money/possessions will accomplish for us as well as what we believe about God’s generosity).
  6. How does the Gospel reveal an outrageously generous God who has given more than we could ever imagine? Knowing this, why is it still hard to trust that God will continue to provide for us (or is it just not trusting that He will provide in the WAY we want him to provide?)?

Quotes:

  • John D. Rockefeller, an Ohio native, started Standard Oil.  Rockefeller was at one point the world’s richest man and first ever American billionaire.  Considering he was a billionaire in the early 1900’s he is still considered as the richest person in modern history.  When a reporter asked him, “How much money is enough?” He responded, “Just a little bit more.”
  • “I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc, is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditure excludes them.”  - Mere Christianity
  • Money can’t buy happiness but I’ve never seen anybody crying on a jet ski
  • Whoever dies with the most toys...wins (or the anti-quote: “...still dies.”)
  • NOT -- “Money is the root of all evil”
  • There are two ways to have enough money: one is to acquire more; the other is to desire less. - G.K. Chesterton
  • It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the [help] of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule. - Gandalf (The Return of the King)

Sermons & Articles

How Money Makes Us an Orphan by Timothy J. Keller

Luke 12:22-34

Five Conclusions About Material Possessions by Andy Naselli

Making Space: Money, Givers, Getters, and Grace by Jeff Vanderstelt

Proverbs 3:9 

“How much land does a man need?”--a famous short story by Leo Tolstoy

Media:

6.03.18 Album