Biblical Wisdom for Everyday Life: Money Reimagined

Pastor Fletcher teaches from Proverbs about money. Discussion points: Jesus wants to free us from the grip money has on our souls, having money will numb our felt need for God, the early church modeled simple living and radical generosity.

• See Transcript

  Preacher: We're in the middle of a series on the wisdom literature at the moment that we're calling life reimagined. And the wisdom literature is given to us by God in his word for us to imagine what the good life is like. It's this intentionally poetic section of your Bibles that is traditionally difficult to understand. I mean, a lot of these books require you to think hard and there's something to that, that you shouldn't have to be. It's not just a how-to manual. The Bible is not written as a manual of how-to.

  The Bible is a collection of different books and different genres that you really have to think about. And it all tells one cohesive story about how God created the world, but the world became broken because of sin. But the God sent his only begotten son Jesus Christ to live the life that we should live, die, the death that we deserve to die, be resurrected. And that all, all of history culminated in that moment. And now we're living on the other side of Jesus' life, death, resurrection, and ascension and we're waiting for him to return.

  So the Bible is the story of what God has done. It is not just a manual for how we live our lives. And so when we look at the wisdom literature, though, what we do find in the wisdom literature are some general teachings about how we can best live our lives. And we also see Christ in the Wisdom literature as we study it. Last week, we looked at the Book of Proverbs and I just did an overview of the book of Proverbs. The past several weeks have been major overview sermons. So I did an overview of Ecclesiastes, overview of the Book of Job. We've done a few Psalms this week. We've got Proverbs next week of Pal of Psalm.

  And, and so this week and we'll have some Proverbs in next week too. But last week, I, I did this overview of Proverbs and today I want to dig a little bit deeper into one area that the Proverbs are teaching us about. So last week, we learned that to live wisely, the key to living wisely according to the Proverbs. Wouldn't it be cool? This is what I've always wanted to do with the Proverbs just because it sounds cool. I just want to memorize a bunch of them, you know, and then like in any given situation, like, say I'm outside with my, my kids and we have a situation, I'm like, hey, the Proverb says this and then I just rattle off one of the Proverbs. And they're like, wow, you are so wise dad. And they're just, I just astound them with my wisdom. And that's how I've always read the Proverbs and thought about the Proverbs.

  But then last week I came to the realization that living by the Proverbs is not meant to be a memorization of all the Proverbs and then trying to live out each one. In fact, we'd be in trouble if we tried to do that. But it's looking for the common bread that goes through all of the proverbs, which is this idea of the fear of the Lord. And we're not talking about like fear like spooky. Ok. I'm not talking about like boo like Halloween fear. I'm talking about fear as in this respectful reverent awe before the Lord. And that is the thread. If you live your life with respect, a worship of the Lord love for him. A love that leaves you astounded a bit, then you will be a person of wisdom. And that's what the Proverbs teach us.

  And so when we read the Proverbs, we're looking for that thread and we found it. And so today, we're going to pick up on the proverbs and specifically the teaching of money because money is where wisdom hits the road. It's where the the rubber meets the road with wisdom, right? Because we might make decisions in our lives. But often times those decisions don't become real until we start spending our money on it. Right. It's like, how, how do I decide where I'm gonna spend my money? A lot of times we don't even think about this. Right. It's just kind of like, second, it's in the back of our head. We don't even think about. It's just, I'm gonna spend my money how I want.

  But really the way that you live can be often times be traced to how you spend your money. Just I invite you, open up your, your checking account, your credit card account, whatever it is. Look at the last 10 purchases you made and tell me what it tells you, tells me about yourself. What does it tell me about what you value about who you are? Oftentimes the way we spend our money defines what are our priorities.

  Now, no matter who you are, you've struggled with money in some way, in some form. I don't care if you grew up in the suburbs with a pool in your backyard or if you grew up in the projects, you know what it's like to struggle with money. Whether you're renting a garden level apartment, which let's face it. That's just a fancy basement. Ok. Garden level. You're not fooling me landlords or you can afford a single family home in this crazy place that we call Somerville, Massachusetts. All right. Props if you can do that, I got respect. Ok, you've, you've managed some money well or you inherited some somewhere along the way. You know what it's like to struggle with money though all of us do.

  Personally, just to give you some perspective. I grew up poor. I grew up in rural Mississippi between, I lived in Memphis for several years. Then we moved to rural Mississippi. the poorest community in the entire country and I was in the poor section of the poorest community of the entire country. My, one of my earliest memories is going to retrieve my father from a gas station back room that had an illegal slot machine in it as he gambled away all of our family's grocery money. When my parents divorced. When I was five, we went and lived with my grandparents which now I'm thinking back, I'm like that was humbling I'm sure for my mother to go back and move in with her parents, but they were always loving. I always had a loving home and let me tell you this. My mom did admirably admirably providing for every one of our needs. My mom provided and nurtured for us. Ton of respect.

  But I was an only child, single parent home. We were poor. I grew up in government housing, government subsidized housing. we, you know, I, I did not love wearing Walmart blue jeans to school or getting dropped off in my mom's 1984 Capri Classic. Anybody even know what that car looks like? It's terrible. Ok. It's a terrible looking car. The upholstery was falling off the ceiling. It rattled, like, like you knew she was coming because the brakes were squealing and the whole thing was rattling. And I was, like, eventually by the time I was old enough I was like, mom, please drop me off around the corner. I do not want my friends seeing me get out of this car. I'm so embarrassed by your vehicle.

  Ah, we, we grew up poor. And so you gotta imagine my culture shock when we moved to Boston because in Boston a lot of times people consider themselves poor when they vacation on the cape instead of Aruba. You know, it's like, that's poor here for a lot of people. But that's not the case, guys, we got it easy up here for the most part. Now that we do have poor with us also, we have people that struggle with finances, whether you grew up rich with a pool in your backyard. Like I said, that's my idea of rich. Ok. I don't know. I grew up, I grew up nowhere near a pool. Ok. We went to the city pool. I got dropped off. That was, that was all I had. If you grew up with a pool in your backyard, I'm like, you are rich. That's all I got. Or if you, if you grew up poor like me, you know what it's like to struggle with money.

  We all, we all do. We all struggle with it. It's, it's hard, it's hard. Partly due to how I was raised and partly due just a personal temperament. some of this is just who I am. I am a hoarder. I save everything and it's only been under my wife's careful tutelage that I have learned the secret of letting go of things that might be useful one day like that entire drawer filled with socks without a match. Finally getting rid of those or the drawer that has all the phone chargers of every phone that I've ever owned in my entire life that I might need one day. Finally getting rid of those things. I tend to be a saver, a hoarder.

  Our money and our things, they tend to have a hold on our hearts, do they not? They, do they have a hold on our hearts. We worry about money. We obsess about money. The most tense 30 minutes of our entire week, every week is the Friday. When I'm managing our budget on, you need a budget.com. That's my favorite website. I'm gonna bring it up again if you've never seen it, write it down. Go YNAB you need a budget. Ok YNAB.com. Go to a start a budget. You need one. This has not been paid for but you need a budget. It is just a free commercial. If you would like a referral code though, I can help you with that. We worry about money. We obsess about it. It's powerful.

  But friends Jesus wants to free you from the grip that money has on your soul. He wants to free you from the grip that money has on your soul. So we spend so much time talking about money thinking about, oh, we spend so much time thinking about money, not talking about money. It is a taboo topic to talk about yet. The Bible teaches us so much about money. Jesus, other than the, the Kingdom of God, Jesus talked about money more than anything else during his life. Why are we so afraid to talk about it? It is a cultural idol of our day.

  And many times I have fallen into this, I found myself afraid to speak to this powerful cultural idol because I'm afraid of the backlash. I'm afraid that I offend you if I just tell you what the Bible says, but that's not, that's not true. I'm afraid of that. That's a messenger from Satan. You guys, I know you, you're my church family. You want to hear what Jesus has to say on this, do you not? We want what Jesus has to say on this. We want the freedom from our, the grip that the money has on us. And the Proverbs has so much to say about money. Now, one thing that the proverb says all the time is what is the opposite of wisdom. It's being wise in your own eyes. Right. That's foolishness. Being wise in your own eyes.

  How many of us know people? I'm not saying that how many of us ourselves? Ok. It's always like we're, it's easier to see other people sin than our own. How many of us know people who are wise in their own eyes with their finances. I'm talking people buying lotto tickets in bulk. You know, maybe they're, they're buying one of those 1st 100 cyber trucks. If that's you, that's ridiculous. You are wise in your own eyes. Ok. I've seen several driving around. So it's very possible.

  The Bible talks about money all the time. The Proverbs talks about it all the time. In fact, Proverbs mentions wealth, money, poverty, prosperity or riches 130 times and 31 chapters. That's roughly like four or five mentions per chapter of money or riches or wealth. In fact, the very first chapter of Proverbs, once you get past the prologue is this long speech of a father to a son saying, hey, don't scam people don't rip people off. That's like the first thing that the Proverbs kicks off with.

  So the money, money is such a great way to apply wisdom because when we're wise with our money, we're probably living wise in all of the other areas of our lives as well. So I want to highlight three themes from the Proverbs for us today. The first one is how to gain money wisely. I don't have slides for you today. I'm sorry, I was late putting it together. The first is how to gain money wisely. The second is the dangers of money. And the third is how to spend money wisely. So how to gain money wisely. The dangers of money and how to spend money wisely.

  First, how to gain money wisely. Of the 130 proverbs about money, 40% of them are teaching us how to gain money wisely. And almost all of them have the same simple formula. They almost always say, work hard, plan diligently, do not rip other people off. That's, that's the basic message of Proverbs work hard. Not of all Proverbs, but that's like the basic wisdom of how to gain money wisely. Work hard plan wisely. Do not rip people off. Proverbs chapter 10 verse four, it says this a slack hand causes poverty. But that hand of the diligence makes rich a slack hand causes poverty. But the hand of the diligent makes rich.

  Chapter 12 verse 11, whoever works his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits, lacks sense. When I hear that I can't help but think about all the reels that are trying to tell me that passive income is the way to go. He who works his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits, lacks sense. That's, that's just tell me find a good job one that will provide for yourself and your family. If you have one and work it hard. Don't try to find get rich quick schemes.

  Chapter 13, verse 11, wealth gained hastily will dwindle. But whoever gathers little by little will increase it. So what's the wise way to, to gain in wealth? Work hard. Don't procrastinate. Make money little by little. Make a plan, plan for the future. You need a budget. You really do. Go to the web. I've saved thousands of dollars through the website. I promise you. It is like the right way to do this. It will help you. If you let me say this also, I've seen, I've been a pastor for a long time, so I've seen this a lot of times I see people who are like, hey, I'm really struggling in my budget. Can you and then who do they go ask for help when they're struggling with their budget? Rarely do they come to me? They're like, who's the richest person? I know I'm gonna go ask them how to, to make my budget.

  That's a really bad idea. Rich people don't know how to make a budget because, well, some of them do, they really do know how to penny pinch, you know, you need to. Well, here's what you need to find. You need to find the, the smartest poor person that you can find that really knows how to stretch it. You know, like someone that's lived it out and like, has really made more with less. That's who you need to find and ask them. Hey, how do I, how do I manage my money? And then they'll look at it and things that rich people see. And they're like, oh, that's reasonable. Be like, no, it's not stop doing that. You know, they'll tell you how it really is anyways. That's, that's Fletcher's 21:11. That's just my opinion.

  Proverbs 21 chapter five, the plans of the diligence lead surely to abundance. But everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty, make a plan. You gotta make a plan. If you don't have a budget, you gotta make a budget. That's, that's scripture for you basically make a plan is what it's saying.

  The Proverbs also highlight major foolish ways to gain wealth. Two major foolish ways to gain gain wealth. The first is through scamming through stealing through robbing others. And you know, I don't even have to preach on this because if you're sitting in church on a Sunday morning, you know that's wrong. Ok? You're not, I would be willing to bet that we're not the type of folks for the most part who are stealing Christmas presents off of other people's front porch. But if we are, I hope you get one of those that Mark Rober turned into a glitter bomb. So that when you open it, it just glitter all over your house and fart spray and all of the stuff that goes with it.

  My kids love those videos and we watch it, all the time. We've watched like four of them now and it's like, I'm always shocked at the people that do steal, they catch them on camera after they, they steal a package that's been engineered to, to throw glitter everywhere in their home and then spray fart spray everywhere and they have four cameras so they can see the people. And I'm always shocked by the people who actually steal the packages because it's not who you would think. Always. It's like a lot of times you see it and it's like parents with little kids. And I'm like, that's a bad example that you're setting for your kids. That's not how you should be doing this. But like I said, that's not the wise way. The scriptures talk about that a lot. I don't feel like I need to apply that a whole bunch to us. If you are doing that, I encourage you to repent and go back to the Lord. That's not a good idea.

  The other foolish way to gain wealth is one that we're much more familiar with. And the, the Proverbs have a lot to say about it is debt. The Proverbs have almost as much to say about debt as it does scamming people. That is this thing that's so normalized in our world today. I get a credit card advertisement every other day in the mail. And look, I'm gonna be real honest with you. I have credit cards. I pay off my credit cards at the end of every month. If you follow my wife on Instagram, you know, we have credit cards because we like to take advantage of the extra bonus miles that you can get through credit cards and we play that game to where we can travel for less money. And, but it's not a good idea if you aren't paying off your credit cards every month.

  The only way that's a good money is if you're gaming the system, but look, the banks usually win. They, they know like a casino, ok? They know if you put this out there for enough people, some people are gonna win like my wife and I, we know how to win the game but lots more people lose the banks know that they're gonna make money with credit cards and for a lot of us, we just don't even need to have them. We just need to cut them up because the credit card debt just isn't worth it.

  Proverbs chapter 22 verse seven, the rich rules over the poor and the borrower is the slave of the lender, the rich rules over the poor and the borrower is the slave of the lender debt is this thing that gives you the illusion of wealth, but it really just makes you a slave. It gives you the illusion of wealth. But really just makes you a slave.

  I could leave here today and go with all the credit cards that I have. I wouldn't even have to make a trip to the bank to get a loan. I have credit cards. I can go leave here today and live it up. I mean, guys, you got no idea, ok with money that I don't have, I do not have the money to do it, but I could go do almost anything I want to do after church today. But I would regret it because it would make me a slave to the lender for the rest of my life. They would eventually come and take all of my stuff and I would no longer ever have fun.

  A mortgage, I wanna say this, not all debts are the same. I do understand that a mortgage far better than, than credit card debt. It's almost unavoidable for most of us in today's world to have a mortgage. If you're gonna buy a house, it's almost impossible to pay in cash it. But I will say this as far as the proverb and you know, mortgages didn't exist when the Proverbs were written. Ok? Like the world was different. Like I don't think that they were out there buying houses like we were. But debt is to be avoided if at all possible if you're in debt, especially credit card debt and there's different there's different levels of debt. I just encourage you get out of it as quick as you can because you do not want to be a slave to the lender, be faithful with what you have.

  And here's really what it comes down to what Proverbs is teaching us gaining money wisely. It's like live within your means, live within your means. Make a budget. Watch a few Dave Dave Ramsey videos on youtube or something. If you don't know who that is, he'll yell at you a lot more than me about making a budget and sticking with it and getting out of debt. and some of us might need that. You might need to watch a few Dave Ramsey videos and hear that, but it's like if you can get out of debt and not be a slave to the lender that is wise with your money.

  All right. So that's a few ways to foolishly or wisely gain money. But the Proverbs also highlight number two, the danger of more money, the danger of more money. I just want to put like this that when I think about money, I think about handling money a lot like handling plutonium. All right. Plutonium is the fuel that we use for the nuclear power plants. And with, I think it might be uranium. I'm not sure. Am I no nuclear engineers in the house? OK. I'm gonna say plutonium because it sounds cool. All right. plutonium. And the thing with plutonium is, it's not bad. It's a good thing. It has a lot of power to it. We can power so many homes throughout a region with plutonium. But if you handle it without the proper precautions and without the proper armor on, it will rot your insides out. You will be dead before you even realize it. You, you will die from the inside out.

  And that is how money is. Money is morally neutral. Contrary to what many of people say the Bible does not say that money is the root of all evil. The Bible says the love of money is the roots of all kinds of evil. And that is true, but money itself is a moral neutral. But what the Bible teaches us about money is we have to be very careful because it is dangerous to our souls. And in much the same way that plutonium would be to us.

  CS Lewis says this, one of the dangers of having a lot of money is that you may be quite satisfied with the kinds of happiness money can give and so fail to realize your need for God. If everything seems to come simply by signing checks, you may forget that you are at every moment, totally dependent on God. And so according to CS Lewis, money works like a spiritual anesthetic, anesthesia and whatever that word is, it, it's like spiritual anesthetic, anesthetic. I'm getting close anesthetic there we go. I'm not an anesthesiologist. but maybe the bank is the anesthesiologist. Anyways, money works as a spiritual anesthetic.

  Having money will always numb your felt need for God. You won't realize your spiritual debt. You just won't realize your spiritual debt to the same level when you have material affluence. There's a reason why Jesus says it's easier for a rich man to go through the eye of a, for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to go into the kingdom of Heaven. It's because it's difficult to see your spiritual death when you have material affluence. And I had a pastor tell me this one time and I just thought it was really helpful. Because many times we like to put ourselves in that category of not having the spiritual affluence. But he just said, hey, glo globally speaking, if you chose what shoes to put on this morning, you're in the affluent category, which that's just helpful for some of us to be like, you know what? I still have some of that anesthetic running through my veins. Even if I don't feel it as much as maybe Elon Musk might over here.

  This is what's at the heart of greed. OK. Greed is the absolute hardest sermon, hardest text, the topic, hardest topic to preach on and here's why no one thinks they're greedy. It just blinds us because it's that spiritual anesthetic that just numbs us. We don't see our greed. It like the first thing greed does is it blindfolds you and then it takes over your heart. You don't see greed sneak up on you. I can tell you this. I've had people confess to me over my almost 20 years of pastoring almost every sin in the book. Even some surprising ones sometimes. But greed is almost never something that someone has confessed to. Maybe once or twice over 20 years have I heard someone say, I'm really greedy. It just isn't the case.

  Have you guys ever seen that TV show Hoarders? All right. A&E masterpiece hoarders. It's the show that tracks people who have, they actually have like a disclaimer before it saying like this is a mental disorder that people have this thing where they feel like they cannot let go of their things. They just have to hold on to it all. And so what they end up doing is they go into these houses and I mean, there's just piles of stuff on the floor this deep. The people aren't even, they can't even see their floor. They're walking around on their things and it's all trash just filled with trash. And what always strikes me about this TV show is that the people on the TV show do not even realize that they're do what they're doing. Almost always. They, they don't even realize how bad it is or that they're hoarding things at all.

  They're blind to it and that is how greed works. It sneaks up on us. We think we're just being careful or responsible, but slowly we start clinging to more than we need and it consumes us just like those houses filled with stuff. Proverbs chapter one verse 19. Such are the ways of everyone who is greedy for unjust gain. It takes away the life of its possessors. We think about our things as th those are things that I have. But in the reality, when you have a greedy heart, your things have you, your things have you, you've been trapped. Money is dangerous.

  Do you feel the grip of money on your soul? I do. This is a fight. This is a struggle. Here are the truths that I tell myself when I just feel like I can't hoard enough because that's how I am. Everything I own belongs to God, everything I own belongs to God. It's not really mine. Money is just this thing. It's just a thing. Can't take it with me. It's just a thing God loves me and he's always provided for me. Why do I doubt that he'll provide for me tomorrow? Why do I doubt that there will be enough? Look at the birds, that's what Jesus invites us to do. Look at the birds. No one's feeding them. Ok? Maybe some people are feeding them. There's some crazy pigeon ladies out there. Ok? But the Lord sees them and he takes care of them and aren't you of more value than they?

  The way you use your money will actually free you from its grip, the way you use your money will actually free you from its crap. There's this quote that sticks with me. This is point number three, how to use money wisely. There's this po, this quote that sticks with me and it's actually stupid. Ok, this is the stupidest quote I'll give you. but it sticks with me for one reason or another and maybe you'll, you'll find it helpful. The, the key to using money wisely is to spend as much as you can save as much as you can and give as much as you can. Now that's stupid because it's like, what does that even mean?

  But at the same time, it helps me realize like spending money is ok. That for me, that's like that was a revolution to be like, oh, I can spend money. And when you look at scripture, you see they're throwing feasts, they're having a good time. There's times when they spend money, there's people that own homes. Lydia had a church meeting in her home. We know that she's a wealthy woman in Philippi, but we also see people making plans. We see the ant celebrated as someone who collects for the winter. We see people giving all three of these ways are ways that we can reflect the glory of God, it's wise to do all of them.

  But if you want to truly learn how to escape the grip of money on your soul, you're going to have to learn how to give it away. You're going to have to learn how to give it away. If you want to follow the teachings of Jesus. And the examples of the earliest Christians, I don't have to give you, I don't even have to tell you this very much. But obviously, the teachings of Jesus and the earliest Christians are those that tell us live more simply give more away, very simply. We see that happening all throughout Acts and in, in the teachings of Jesus, there's a ton of Proverbs about generosity.

  One of my favorite is this one. Proverbs 11 verse 24. One gives freely yet grows all the richer. Another withholds what he should give and only suffers, want whoever brings blessing will be enriched, will be enriched and who one who waters will himself be watered. Now, we have to remember that the Proverbs aren't telling us. This is how it always is, but they're general truth. General truth statements for us that are saying this is often the way it works. This is often the way that the world works and what he's what the Proverbs are saying right here is that when we're generous, God provides for us and when we're stingy, we never feel like we have enough. When we're generous God provides for us. And when we're stingy, we never feel like we have enough.

  As people who have experienced the generosity of God, Jesus Christ himself, who was rich yet became poor for us, who had all yet was born in a lowly manger who took on the debt that we could never afford all the spiritual debt that we owe. God. He took on and paid our payment. If he can be generous to us like that, there is no community on the earth who should be more generous than Christians. And historically, there is no community on earth that has been more generous than Christians. This is baked in to what it means to be a Christian.

  I've experienced it on the, the night before my wedding, I went to bed. I woke up an envelope was I was poor when we got married. Ok. I was making like 10 grand a year working for a church. It was not enough. It was in Louisville, Kentucky. Our rent was 450 a month. Ok? For a little two bedroom house, cute with a yard. Good luck ever finding that again. But someone had slid $600 cash under my door. Maybe that doesn't sound like a lot to you. But to me, like I broke down in tears and they just wrote like from your comedian group on it and it has meant the world to me.

  I think about another time when I was in seminary and I was a poor seminary student, as I said, and my, one of my pastors one day just showed up and he had a box and he said, hey, I got something for you and it was a box. This is such a seminary story. It was a box of Calvin's commentaries. OK. So we're talking about like 30 volumes of commentaries on the Bible. It cost him 100 bucks on Christian book distributor.com or something. But I was so overwhelmed with gratitude that someone would love me like that.

  Over and over, I can tell you stories of people that have been generous with me because of what Christ has done for them. And so I wanna give you just before we leave, I wanna give you two examples of spiritual practices that you can put into place in your life that will teach you to be wise with your money. The first that I wanna challenge you with is to fast from spending just take a month. OK? If you see yourself in the grip of money, whatever. However, it is maybe you see yourself in the grip of money of saving and you need to go out there and spend a little bit on someone else or be generous in some way.

  But I just, most of us is spending, that's gonna be the problem and some of us just detox, you know, there's a dopamine hit that happens when you buy stuff and your brain could use a detox and maybe you just take a month and be like, I'm not buying anything for myself. This month, the world will keep spending. I promise you if you don't buy anything for yourself in the next month. Buy food, please. Ok. Buy deodorant because we all need that. That's generosity. Ok? You can go ahead and move that in your generosity category, but maybe don't buy any clothes or furniture or coffee. If you, if you can afford that, you know, just buy the beans and take them home. Sometimes that fast will really help us.

  And the second spiritual practice is the spiritual practice of generosity. And it is a spiritual practice and it's a theme in the Bible that we see. And if you're looking for a place to start, you have to prioritize giving to the kingdom of God giving to God through the local church. Proverbs chapter three verse nine says this honor the Lord with your wealth and the first fruits of all of your produce, then your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will be bursting with wine.

  And of course, there's exceptions to this. That's what Ecclesiastes and Job are about. That's why we're studying all together. But in general, he's saying, hey, honor the Lord with your first fruits and you'll actually have more than if you didn't. That's what he's teaching us. That is a principle that is true. Not always but often. What does he mean by first fruits? The first fruits were the literal first fruits that came in from the harvest and they were often in the best. Have you had that first? You know, we have blueberries here in, in New England. And when you go pick blueberries, tho those are the best blueberries. When the first ones you get off, you're like, I've never had blueberries like this before. And then nothing else all year compares to it. You know, you just can't have it like that or peaches, a nice ripe peach in the middle of the summer. You cannot find that in January. I don't care where you look.

  And what he's saying is that you have to honor the Lord with your first fruits. That means you don't give out of your leftovers, you give your best. This is connected to the Old Testament principle of the tithe, which was where the people of God gave. At least 10%. Many scholars say it was actually probably more than that, that they would end up regularly giving to God to support the temple and priest.

  And look, I'm gonna be real clear with this. Ok? As New covenant Christians, we're not bound by the tithe anymore. It's not, it's an Old Testament standard. Nowhere in the New Testament is the tithe taught, but instead we're encouraged to be generous. And in fact, the examples set in the New Testament are more radical than the tithe in the Old Testament. People are laying down everything that they have that I still think that the 10% tithe is a good standard for us much in the same way that the Sabbath is a good standard for us. We're no longer bound by the Sabbath either. But friends, you need a day off, you need to take a day off, you need to rest. God rested, we rest. It's part of how we we're built.

  God is generous. So we are generous. And when we get to the ch church, it allows us to pull our money to push the mission of God forward in our city and around the world, we literally can do more by working together with our resource. So this is all, if all of this is abstract, let me just put something concrete, a very low bar for you. If you're not giving anything at the moment. Are you still trying to think about that? If you are a Christian, I don't think that there's any excuse for anyone to spend more on going out to drink coffee or alcohol than they would to give away to others. That's as low a bar as I can set. OK. That's a low bar. But I just think that's true that there's not an excuse, even if it's $5 you just gotta get something right.

  You have to, you have to start there with being faithful. And look, we don't talk about money often as a church. Super, like how many of you guys have been here? Many of you for years. How many sermons have you heard on money? This is probably the first. Ok. I think I've taught on money one other time at city on a hill, Somerville in six years. This is not something that we regularly teach on, but it is a theme throughout Proverbs and it's so applicable to our life.

  So I just want to share a little bit with you about our church budget. I value transparency, we value transparency. I want to let you know what's going on. We present a a a quarterly financial analysis to our members so that they know where we are. So we're not all just hiding it. And yearly we vote on a budget altogether so that all the members see that our annual budget right now is around $500,000 which includes rent for this building, rent for the community space, 10% given towards missions, many other operations fees, financial services, ministry experiences, veggie straws for the kids. That's a very small percentage of the 500. My salary and benefits, and five part time employees.

  Currently our church just to let you know where we're at currently, our church is in a really strong financial spot. We have eight months of reserves in the bank, which is in a great place to be in Ok. That's, that's awesome. I'm so thankful for that. But for the year, we're only at 78% of what we had planned to take in for the, at this point in the year, which means we're behind, we're also behind in spending. Our expenses are only at 87%. So we're not doing terribly and we have the cash reserves. It's all ok.

  But I share that with you because I want to say you don't give to the church just because they need it. You give because everything you have belongs to the Lord and your generosity is an act of worship. And it's really just a starting point. Our generosity does not end with the church as Christians. It's like the first step. But then after that, we just wanna become more and more generous. We want, we want to give to the poor to support the poor, support other organizations. We have big dreams here at the church. I I just wanna lay this out a little bit that we're in a financial strong place. But with where God might be taking us, we have big dreams that are gonna require resources.

  There's 80,000 people in the city of Somerville, four square miles, 80,000 people. There might be 100 and 50 between the adults and the Children in here today. That's a very small percentage, ok? And so it would not be bold of me to say and there and there are other churches in Somerville. There's a few other churches that preach the gospel. Not a lot, the church going people, you know this, you know, other people in Somerville, there's just not a lot of church going people in Somerville and even less who go to like a solid Bible teaching church. And so if I don't think it would be too ambitious for me to say that in five years, we want to be double the size that we are right now. Three hundred, still a drop in the, in the bucket. But hey, we want to make a dent in our city. We want want to people to come to know Jesus. And it's really about us reaching our neighbors and helping them come to know Jesus and having the resources and the ministry infrastructure to support them in their walk because we have to disciple people after they come to know Jesus.

  And so we want all of that to happen. And we also want to plant more churches in the area. We want to send out missionaries. We'd also this might be a pipe dream, but we'd love to buy a building one day. We want to own a space that we're in. I pray that this church would live beyond me. And one of the ways to ensure that a church would live beyond me. And the current leadership is that they own a building that they have a sense of permanence in the community, a sense of legitimacy for the community. And so that's part of the vision. We'd love to see that happen. One of these days, just imagine walking in and not requiring 40 volunteers to get everything set up on a Sunday morning. That's what we're doing right now. 40 people early every Sunday morning to make sure it all happens, which you could sign up to serve after the service if you'd like.

  The best way to become a generous person is by experiencing the generosity of God. When Jesus becomes your treasure, money, no longer has a grip on your heart. All that money promises, Jesus actually gives security comfort, joy, hope all found in Christ.

  One New Testament passage for you today. And then we'll get out of here. Second Corinthians chapter eight for you know, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich yet for your sake, he became poor so that you might by his poverty become rich. What riches of kindness he lavished on us? His blood was a payment. His life was the cost. We stood beneath a debt. We could never afford our sins though they are many. His mercy is more.

  On the night that he was betrayed, Jesus pointing forward to that day that he would give his own life for us, instituted a sacred meal that we might remember his generosity toward us. He took the bread and he broke it and he said, this is my body broken for you. And he took the cup and he said this is my blood shed for you, do this in remembrance of me. And so every week we parti participate in a sacred meal.

  And so today, when we come to the sacred meal, what I want you to remember is we're all struggling with money. Jesus can satisfy in a way that your money never will. And so as you receive the meal, you're being reminded that you are enough for me. God, you can satisfy for me. So would you stand as we pray.

  Father, we thank you for your grace, your truth. God, we thank you for providing for us in every kind of way. And God as we come to your table, we pray that our hearts would be filled by you that we would not be looking to things that can only temporarily satisfy, but we would be looking to the bread that does not run dry. The the cup does that does not run dry that we'd be trusting and depending upon you and worshiping you with all of our hearts, lives and souls. And God, we, we ask all this in Christ's name, Amen.