The following message is brought to you from the chapel of Reformed Theological Seminary Orlando, a graduate theological school committed to the authority of God's Word, where students develop a mind for truth and a heart for God. This message is from our February 13th, 2019 Chapel service, and comes from Reverend Mike Clodo, Associate Professor of Practical Theology, and Dean of the Chapel. It's entitled Wisdom and Wealth, and is based on Proverbs 10-1-5. This is the 10th in a series on Divine Wisdom entitled Wise Up. To learn more about RTS Orlando, visit www.rts.edu forward slash Orlando, and now Professor Gloto. I ask you to turn your bibles to this morning to the 10th chapter Proverbs, which we were last week. We'll only look at the first five verses today, and accept for Dr. Swain's conclusion based on a, he'll be preaching on Proverbs 1-7 in a few weeks from now. This is the end of our series, begun on the fall on biblical wisdom. So Proverbs 10-1-5. A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son is a sorrow to his mother. Treasures gained by wickedness do not profit, but righteousness delivers from death. The Lord does not let the righteous go hungry, but he thwarts the craving of the wicked. A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich. He who gathers in summer is a prudent son, but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who brings shame. May God at his blessing to the reading of his word, let's pray and ask the spirits illuminating help this morning. O Lord, open our eyes that we might behold wonderful things in your law. Quick in our hearts that these dry bones of ours might live and believe these words, and help us not merely to be hearers of this word, but doers as well. And may you help me to know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified, and we pray all these things in his name. Amen.
Pastor Friend of mine a few years ago told me of a counseling situation he was in. It was a faithful woman who was a member of his church, a very godly woman, but whose husband was not a believer, but he occasionally would come to church and had a friendly rapport with the pastor. And when the woman was sharing with the pastor some of the marital struggles they were having, he suggested that she ask her husband if he would feel comfortable coming to see him together for counseling. And he did. He said he would. They came to meet with the pastor and the pastor was amazed and all of his counseling experience. This couple went right into some of the most intimate details of their marriage, including some details of sexual intimacy that was a little bit beyond the normal boundaries for a pastoral counseling context. And so he felt very positive about their openness and honesty and the prospects of helping them. But about halfway through the session, he said let's talk about money for a moment. At that the man's face changed. His face became flushed. He stood up with his fists and said we're not going there. So just so you know, counseling students, sex is on the table for a lot of people, but money is not. But you know the fact is we do have something of a of a of a of a of a of a a by normal relationship with with money. We can obsess about it and we can avoid it entirely and those attitudes are very common within the Christian community of those who talk about it a lot and think about it a lot and those who don't want to talk about it all because money is not something you talk about in polite company. Well these verses I think can be a guide for us because they stand on both ends of that that tendency. On the one hand they say money or we'll say wealth, I'll be using the word wealth, wealth is important. It's important to God and it's important in life. But on the other hand, it is a means to an end. It is a means to an end in which it wealth is a way in which God provides for us, but ultimately it is a way in which God through us provides for others. And so I like us to take the few minutes we have to look at these verses and see this that that wealth is covenantal stewardship from God, just like words of where we looked at last week. Wealth is covenantal stewardship from God to give life to us and through us and that means we have to be wise stewards of wealth. That wealth is God's covenantal endowment to us for life to us and through us and that's why we have to be wise about wealth's use. First of all wealth is God's wealth is a covenantal stewardship issue. You see this reflected in verse one, the Proverbs of Solomon. So this long introduction chapters one through nine. Now we get to the meat, to the actual Proverbs themselves. And verse one says, a wise son makes a glad father but a foolish son is a sorrow to his mother. Now this places, as we looked at last week with words, it places the subject squarely in the school of the covenant that this is the school of wisdom. The wisdom God has entrusted to the king of God's people and now the king training the princes to rule wisely according to God's revealed will. And so it's not simply in the home even though the metaphor of mother and father are used here, it certainly includes that, but it is the whole community of God's people to whom the subject of wisdom has been entrusted and here we have wise words about wealth. Wealth is in the core curriculum of the school of wisdom and in fact it is a prerequisite for many other subjects. The fifth commandment is invoked here because the son who is wise, the child whether it's a son or daughter who is wise brings honor to their parents but the one who is not brings shame upon them. Now it's worth just pausing a moment to say I know many of you came to faith through other means in your parents or you came to faith in a level of commitment that was perhaps beyond the comfortable nominal faith of your parents and sometimes it's a struggle to keep the fifth commandment to honor your father and mother. And so gladly God gives us a parentage of faith in the covenant community so that we pleasing our authorities is a good thing as long as we choose our authorities wisely. Jesus did say didn't he that unless you leave father, brother, sister, mother, and follow me, you cannot enter the kingdom. So gladly God gives us a school of the covenant which is essentially a family, it's a new society and God claims wealth as a subject of his covenant of claims but wealth is not just about money. You know if you think about in this ancient world people didn't have paper money. What currency they had would have been made of precious metals but probably preponderance of wealth would have been in goods, either goods made or goods acquired through bartering. And so really if this is not about money it's about all that is ours, that has been entrusted to us to use as we would use resources. I'll talk a moment about some other things as well but it would even include resources like time and attention. And so the first first reminds us that the subject of wealth is something belongs to the Lord, it's in the core curriculum of the school of wisdom. And it requires the wise use of wealth requires knowing the wishes of the one who has endowed it with it. You remember what the man who buried the talent set when the master came back. You know the other stewards had put the talents at risk and gained a reward but this one man, what did he do? He buried the one talent. And when the master came back and asked him what he had done, what did he told him? And he said what? I knew you were a hard man. He knew something about his master but was an incomplete knowledge. He knew he was a hard man but he also didn't bring to mind the fact that his master was one who put his wealth out there for the prospering and the multiplying of it, not only for his own benefit for the benefit of others. And so a wise use of wealth means not just knowing one thing about God's desire and use for it but knowing the larger wisdom of God and use his for it because after all and we have to keep this in mind throughout the book of Proverbs, God is the masterful creator. And we are to become skillful in the manner after his skillfulness in creating as we are stewards of his resources. How does this apply to us? Why in the world am I talking about wealth as seminary students? Because some of you are going to go plant a prosperity gospel mega church and we're going to come to you as a donor. That's why I'm bringing this up right now. And Dr. Reed will do an Old Testament christening of your jack once you have it. Amen? Now there are several reasons this is really important for us. Number one, wealth is about more than money. It extends all the resources. God is entrusted to us. Time, attention, affection. One of my mentors, he had eight children all through his graduate degree school. And the story he told, here's my picture, he's sending in his books and he's got countless toddlers coming and pulling on him constantly and he would hold as many in his lap as he could when he one time. Well, he continued to write study. He was not divided from his family for the sake of obeying God's calling on his life because that doesn't make sense, doesn't. So he saw his time and his love and his affection for his children and for his church and for the studies all as stewardship under God. And he knew that for God it's not a zero-sum game. So as we think about wealth, we have to take seriously the teaching of wisdom on wealth because we have been entrusted with something. We're not on a
step tax-based system where it starts, we only have to care about stewardship once we get to a certain level of resources. It begins with dollar zero and minute zero. So it kind of goes against a treat-go-self philosophy. The day you want to just eat bacon and go to the, what do you call it when you go, the cuticle manicure place? Yeah, yeah, now it's along. Because since wealth is part of the core curriculum of school of wisdom, our wealth is not our own. Now sometimes in ministry, we feel like we're exempt from all this because we're taking Protestant vows of poverty. Simply by going into the ministry, I remember what Luther said. Luther, looking at the monasteries, he laughs to himself, he says, they take vows of poverty and ensure themselves of a lifetime support. You see, and this is the devil's deal with ministry and wealth, we think, I won't expect much so that God will guarantee a minimal existence for the rest of my life. Our former colleague Richard Pratt says, if you make your living from your faith, you're going to risk losing one or the other at any given time. The golden handcuffs of ministry don't always cost very much. And so we have to see this matter as not a minimalist matter. If we just have enough to live, then we'll accept the difficulties of it. But whatever has been entrusted us from dollar zero to every minute of our lives is a matter of God's covenantal concern. But it also relates on the level of ministry, not just the personal ministry. Have you ever heard the expression, money talks? Now the problem with a lot of people in ministry is they don't know that language. You don't have to be a materialist to learn how to speak the language of money talks. We have to have a linguistic competence. Why? Because people who do care about money more than we, or care about wealth more than we, need ministers and counselors to speak to them about God's wisdom in its youth. Use. Robert Frailey, who was one of our advisory local advisory members, he was on the plane with paint Stewart, or the jet with paint Stewart back in 1998 or 1999. So we remember Robert, his picture is behind the reception desk that shows the groundbreaking ceremony. Robert was a sports attorney, and some of the most famous names in the golfing and the NFL coaching world and other, and an oral Hirschheiser was one of his clients spoke in his funeral. He was Robert Steele. He would have a 20, 21-year-old young man who was going to be a millionaire when he ever signed that contract the next day. And Robert said, here's what I'll do for you if you take me on as your representative. I'm going to teach you how to use your means to bless others. And he would take that younger man under his arm and go and read through the book of Proverbs with him. This is a man of substantial wealth, but he knew that wealth was a stewardship, an obligation toward the Lord. And we need to be able to speak that language so that we can guide others in its use. The same pastor told the story about earlier, he told me there was a man who was more cool to the faith and allowed his wife to go to church, but he had no interest in it. One time he told this pastor, he said, pastor, I'd come to your church, but I have to give up my Sunday morning golf game. And the pastor laughed in his face. He said, you don't even can't even imagine how much it will cost you if you decide to follow Jesus. My pastor, where I worked on staff at Central Pres. St. Louis, Andy Jumper, raised barefoot and poor in Mississippi, and that's poor on any kind of relative scale. And he was invited to the home of one of the most well-known and successful business people in St. Louis at the time. And he was given a tour of the home, the three, the par three, golf hole out front. Every room was decorated with a theme of a different continent and all of the furnishings came from that continent. And they went through the whole house and this man was quite proud to show this pastor that he had just met his glorious home. And at the end of that tour, this pastor looked him in the face and said, you've built a wonderful home for yourself. Now what are you going to do for the Lord? See, he knew the language. He knew the language of wealth, even though he was not a materialist and was not a rich man himself, he knew how to speak the language and that's what wisdom offers us as people who are in ministry. And if you're counseling people and the roots of their problems lay around the use of their wealth, you've got to be able to speak into those issues. I've known churches that tell people week after week after week, it's not about money, you don't have to give, except when their budget is short, then they'll talk about it. That is the worst practice on a church level. Because you want people, especially seekers and visitors, to think, oh, you're not after their money. Well, if you only talk about it when you need it, that's exactly what they'll think. Talk about it all the time when it comes up in scripture. Because it's not about giving, it's about stewardship. If churches taught their members to be generous, they would never have to worry about their budgets. But we inadvertently send the wrong signals when we only talk about it when it comes to budgets. Well, wealth is a covenantal stewardship. The second thing I'd like us to see based on that is the eschatological point of view in verses 2 and 3, where we're told that why stewards of wealth rest on God's covenant? Why stewards of wealth rest on God's covenant? Look at verses 2 and 3. Now, there's a lot of intricacies here that delight the eyes of a discerning Hebrew student. Treasures gained by wickedness do not profit, but righteousness delivers from death, and actually wickedness and righteousness are adjoining words in the Hebrew, meaning there's a quick hard pivot pattern. There's a one-letter native turn involved. Treasures gained by wickedness do not profit, pointing west. But the next line, but righteousness delivers from death, points east. In other words, there's a radical outcome difference between those who profit by wickedness and those who live righteous lives. Similarly, verse 3, the Lord does not let the righteous go hungry, but he thwart the craving of the wicked. Once again, the antithetic or stating the same thing in opposite terms. And notice in verse 2, 3, 2, you have the abstractions, wickedness and righteousness. But now in verse 3, it moves to the persons themselves, the wicked person, and the righteous person. So it's bound together as a tight package, and essentially, what is telling us is this. In the end, wealth is God's matter, and we should trust him about it. Simply speaking, in the investment world, we're told to diversify. That's a good advice I've heard from people who have money, that you spread your investment, so you can spread your risk. But in terms of God, that is a terrible strategy. We're to put our faith wholly and completely in the Lord, and when it comes to wealth, we're to do exactly that. That we don't trust God and man and Jesus said. Dr. Walkie said paradoxically, the wicked use others to store up physical assets for themselves and lose their lives. Didn't Jesus say this fool of this very night his life would be required of him, even though he built bigger barns. But Walkie goes on to say in the righteous use their resources to serve others and store up life for themselves. You see, resting in God's covenant, covenant faithfulness as it pertains to wealth, that is the prerequisite for the life-giving use of wealth. If we believe that it's up to us to get and to keep and to gain rather than to trust in the Lord, we'll never be able to use our wealth wisely. So God pays attention. His eye is on the sparrow as the catechism just reminded us that not one hair shall fall from our head. And of course, this is reflected in our example, Jesus Christ, who had no place to lay his head, even though birds have trees and foxes have holes. You see, this incipient trust in God when it comes to wealth is the basis for generosity. If you don't trust the Lord, you can't be generous. I know it's easy to worry. I do it all the time about resources. And as you get older and you make a little more money, you still do it, you type in nature of your worries, just evolve and change. But the admonition of these verses is, look, God is concerned with ultimate outcomes so that we can walk in faithful ways now. This is the essence of Christian hope, isn't it? We walk by faith, not because it pays in the moment, but because it pays ultimately. And Proverbs does have this eschatological outlook. If somebody is getting ahead of you, career-wise, reputation-wise, ministry-wise, you know, and the jealousy begins to set in, what's the basis of doing the right thing rather than to live as men-pleasers? It's to trust in the Lord with all your might. And He will establish your path. So we are to be wise stewards of wealth because we can rest on God's covenant faithfulness. The last thing I'd like to see, and this is verses 4-5, is we can be wise stewards of wealth and act according to God's covenant faithfulness. Look at verses 4-5, a slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich. And interesting, the slack hand there is actually the slack poem. In other words, it's a handout, wanting to gain through a lack of industriousness and diligence. Whereas the hand of the diligent makes rich. Now, again, we don't have to, we don't calculate this according to our idea what it means to get rich. But it's in the context of the larger school of wisdom. Verse 5, he who gathers in summer is a prudent son, but he who sleeps and harvest is a son who brings shame. So these verses together teach us that why wisdom with wealth acts upon God's covenant faithfulness. And in action two ways, one, verse 4, it works. I'm sorry, yeah, verse 4, it works. That is, God has provided mechanisms by which the world works. He's the masterful creator. And how does that work? They work. That's the natural normal order of things under God's masterful design for the world. And Paul gets into this dozen in first and second Thessalonians. In first Thessalonians, people weren't watching for the second coming the way they should. But in second Thessalonians, they quit work because the second coming is imminent. And Paul says, if they don't work, let them not eat. And so we're to be diligent. We're to get busy, not in work worship, but in work as a way of worshiping the Lord. But verse 5 says, we act according to God's order. He who gathers in summer is a prudent son. He who sleeps and harvest is a son who brings shame. In other words, the faithful covenant steward of wealth knows there is a time for everything. There's a time to gather. There's a time to sow. And in observing that, he honors and acknowledges God's order over the created world. He lives self-consciously as God is not only the creator, but the sustainer of the world the way it is. Now, I know you all are working hard for more for intrinsic rewards, both now and in the future. And ministry doves have its intrinsic rewards, which are wonderful, occasionally, extrinsic rewards. As Bill Murray said, and Caddy Shack, a little for the effort is good. But we're often confused in ministry about the role of diligence and labor. I remember Professor Mether, who was teaching in the polity class, and the subject came up about what rises to the level of needing formal church discipline. And somebody said, well, adultery would... Well, there's a student in the back who raised his hand and said, what about the person who owns five houses? You see what this person was saying? Is it, well, we discipline sexual sin, but we don't discipline greediness or material sin. Now, interestingly, as I reflected on Professor Mether, and we don't tell stories about you all very much, but this student has prior to coming, and then since, after having graduated, lived off of support raising his entire, not just his adult life, but his parents and grandparents, without lying. While materialism and greed is a serious sin, you know, we have the convenience in the poverty of ministry to see the gaining of wealth as an inherent evil. And I wonder how many houses per supporter this student's support team owns. You see, what Proverbs 10 verses 4 and 5 is pointing out to us, that labor is a means by which God has commissioned his image bearers to gain means by which they can give life to others. One of the best examples in the whole Old Testament is Boaz. Boaz is Haillil. What does that mean, Dr. Futato? Haillil. It's bigness, right? He has a big tent. And as a result, if you read the book of Ruth, all these people are living under his tents. And not only is he prosper, everybody prosper because he prosper. Because he was a diligent man who was a wise man, we're told of Boaz. And so, whether it's in our own labors, where we're here to get up and get about the things God has given us to do because it's covenantal stewardship, or whether it's in leading and guiding others into faithful use of their means, God by faith invites us to act upon his wisdom. Wealth is a subject of covenantal stewardship. And because of it, we can rest upon God's provision, upon God's, we can trust in God's wisdom because he is ultimately the one who brings justice and generosity to us. And finally, we can act upon God's wisdom because in doing so, not only do we follow the rules of wisdom, if you will, but we acknowledge him as the masterful creator. And of course, this is the pattern of our Savior's life. Who though he was rich yet for our sakes became poor so that we might not only become rich in him, but share in his inheritance as the first born among the dead and as the eternal Son of God. Let's pray. God help us to see as you set the day before us where we are to rise in season and busy our hands. Help us not to be slackers. Thank you for forgiving us when we do. But may our gratitude, may our thankfulness show itself in our keeping of your commands and the following of your wisdom so that we not might not just live ourselves, but so that we can be life givers to others in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.