Fierce Church Sermons

True Treasure: Fierce Pathways

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Everyone wants security, influence, and success—but is money the answer? In this Fierce Pathways message, Pastor Mark Carter explores Proverbs 18:11, 28:11, and 8:18 to uncover the deceptive power of wealth and the true treasure found in a life shaped by God’s wisdom. If you’ve ever struggled with guilt around money, or wrestled with how Christians should handle it, this message brings clarity, challenge, and encouragement. You’ll walk away rethinking what it really means to be rich—and what lasts beyond the grave.

🪙 The Deception of Money – Culture defines wealth in one way, but God has another. This message exposes how our definitions of being rich may be built on false foundations—and invites us to be honest with ourselves and with God.

💎 True Treasure – You can't take your bank account to heaven. But wisdom, righteousness, and love endure. Explore what God says is worth valuing and how His priorities shape communities that reflect heaven on earth.

Speaker 1:

We're talking about treasure this morning and I'll take you on a treasure hunt that I made when I was a kid. It was Christmas and I got a fancy race car set not the ones that you just like, you know, click, click, click back and let go. But it had the metal track in the middle with the contact point so that you crank the knob. I don't know if that's higher voltage, it's like a train set, you know, so you can crank it up and it goes faster. And the yellow car was faster than the red car, so I could easily trick my friends into taking the faster car, but I would win. It's a really great, really great experience for me and I thought, you know, this is my most valued possession. I should bury it in the ground and make a treasure map. So months later, seasons later, it made it through winter. My dad was like, hey, we had that set. Where did that? What happened to those cars? Like, do you just not like it or you're not interested, or something? And I said, oh, you know, I buried it because I made a treasure map and then somebody else is going to find it and they're going to find something that I value. And he was upset with me. I said, dad, you're being so materialistic. I didn't say that. I found out that, even though I thought I valued it if I valued it even more I would have taken care of it and not let it freeze in the ground Should have valued the treasure more.

Speaker 1:

Another story for you I was vacationing with my family and my in-laws and we rented like a pontoon boat, I guess, and took it out in the ocean, which wasn't as scary as I thought it was going to be, and we went to kind of like a sandbar to get into the water and I put you know, I had my swim trunks on, I put my phone down and I'm getting ready to go into the water, and my youngest at the time crawled up on the seat and just threw my phone into the ocean and I, you know, as you like, watch over in the light, like it's like cinematic, like the light flickers out as it goes into darkness. I realized, well, I was just depressed, you know. I was like, oh my gosh, now I'm not going to be able to read Twitter, what am I going to do? And I actually found it very freeing. It was one of my favorite vacations because I couldn't be on my phone. People asked me like where are we going to go? And I was like I don't know, you're going to have to Google it or whatever it was. I found it was very freeing because I was enslaved to that treasure. You know, I was a little bit too close to it.

Speaker 1:

And then a final story. This one is humiliating, so please don't tell my children. Humiliating, so please don't tell my children. Okay, so my son's birthday is in a couple of days and my wife asked me hey, you're a nerd, you keep a spreadsheet of all the gifts that we ever give. How much on average, do we spend on the children? And I gave her that $1 amount. And then I asked myself you know, how much do we spend on average for each child? And I figured out and I'm not kidding, we spend twice as much on one of my four children. And I said to Brooke which one is our favorite, you know? And she's like, oh, there are reasons for it. And then there are, but I are reasons for it. And there are but children. If you're watching this in the future, we have rectified the situation and we love you equally.

Speaker 1:

You know, treasure is a funny thing because we all have different things that we treasure and that we chase after. So, to make it easier on myself, I'm going to talk about a close estimation to your treasure or money, even if you think that money is what you value. Often we use money to get what we want. This is what money is good at. There's a quote in the book the Psychology of Money which goes like this Most of us think I'll paraphrase it, sorry Most of us think that what we want is to be a millionaire, but really what we want is to spend a million dollars, the exact opposite of what a millionaire does every day. Really, what we want to do is spend a million dollars, and that is an estimation of what you treasure. What do you spend your money on? This is difficult for us, because how we get money is difficult, how we keep money is difficult, and then even figuring out what we want at the end of it is also difficult. There's frustrations on all of our treasure maps baked in.

Speaker 1:

So let's imagine you're in high school or, if you're in high school, just you know, sit there and you have like college resume stuff that you're thinking about. You in a sense have a weird task because you're supposed to figure out what you want to do before you have done it? And you're supposed to convince people that you'll be good at it before you figure out what you're good at? Right, like before you even figure it out. It's incredibly difficult. It's incredibly difficult. Then you find out in your career that, like, that's not the end of it, it's just the beginning. Right, when you apply to the first position, you have to convince them that you're good at the job that you haven't done yet. And sadly, we apply this to more realms than just the business realm today. Right, this is how we approach. Like, there are dating apps that are this you make your resume, you compare it to somebody else's resume and then you can know that the transaction is going to work out. Even if it doesn't work out, you didn't waste your time with someone who's not good enough for you, or something like that. Right?

Speaker 1:

Two, we do it with parenting Moms the mom blogs. I love the mom blogs. Some of them are great. Many of them are terrifying. One of them figured out how much being a mother costs. Like if I was paid as a professional to do all things. I'm worth this much, and it always breaks my heart to be like maybe we should just value motherhood more than that. Like maybe we can say it's priceless, you as a mom, not replaceable in a sense, you know. But yeah, no, $400,000 a year sounds good too. I guess I don't.

Speaker 1:

Money doesn't just buy us stuff. Money can also buy us the ability to say what we want. On the internet there's a meme, there's an expletive, but I'm going to switch the expletive. It goes like this Forget you money, forget you money, okay. And it means you have enough money to say whatever you want. Finally, it doesn't matter if your employer doesn't like what you say. You can just say it because you have enough money to say. And I find it funny because it's like it's not actually that expensive to burn bridges. You can do that now. You can say mean things without saying that mean thing. You know, like, don't feel like you're boxed in. You can ruin as many relationships as you want, but what I think people actually want is a way to maintain relationships through difficulty or, if they're irreconcilable differences, to still have unity and to go in a good direction as a city, as a state, as a country, et cetera. Or, you know, forget you money, I don't care. Or, you know, forget you money, I don't care.

Speaker 1:

Lastly, we don't make it out of this life alive, right. And so as you get older and the idea of dying presses in you, have a couple of possibilities. The first is, maybe you don't have enough saved for as long as you're going to live and you're going to have to scramble at an age where you're not as able-bodied as you once were, right. Or maybe you do have wealth but you're not able to spend it in the way that you wanted to because you're not as able-bodied as you once were, let alone the idea of passing on all that you've earned to somebody who might not work as hard or be as grateful or want to use it to say forget you. All right. At every age we're chasing treasure. At every age it slips through our hands, it's elusive, it's hard to get a hold of. And so this morning we're not just gonna talk about the longings of our hearts, the treasures, but we're also gonna talk about what the Bible says is a huge blind spot for us. And then we'll talk about what the Bible says is our true treasure. This morning we're in Proverbs and we're gonna talk about what the Bible says is our true treasure. This morning we're in Proverbs and we're going to talk about money as a power. We're going to talk about the deception of money and then we'll talk about the true treasure. Here we go.

Speaker 1:

Proverbs 18, 11 starts off. The wealth of the rich is their fortified city. They imagine it a wall too high to scale. The wealth of the rich is their fortified city. They imagine it a wall too high to scale. A fortified city is a big deal in the ancient world. It means that you can protect stuff right. I mean. One approach is to just bury it in the ground you know and hope that nobody finds it. Another is to build a massive wall that's really hard to climb, because if you've ever had a sibling where you know like it's a dock or something and they can pull you up, they're in a vulnerable position. When you have the high ground right, you can just, you know, go back in the water or whatever.

Speaker 1:

That's the protection that a fortified city, a very high wall, offers, and that's what wealth at least it seems like that's what wealth offers. Let's say you value your health, right. Well, if you have a sudden medical expense, wealth allows you to pay for it to get the treatment that you want. Let's say you value comfort, ac and heat on all the time, the exact temperature and humidity that you want. Well, you know Tempur-Pedic mattresses, whatever. Okay. Let's say you value friends. You can throw parties and you can have people around you all the time. You can pay for a lot, but we've already mentioned that you can't pay to escape death Wealth. Consequently, in Proverbs, half the time it's like this is a prize that you should pursue and the other half it's like hey, don't trust it though, like it doesn't offer ultimate protection. It's a security, but it's a false security. You imagine it's an unassailable wall, but wealth can be fleeting.

Speaker 1:

Jesus says the proverb the rich fool. In the New Testament and I'll say a summary version of it there's a guy, he's a farmer and he does a great job. One year he has a record harvest, a bumper crop, and he pulls all that. He's like what am I going to do with all this wealth. And so he builds these massive grain bins and he puts the grain in the bins and then God comes to him and says you fool, this very night, your life will be expected of you. What were you doing? And it's not that planning for business is bad, it's that if you only plan for business, your entire life is about business. Then, like that's foolish because you die one day. Like you can't, you don't do that, it's silly. It's silly. Your wealth isn't going to protect you from death. Simply, in your life, you can do this kind of audit if you will, an assessment of your spending when you look at the things that you most value. And I would encourage you to just like get a note card or get a piece of paper or get your phone app out, the notes on your phone app or whatever, write down the things that you want most and then write underneath it a prayer God, please protect me from wanting this more than anything. God, we pray that you would help us to be a steward. You'd help me to be a steward. You'd help me to be a steward of what you've given, and we pray that. Remind yourself, do that this week. What do you want most, don't let it control your life.

Speaker 1:

Money has a power, but it's limited. Consequently, it's deceptive, the deception of money. Let's read Proverbs 28, 11. The rich are wise in their own eyes. The rich are wise in their own eyes, but the poor who has understanding sees them through. The rich are wise in their own eyes. The rich are wise in their own eyes, but the poor who has understanding sees them through. The rich are wise in their own eyes. The poor who has understanding sees through them.

Speaker 1:

This is the first problem with this text and this is going to be uncomfortable for us. But we, when we hear the rich, we think of other people. But if the original hearers of this in 800 BC, if they saw how we live today, in these nice cushioned seats and an air-conditioned auditorium with all these fancy lights and computer technology that they don't understand, they would call us spoiled rich. They'd call us rich, sure, sure, spoiled, spoiled. Maybe Solomon in all of his splendor is more wealthy than us, but we 99.999% of folks that lived at that time would call us rich. And that's uncomfortable because then many passages which we just dismiss about the rich in the Bible applies to us. We're paid, we're paid for skills and that can go to our heads.

Speaker 1:

There's a very famous example recently where a very famous billionaire who's good at you'll figure this out he's very good at building electric cars and sending rockets into space and he thought, oh, I'll make the government more efficient. And so he got a dream team together and there's still work going on to try to make the government more efficient. But he was immensely frustrated when it came time to make the budget because none of those changes were put in stone by Congress and in fact, all of the billions that he saved the $2 trillion were added to the deficit from the budget. Right, and in comparison as the poor who had understanding, I saw through him. You know it's like you fool. Why did you think you could do politics? All right?

Speaker 1:

Mark four is the parable of the sower. And if you know this, that you have like the guy who's scattering seeds, and then, as the seed grows, there's things that happen, like there's shallow soil that burns it up or there's plants that choke it out, right, and when Jesus explains the parable, he says like that well, this is the good news, right, and as the good news brings a harvest in our hearts, a spiritual growth, there's a temptation that the pride of life and the deceitfulness of wealth would choke out your spiritual growth. What I'm about to say is crazy, but I also think it will be helpful. It's already scary to confess sin, to find somebody and say like, hey, I'm struggling with this. I think in our culture it's even crazier to talk about what you spend your money on, and I would encourage you to find someone to share your last month's credit card statement with. I would encourage you to talk about giving, how much you give.

Speaker 1:

Now, huge warning, just like hit pause for a second. Do not have this conversation with people that you don't trust. Don't leave like, hey, I think you'd be a trustworthy person, let's try it on this, you know. The other thing is spending over a month is one thing, but talking about giving, like let's say, oh, I give 10%, a typical tithe and this is the amount that I make. Now, they can just figure out how much you earn a year and I just don't think that's going to be that helpful to you. We already can do this with people's homes on Zillow. I think it's awful. It leads to envy in different ways. I don't encourage you to do the same thing with your salaries. Don't tell everybody what you make, don't ask what they make. But you can still have great conversations about what you spend it on, and you can still have great conversations about how you give and why you give it. And so I wouldn't want so the big warning, but I still think this is going to be a really great conversation for you to have.

Speaker 1:

You know, take your, take your note card into that conversation as well. Pray over your dreams, pray over your the treasures. Money is powerful, but it's also deceptive. So then, what is then? What are we supposed to do? And I think the biblical answer that we'll see in the text in a second is generosity. It's generosity. The true treasure in the book of Proverbs is wisdom. Lady Wisdom Proverbs, chapter 8, is crying out from the street corners and she is saying you know, come to me, you fools and gain wisdom. In verse 18, riches and honor are with me. Enduring wealth and righteousness. Riches and honor are with me. Enduring wealth and righteousness, and this kind of implies. I mean it sounds a lot like seek the Lord first and then all these things will be added unto you. Right? But you're already getting hinted at that. These types of riches are a little bit different than what the world might value Riches and honor, wealth and righteousness, and a wealth that endures, a wealth, maybe, that makes it through death.

Speaker 1:

Early Christians there's a church historian who talks about five distinctions of the early Christian community, Five distinctions. I'm going to walk through them. First is multi-ethnic community. You have, in Christianity, a break from all other religions in that it's not based on the color of your skin, it's not based on what ethnicity you were, it's not based on what nationality you had. From the get-go. Christianity stemmed, rooted in Judaism and stemmed to the Gentiles to the ends of the earth. And this is shocking because typically, when you're in a society and you're focused on power, you don't welcome in minorities.

Speaker 1:

Distinction number two there's a radical care for the poor. A radical care for the poor. Not only are we going to bring in minorities, but we're also going to bring in the people who can't add any financial value. A little bit different than Roman ambition and Greek wisdom. The radical care for the poor that you had a Philippian church who was already poor, gathering funds to be able to give to those who were starving. You know. To be able to give to those who were starving, you know to be able to give to those who were suffering elsewhere. When I went to an orphanage with an organization called Back to Back in Mexico and they did a car wash where they had the orphans wash the cars and they got funds and they gave that money to another orphanage. It is better to give than to receive. Multi-ethnic community care for the poor.

Speaker 1:

Pro-life, and that means something very specific in today's day and age. But it doesn't just stop at birth. Right To be pro-life, especially back in the day, meant those kids that were abandoned in the woods. You go, grab them and raise them. You know, like this absurd to the world approach to children, that we not only bring in minorities and we bring in the poor, but we also bring in the children who literally cannot contribute yet, who are entirely dependent.

Speaker 1:

Number four a really strict sex life. Like people were sleeping around back in the day. Maybe that's true of our culture today as well, but like Christianity is like no, no, no One person for the rest of your life. You commit to them Hell or high water. You commit to that person Marriage. This is even more weird in the ancient days because it's not like the women were allowed to sleep around, but the men were the pad, are familiar, they could do what they want. And Christians were like no, no, no. Equality. Equality in marriage here you save each other for each other.

Speaker 1:

Number five the church was forgiving. You had a couple of emperors who literally tried to crush Christians, literally tried to crush Christians, put them into the Colosseum to get torn up by lions. And what do the Christians do? Die, willingly forgive their persecutors while they're being eaten alive. And the emperors had, you know, like Nero. It's like how do you beat religion when their God is used to raising from the dead? You know, how do you stamp out, how do you stamp out a people when the resurrection is baked into their beliefs? And this idea of forgiveness it's not just that, it's like oh yeah, we'll be resurrected, it'll be fine. It's like God, I'm a gross sinner and God has forgiven me much, and so I know you don't even understand what you're doing. I forgive you too.

Speaker 1:

Five distinctions multi-ethnic community, care for the poor, pro-life sexual ethic, tight sexual ethic and forgiveness. Is this us? Are we known in our community for our ability to welcome those who aren't like us? Are we known in our community for our ability to welcome those who aren't like us? Are we known for our care for the poor or care for the defenseless? Are our marriages so loving that people are like man, like I just want to take a marriage conference at Fierce because they know what's going on. I got to figure out how to get my marriage together. Are we known for our forgiveness, how we love one another when we hurt each other? Do we reconcile or do we just pack up and go to another church?

Speaker 1:

I was reading a book recently called how to Double your Profits in Six Months, and I'm pretty sure I'm just going to read it every six months and it's like an exponential growth hack. Exponential growth hack. In there he talks about strategic as a leader. In the business there's a strategic expenses and there are non-strategic expenses, and his job as a leader is to outspend the competition on strategic expenses and ruthlessly cut non-strategic expenses. And so I ask are we willing to outspend Satan on these things? Are we willing to out give the world pursuing things that God says should be our treasure? God says it should be our treasure. Count the costs.

Speaker 1:

If we're going to open our doors continually to minorities, to folks very different than us, you're going to have to give up some power. You're going to have to give up some choice, some preferences. If we're going to help the poor, it's going to cost money. You guys know how much rent costs nowadays. All right now, imagine someone homeless and it costs that much per month to be able to house them. If we want to help children, it's going to take space and time. We're going to have to give up peace and quiet Proverbially. You're going to have to watch your phone get thrown into the ocean. If we're going to keep sex in the context of marriage, you will have to forsake all others. If you want your marriage to be tight, you need to prioritize your spouse over all people, real or imagined, digital, in image form. If we're going to forgive, if we're going to forgive, you have to give up vengeance and you have to give up leaving. You have to give up walking away. These are all expensive. These are all expensive.

Speaker 1:

But I raise the question again are we willing to outspend Satan in pursuit of these goals, to be the type of community that Jesus wants us to be? There's kind of a turn here where Jesus talks about treasures in heaven in Matthew 6. He says you know, don't put your treasures here on earth where stuff can get destroyed. Put your treasures in heaven, where it can't be destroyed, for where your treasure is there, your heart will be also. And we have this kind of the default setting for this is like yeah, okay, we're supposed to pursue good things, we're supposed to think of things that are from above, we're supposed to produce beautiful things. This is kind of, you know, we're supposed to say true things in a loving way, supposed to say true things in a loving way. But I think what ends up happening is that then we get a lit, we get kind of like a to-do list from God and we kind of focus on that. And to-do lists are dangerous if you separate it from grace itself. And so I'm just going to, we're just going to shove these things back together. If you would be so obliged to join me, here we go.

Speaker 1:

What is the most good, what is the truest true? What is the prettiest beauty, the highest end, god himself. God is most beautiful and if you've never heard this, let me just explain, heard this, let me just explain. Jesus is also called the wisdom of God. In the context. Everybody thinks that our religion is foolish because our God died. But Jesus, jesus is the wisdom of God.

Speaker 1:

If we are supposed to find true riches and wealth by pursuing wisdom and God's wisdom is Jesus then we can put those things together. Why does this make sense? Because we're supposed to have the same mind as God. We're supposed to have the same mind as God who, in the very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage, but rather took on the form of a servant. He took on the form of a servant. God himself God himself, because he was God came to earth to die for us. It's not as if it was a nice thing to do. It's because of who he was, who he is and who he shall be.

Speaker 1:

We are supposed to be connected to the God of grace, because it's not just something that we, it's not just a good idea for us to be a community. This is who God is. We are an outpouring from his first love. Christ left the riches of heaven to become poor for your sake, so that you might be rich, so that we might know that God loves us beyond our comprehension. And this does two things. The first is you cannot stay angry at the injustice of this world because you know that God forgave you first when things aren't right or the way that they're supposed to be. We praise God still in this already but not yet broken world, because God loved us enough to die for us, and that love is a perfect love that casts out fear. And so if you're scared about becoming the type of community that God would want us to be, if you're scared that we're not gonna be powerful enough, if you're scared that it's gonna be too uncomfortable, if you're scared that you can't give enough, fall back on the grace of God, for it is his grace by which we are formed and it is his grace that will see us through.

Speaker 1:

Let's pray, heavenly Father. Lord, you are good to us, you're so good to us and, lord, we just pray that you would help us to live by your grace. God, that you have identified the Christian community in very specific ways and, lord, we fall short. So, lord, we fall back on your grace again and ask for courage to go through our finances, to be open with others in this church, and, god, that you would help us to be more generous, just as you are generous. Lord, we pray that as a church, we would take seriously the things that you have laid on our hearts the desires of our hearts, our deepest treasures. God, that we would feel free to pursue them in light of the grace that you've given us.

Speaker 1:

But, god, we ask deeply for a change of heart as well. Lord, that you would bring us into alignment with who you are. God, that you would change us from the inside out. And, lord, that we would have no other rational choice but to follow you with our lives. Lord, that it only makes sense to pursue the God of goodness, the God of all beauty, the God who loved us enough, even when we were broken, to see us through. Lord, we ask that you give us the courage to do the same, going forward. And, lord, we pray. We pray this morning that this might be a turning point in our lives, in the lives of those who are here, in the lives of those listening. God, for this church, that you would help us to be a generous outpouring into our community, that we might be known distinctively for our generosity. And, god, that we would give you all the glory in Jesus name, amen.

Speaker 2:

Hey, thanks for tuning in today. If God has used the ministry of fierce in your life, please consider paying it forward with a financial gift at fiercechurchgive. If you want more resources like this, check out all of our channels at YouTube, tiktok and Instagram. Check out our podcasts and check out our blog at fiercechurchblog. If you haven't already, please consider sharing this to help people you know take their next step. We'll see you next time.