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Proverbs 1:7, 3:9-10, 13-15 | Winter Wisdom

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Listen to this week’s sermon, Winter Wisdom: Honoring God with our Wealth preached by our Pastor of Environments Rev. Justin Grimm from Proverbs 1:7, 3:9-10, 13-15.

Rev. Benjamin Kandt:

Hello everyone. This is Pastor Benjamin. You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City Orlando. At New City, we long to see our Father answer the Lord's Prayer. For more resources, visit our website at Newcity Orlando.com. Invite you to stand if you would and pray together with me this prayer of illumination before we get to the scripture reading. We ask God, would you shine your light on our hearts through your word as we sit under the Word of God this morning? Doing with me. Teach us your way, O Lord, that we may walk in your truth and find life in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Our scripture reading this morning comes from the book of Proverbs, chapter one and chapter three. Hear now the word of the Lord. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of all your produce. Then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine. Blessed is the one who finds wisdom, and the one who gets understanding. For the gain from her is better than gain from silver, and her profit better than gold. She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her. This is God's word. Thanks be to God. You may be seated.

Rev. Justin Grimm:

Now, I don't know about you all, but 2020, it was a tough year for my family. First of all, let's just name the obvious. There was a global pandemic. In 2020, my wife and I moved into a new home. We were one and a half years into our church plant, and early on in the pandemic, my wife Amy was diagnosed with breast cancer. Now, Amy's okay. Amy is healthy. But because of the particular year with a global pandemic going on, uh her treatment, which required surgeries, would have normally been done in one, maybe two surgeries, ended up being extended to three surgeries. Now, at the time, get ready to have a little bit of insight into the life of a church planner, we didn't actually have medical insurance. Now, I have some wisdom. There was a uh sharing company that my family and I were a part of. We'd been a part of it for a number of years, and it worked out for all of the normal doctor visits. My assumption was that being a part of uh this company for a few years, three surgeries for something that was a big deal, they were going to cover it. But because there were three surgeries rather than just what could have been done in one or two, they said, period. I thought, okay, let's get down to brass tax. What can we start changing? Do I actually need a cell phone? Um I've never been cheated a good meal in my life, but maybe we could go over to rice and beans for for a season. Do I need to actually keep tithing? The second that I had that thought, the second that I asked that question, I knew that this moment was a significant moment. I knew how we answered this question was going to have great impact. You see, at the time, it's not that I would say that my wealth was great, but wealth was doing what wealth does. You see, it was making a false promise. If you honor me, if you use me the way that you think is wise, the way that you want to, I will satisfy you. Did you hear the command that's in the text that we read this morning? Proverbs 3, verse 9, it's right there. Honor the Lord with your wealth. And if you're anything like me, this is difficult. It's difficult. Why? Because whether we have much or we have little, wealth whispers false promises. Wealth promises that it can give us what only God can give. Oftentimes money feels safer, it feels smarter, it feels more secure and even more satisfying than trusting God. Of course, we struggle to honor God with our wealth because wealth makes these promises. I'll protect you, I'll satisfy you, I'll maximize you. Our Lord Jesus Himself says these words. And so this morning, as we begin our new sermon series, learning uh wisdom from the wisdom literature, I believe here is what the Lord would teach us from Proverbs chapter 3. When we honor the Lord with our wealth, we live wiser and we live fuller. Or to say that slightly more succinctly. Honor the Lord with your wealth, live wiser, live fuller. I want to unpack that truth that I think we see here in the book of Proverbs this morning by looking uh at these three points together: priorities to value, principles for investment, and the path to true prosperity. And as a quick aside, lest you thought my first sermon at New City was going to be lighthearted, joke is on you. And I totally asked for a shorter pulpit. I'm only 5'4, so you'll be back to your normal pulpit next week. Priorities to value. So I think there's actually something that we can learn and see right here in the text. Do you want to be full? Do you want to be full? The answer that Proverbs chapter 3 gives is this: then give what is weighty in your life to God. Do you want to be full? Then give what is weighty in your life to God. You see, the text that we started with this morning, it opens up with a command. Honor the Lord with your wealth. In Hebrew, this word for honor is the word kavod. Elsewhere in the Old Testament and throughout the scriptures, it's translated as weighty. In other words, what uh weighs the most in your life and in your heart is what you are to honor the Lord with. We get a little more specifics, the text goes on, and what the first fruits of all of your produce. Now, as modern English readers, I don't know how many of you here at New City this morning happen to be farmers, but for the original readers here of this text, it would have been the vast majority. You see, they lived in an agrarian society, and this is a direct commandment that would have made a whole lot of sense. Honor the Lord with your wealth and with your first fruits. You see, in many ways, this is a hyperlink to elsewhere in the Old Testament. Lots of places we can go, but really briefly, I want to read for us Deuteronomy 26, verses 8 through 11. You see, when Moses had led the people through the wilderness, as we just talked about last fall, he's preparing them for life in the promised land. And before Moses uh puts up his staff for the very last time, he passes on to the people a common rhythm, a way of life. Part of their way of life is going to be a creed that they would recite on a regular basis. Here are some of that creed and what they are to do with it. Deuteronomy chapter 26, verses 8 through 11. And the Lord, he brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great teeds of terror, with signs and wonders. And he brought us into this place, and he gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. And behold, now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground which you, O Lord, have given me. And you shall set it before the Lord your God and worship before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice in all the good that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house and to the Levite and the sojourner who is among you. Did you catch that? At this point in the people of God's story, before they're getting ready to begin life in the promised land, when Moses hands them over this common rhythm, he's trying to explain this to them. Everything you have, it comes from the Lord. Your freedom, he's the one that rescued you from Egypt. Your home, he is the one that is provided for you. Your jobs, he brings the rain and the abundance. Your families, your very way of life is all a gift of grace from Yahweh, the Lord himself. And what was true for the ancient people of God remains true for us today. And so the question in Deuteronomy 6 and Proverbs 3, and even here this morning, is what is how will we respond to the Lord's good and gracious gifts that he gives to us? Proverbs tells us honor the Lord with your wealth. Give to him what is weighty. God is first, not left over. God is to be trusted, not hedged against. God is to be valued above what wealth can buy, but not what's left after fear is satisfied. When we honor the Lord with our wealth, we give to him before fear speaks. And what does this lead to? This leads to fullness. One more time, verses nine and ten. Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of all your produce, then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine. Do you see how this works, church? Verse 10, it actually affirms your desire for fullness. Yes, fullness matters, but the lesson that comes from the book of Proverbs is wisdom offers a better kind. The people of God in ancient times and today, we give God the weightiest thing in our hearts. Why? So that we may be made full by God. Amy and I have lived here in Orlando for eight months now. And church, we love it. We love living here and doing life with you and being able to have Friday nights at Disneyland. And we've observed and we've been students of the culture as much as you can be in the short amount of time that we've been here. And in Orlando, wealth too makes promises. Wealth, it promises experiences, it promises comfort, security, excitement, control over time, travel, leisure, children, lifestyle, all good things, all weighty things, but not ultimate things. What do we learn here in the book of Proverbs? Do you want to be truly full? And that's a rhetorical question, but I know the answer, you do. Then what are we to do? We put the weight of the promises of all of these things on God. Because these things, they never ultimately can handle it. But God, He is the mighty one, He is the strong one, He can handle it. We honor the Lord with our wealth, and we allow God to satisfy us that we may be full. So this is the command. What are we to prioritize? We're to prioritize weightiness and we are to prioritize fullness. How do we actually go about giving these weighty things to God? Well, the answer is essentially we invest in what really matters. So that's the second thing I want to unpack for us this morning. Principles for investment. Now, when I say principles for investment, I really do mean that. I really do mean principles. And there's two from the wisdom literature I want to kind of highlight this morning. Universal impoverishment and exponential profit. Universal impoverishment and exponential profit. First, universal impoverishment. What do I mean by that? Here's how I would want to say it in the simplest way. Your heart is too big for wealth or money to ever fill it. Your heart is too big for wealth or money to ever fill it. In another book, another one of uh books that are in the wisdom literature, it is summed up like this in Ecclesiastes 3:11. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. Did you hear that? The Lord Himself has put eternity into your heart. It will take something eternal, it will take something infinite to truly satisfy it the way that it longs for. In the year of 2021, a friend of mine that I grew up with, he called me and he said, Hey boy, do I have an investment for you? Now, 99.99% of the times, if somebody says, Hey, I have an investment for you, don't listen. Except for actually do you want you to listen to me right now? And I'm telling you, I have an investment opportunity. So he said, Hey, there's this crypto uh coin that I really think you should look into. In the last week, I've made a 10x return on my investment. And I'm thinking, man, a 10x that's pretty good. Let me let me look into it. And so I started looking into it. And it was this crypto coin called Loop Ring, and it was only 50 cents. I'm thinking, man, 50 cents. I could I could do a lot with 50 cents. Let's let's see what happens. And so I made an investment in this particular crypto coin. Now, I haven't done a whole lot of gambling in my life, but I see why uh they have to have an addiction place for it. In the first week, I watched the graph do this. Uh my little investment that I made first doubled, became 50 cents, now was worth a dollar. And then over the course of a week, the investment that I made it was worth 450. And again, if you're anything like me, your heart starts going to places. I'm gonna pay off my house. Uh I'm gonna build you know an investment pro I'm thinking through all these things. I thought I had invested in US steel back in 1910. I thought that's what loopering was gonna do for me. Well, for one week it went up, and then just as quickly as it went up, it went down. I lost everything that I had put into loop ring. This morning for funsies, I logged on. Loop ring today is worth five cents. Uh maybe it will go up, church. Here's the question: When is enough ever actually enough? You see, when I wanted to see it keep going up, and I wanted not a 10x, I wanted a thousand X return on my investment, I don't think that I'm actually alone. In a 2018 paper published by Harvard Business School professor Michael Norton, researchers asked a group of millionaires two questions. The first one, how happy they were on a scale of one to ten, and two, how much money they would need to get a 10 on the happiness scale. Commenting on the results, Norton said all the way up the income wealth spectrum, basically everyone said they would need two to three times as much. Money fails to satisfy, wealth fails to satisfy because it is finite and the human heart is not. Money does promise gain, but the book of Proverbs tells us that wisdom offers a better return. Honoring the Lord with your wealth, it's not lost, church, it's wisdom arbitrage. For all the investors here, they know what I'm talking about. Do you want real profit in your life? The answer that the book of Proverbs gives is this invest in wisdom. Investing in wisdom leads to exponential profit. Now, very, very brief and very, very small side excursus, but if we are doing a sermon series on wisdom, what indeed is wisdom? I think the best uh summary of what wisdom is, it was given to me by one of my seminary professors, Jack Collins. He says, wisdom is this. Wisdom is skills in the art of godly living. You see, if we take the book of Proverbs, if we take all the wisdom in the scriptures and apply it and live it out in our lives, we will be equipped to be satisfied in all of life. And this is the message that's being given here in uh Proverbs chapter 3, verses 13 through 15. Blessed is the one who finds wisdom and the one who gets understanding. For the gain from her is better than gain from silver, and her Profit better than gold. She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her. Do you hear the escalation in verses 13 through 15? If you find it, if you get it, what will it lead to? Verse 14, gain and profit, such an extent that it climaxes in verse 15 that nothing you desire can compare with her. Old Testament scholar Derek Kindner, he sums it up and he says it like this Wisdom can make you a richer man or woman than money ever will. What's an investment that leads to exponential growth? Wisdom. Why? Because investing in your wisdom is an investment in your satisfaction and your prosperity. What do we learn? What have we learned here in the book of Proverbs? Your longings are right. Oftentimes, your savior is too small. The Bible doesn't say that wealth is bad. It says that wealth is a bad God. Proverbs agrees with our longing for more. It just refuses to let money be the answer. So, what should we ultimately to satisfy the longings of our heart? The answer the book of Proverbs gives is wisdom. Because investing in wisdom is ultimately an investment in your own prosperity. So that leads us to this final thought. Then how do we walk down this path? What is the path then to true prosperity? Relationship and personhood. Relationship and personhood. See, if I were to sum up everything that I've talked about here so far this morning, that I think we get here from Proverbs chapter three, I would say it like this: What we are looking for, what you are looking for, ultimately, it can't be bought, but he is freely given. You see, in the book of Proverbs, it starts off, and that was why we have that as the very first passage we read. The uh beginning of knowledge or the beginning of wisdom is fear of the Lord. Church, fear of the Lord is relational, not transactional. In fact, that really is kind of how the book of Proverbs is laid out. It's laid out like a father speaking to their child. I want what's best for you. I want your flourishing. I want you to grow and succeed in all that you do. Proverbs 3, verse 1, my son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments. It's a gentle father who loves and has a relationship with their child. What's the command? Get understanding. This is a gift. Wisdom is ultimately about living in right relationship with God. You see, prosperity in the book of Proverbs, it's never detached from God Himself. And if wisdom is ultimately about knowing God, then wisdom cannot just be a principle, it must be personal. Proverbs tells us that wisdom begins with fear of the Lord. The gospel tells us that wisdom takes on flesh. Church, don't you see? Jesus is wisdom personified. First Corinthians chapter 1, verse 24 says, Christ is the wisdom of God. Colossians chapter 2, verse 3 says, In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Remember that first verse that we started? Chapter 3, verses 9 and 10, verse 10. Then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine. This language of bursting elsewhere in the scriptures, particularly in the New Testament, it's the same word that's used before Jesus breaks the bread and multiplies the loaves. And it's the same word that when Jesus institutes the Lord's Supper, he says is about to happen to him. Do you see a church? Jesus allowed his body to be burst open, that you in him might be satisfied. Here's how the Apostle Paul describes it in 2 Corinthians chapter 8, verse 9. 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 by his poverty might become rich. To an ancient audience, the prophet Isaiah asked this question Why do you spend money on what does not satisfy? Many years later, our Lord Jesus answers this question with this if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. God is not against your satisfaction, new city. He is committed to it. Do you want to honor the Lord with your wealth? Do you want to gain wisdom? What is the call of Proverbs and of Scripture? Come to Jesus and you give him your all, including your wealth, just as he gave his all for you. Remember 2020? Remember the moment that I knew it was a test? Amy and I prayed and we said, Come what may, we're committed to this path. We're committed to following Jesus, and that means we're not going to stop tithing. That means we're not going to stop honoring the Lord with our wealth. However, this workouts works out, even if we lose our house, Jesus is worth honoring. And so we kept trying to work the system. Sometime in mid-January, and church, I could hardly ever get through this story without tears of joy. So uh bear with me. In mid-uh January, Amy got a call in the middle of the day, and there was a man on the other end of the phone, and he said, Hey, listen, uh, I've been hired to work your case. I've been working with uh the medical share company that you're with, and I've been working with OSU, and OSU's made it abundantly clear they're not backing down. This debt is due. And the company that you're working with, they've made it abundantly clear because of how it was done, they're not going to uh they're not going to pay for it. And so they had said, uh, I've been hired to kind of make a ruling and a judgment on your case. And I just want you to know uh we took care of everything. When Amy first heard this, she had been working the system for so long she didn't even believe it. And if she were to tell you the story, she would say, you know, she might have even been just slightly a little rude or impatient with the guy. Oh, thanks, thanks for your help. I'm sure that was great. And uh he kind of just said, you know, hey, if you have any more questions or I can, you know, help you out in any other way, please let me know. And they got off the phone. It wasn't for a couple more hours where Amy started to let the words digest and sink in. And she logged on to our account in OSU and she went to the billing pay tab where there was an outstanding balance of $436. There now was zero. Amy called me into the room and she said, Justin, look what the Lord has done. And I saw this and I fell to my knees, and Amy and I together praised the Lord, seeing the doxology. He had given this to us, he had wiped out our debt. But Church, do you see this is what Jesus does. Not only does he wipe out your debt, he makes a deposit in your deepest satisfaction. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. It's only in Jesus, only in Jesus will you find what your heart is looking for. So, what's the call? What's the call here from the book of Proverbs? Honor the Lord with your wealth, live wiser and live fuller. How do we do that? Well, we must prioritize the right things, weighty things, so that we might be full. We must invest wisely, namely in wisdom itself, and wisdom will always lead us down the path, not to itself, but to Jesus, because true prosperity is found in him. May we all honor the Lord with our wealth together. Would you join me in praying? So, our Lord Jesus, we confess to you now you are satisfying. We confess to you now that so often we look to other things, things that we've named this morning, things that we're too embarrassed to name, to try to satisfy the deepest places and longings of our heart. But they're nothing compared to you. And so, Lord, help us to believe that. We believe, help our unbelief. Jesus, you are good and you are satisfying. Quench the desires and longings of our heart now. It is in his mighty and merciful name that we pray and ask all these things. Amen.