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Our Bible reading today continues in the book of Proverbs, and, today, we begin at Proverbs 10:4. A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich. Proverbs 10:15. A rich man's wealth is his strong city. The poverty of the poor is their ruin.

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Proverbs 11:4. Riches do not profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death. Proverbs 11:24-25. One gives freely yet grows all the richer. Another with...

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Withholds what he should give and only suffers want. Whoever brings blessing will be enriched, and the one who waters will himself be watered. Proverbs 11:28. Whoever trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like a green leaf. Proverbs 13:11.

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Wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it. Proverbs 15:16-17. Better is a little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure and trouble with it. Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a fattened ox and hatred with it. Proverbs 18:23.

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The poor use entreaties, but the rich answer roughly. Proverbs 19:17. Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and He will repay him for his deed. Proverbs 23:4, do not toil to acquire wealth. Be discerning enough to desist.

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And finally, Proverbs 28:20. A faithful man will abound with blessings, but whoever hastens to be rich will not go unpunished. This is the word of the Lord. So if I asked you, are you good with money? I wonder what you'd say.

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And you say, yeah, I'm great with money, you know, I've got all these ETFs that I've purchased and stocks and savings and I do this and that. Or maybe you'd say, yeah, I'm great with money. I'm good at picking up a bargain. I'm always checking which specials, and I never just go to one supermarket and on Facebook Marketplace, and I constantly get things at an amazing price. Or maybe you say, money.

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Yeah. I'm good at spending it, if that's what you mean. Prefer not to really think about it though. I wonder what you think it really means to be good with money though. Normally in our culture, when we say someone is good with money or they say I'm good with money, it means that either they're really good at saving money, they're very wealthy, or maybe it does mean that they're good at purchasing things at a low price.

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What does it mean to be good with money, and are you good with money? And the reason I ask this is because the book of Proverbs has a lot to say about money, and it actually shows that there's a lot of pain we can avoid if we learn how to manage money wisely. But more than that, the way we manage money can also show us where we are at spiritually, whether we are headed for eternal ruin or headed towards Christ in heaven. So there's actually a lot on the line when it comes to the way we use money.

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We need... We all need wisdom when it comes to handling money. And we're speaking about this today because we're in a series right now called Proverbs. Sage advice for a skilful life. The Hebrew word for wisdom, chokhmah, has to do with this idea of skill.

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Skill for living. Skill with someone who understands that God made this world and designed this world, and if we understand His design, we can live in line with it. And all things being equal, there's always exceptions. The Proverbs are not promises. They're general wisdom and observations of life.

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All things being equal, if you live in a wise way, then it'll be a blessing in your life. You'll receive the blessings of wisdom. Now one of the everyday realities that we have to deal with and learn to deal with wisely and skilfully is money. And when I was researching for the sermon, I found around 70 passages on money. Now you'll be grateful to know I'm not taking us through every single one of them, but we're going to look at a selection of passages this morning to try and understand God's wisdom for money in this book.

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And we're going to start by exploring how the book of Proverbs teaches us to view money. How should we view money? Now I think the majority of our culture, the way that they view money generally out there is money will get you the good life. It's a great thing. Money is amazing.

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If you get enough of it, you can get the penthouse on the beach. You can get the nice car and the nice clothes, and you can have whatever you want. Others of us and other views that are out there is money will give you security. You need money because it will give you peace.

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You'll know that when the rainy day comes, you've got enough to get out of it. You need money to be secure. So make sure you have enough stored away for a rainy day. Others of us might think of money as the scorecard. It's the scorecard by which we figure out, are we further ahead than those other people or not?

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They have more than me. They're doing better than me. They have less than me. I'm doing better than them. Money is the scorecard.

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It's one of the other views in our culture. There's lots of different views, but those ones that I just talked about, none of those are the views of the wise person in Proverbs. None of them are. In Proverbs 3, it actually says blessed. That word means favoured by God.

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It can mean happy. This is the happy person. Happy and blessed is the one who finds wisdom and the one who gets understanding for the gain from her from wisdom is better than gain from silver and a profit better than gold. Do you believe that? It's a pretty big claim.

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It's saying wisdom is better than whatever money can get you. Wisdom is better than a new car, lots of holidays, and a penthouse overlooking the beach. The book of Proverbs says, wisdom is better than these things. You see, what the book of Proverbs is trying to do is reverse the brainwashing that we've had about money and that sometimes our culture has given to us. You know that marketers for decades have tried to prevent us from feeling content and satisfied so that we'll want more and buy more?

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All the way back in 1929, Charles Kettering, the General Motors research head, wrote an article called keep the consumer dissatisfied. Keep the consumer dissatisfied. And what businesses and brands and marketers have done is try to make you feel dissatisfaction, to try and create a need in you when there wasn't a need there so they can sell more product and make more money. Even marketing and advertising trains us to be discontent, to want more, and to therefore want money to purchase those things that they tell us we need. But God's word says there are things that are far better than money.

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Wisdom is one of them. There are many other things too. In Proverbs 15, it says, better is a little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure and trouble with it. Better is a dinner of herbs where lovers than a fattened ox and hatred with it. And all the vegetarians say amen to that.

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Right? Better the herbs than the fattened ox. Well, it's not really what it's talking about. But the proverbs tell us, just here, it tells us it's better to have very little, to be just making ends meet, but to have the fear of the Lord in your life, to tremble with delight in God, to love God. It's better to have a very meagre dinner in a home where there's love than have a feast in the house where there is strife and there is hatred.

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Knowing and loving God is better. Having good loving relationships is better. Having wisdom is better. All of these things are better than having wealth and money, and Proverbs is trying to help us understand that. Notice as well that verse 16 said, better is a little with the fear of the Lord.

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It's possible to be materially poor, but spiritually wealthy. And this verse alone destroys what we call the prosperity gospel. The prosperity gospel teaches that if you're faithful to God, and normally it also says, and if you give money to a particular televangelist's ministry, then you'll be blessed. You'll be favoured by God, and you will have wealth, health, and long life. But this proverb alone contradicts that, doesn't it?

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Because it says that actually it's possible to be favoured by God, to be really close to God, and be poor, to not have very much. See, the truth is there are so many things that are better than money than wealth. Wisdom, a good relationship with God, a good relationship with others. But that doesn't mean that money and possessions are evil either. Look at Proverbs 10:22 with me.

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It says, the blessing of the Lord makes rich. And don't spiritualise it. That is actually talking about material wealth. Proverbs often talks about material wealth as something that God sometimes blesses people with. Wealth can be a blessing from the Lord.

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Money can be a gift from God. You see, the difference between this and the prosperity gospel is the prosperity gospel says money is always the sign of God's favour, but wisdom says sometimes it's a blessing from God, sometimes it's a curse. Proverbs doesn't say money is evil, but it does condemn those who crave to be rich, who love money and hustle after it. In 1 Timothy 6, Paul commands the rich not to put their hope in wealth, but he doesn't shame them for it. He actually says in verse 17 that God is the one who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.

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God is not stingy or tight fisted or a killjoy. If He grants you wealth, you don't need to feel ashamed of that, and you can actually enjoy some of that. But just keep this in mind, while money can be a good thing, it's never the best thing. Sometimes you'll have to choose between what is better and money. Sometimes you'll have to sacrifice and give money up for what is better.

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And sometimes money can be a curse, not because money is bad in itself, but because the human heart without Jesus' work is bad. The human heart is sinful, and we end up trusting and believing the false promises of money and clinging to it. That's when money gets bad. It's the love of money that is the root of all kinds of issues and evils. If we haven't slowly gained money and grown in character and wisdom to handle it, too much money can actually be devastating to the human soul.

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Listen to Proverbs 10:15. It says a rich man's wealth is his strong city. Do you see what wealth does to the rich person in this verse? It makes them feel secure. It creates the illusion that they are strong and invincible.

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Their wealth is like their city. Money whispers into their ears, you're safe with me. Whatever comes your way, I'll get you out of trouble. You don't need anything or anyone else as long as you have me. You see, money becomes a curse when it becomes our refuge, when it takes the place of God in our life.

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It also becomes a curse when it distorts our view of ourselves. In Proverbs 18, it says, the poor plead for mercy, but the rich answer harshly. See, money can be a curse because in this verse, it can lull us into believing that we're better than others, can lull us into a false sense of security, it can cause us to be arrogant and proud, and rather than humbly respond to an accusation, we can answer harshly because I've got money. If you sue me, I can pay it or whatever it is. But the truth is, Proverbs 11 says, riches do not profit in the day of wrath.

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See, contrary to the prosperity gospel, being wealthy doesn't mean you're right with God. It's worthless on the day of judgement. God won't give a rat how much you have in your bank account and how many assets you own. He will only care about whether you trust in Jesus, whether your faith is in Jesus, and whether that faith has been expressing itself in love. Money can be a good thing, but it's nowhere near the best thing.

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Money can also be a curse thing because it powerfully tempts the human heart. Proverbs never tells us to love or desire money, but sometimes Proverbs says that God blesses people with wealth. The wisdom of Proverbs warns us in chapter 11:28, whoever trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like a green leaf. Mishan and I watched a movie a few years ago about J Paul Getty. The movie is called All the Money in the World, and it's based on the true story of a man who was believed to be the richest man in the world during the 1960s.

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And in the movie, Getty is played by Christopher Plummer, and you can see throughout the movie, he holds on to every one of his dollars tightly. Money has a grip on his soul. In his incredible mansion, he actually had a pay phone installed. True story. Pay phone installed because he didn't want to pay for visitors' calls.

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Richest man in the world doesn't want to pay for a few calls from different visitors. So people had to pay for their own calls when they're visiting him at his house. Now one of the most sad stories from Getty's life, is at one stage, his 16 year old grandson was kidnapped by the Italian mafia, and they were asking for $17,000,000 for his return.

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And Getty refused to pay. He kept refusing and refusing and refusing until eventually the mafia cut off one of the grandson's ears and posted it to the local newspaper and said, this is how he'll return his grandson if he doesn't give us the money. We'll return him piece by piece. After...

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Long story short, Getty eventually agreed to pay 3,000,000, but the way he worked it out was he paid 2,200,000 cause that was the maximum that was tax deductible, and the other 800,000 he gave to his son at 4% interest. This man loved money, and his grandson who went through this ordeal was so traumatised, he got himself into drugs and became paralysed for the rest of his life. See, money can be a curse. Not because it's bad in itself, but because our sinful hearts can latch onto it. We can deceive ourselves into believing it can give us what only God can provide.

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How should we view money? It's never the best thing. It can be a good thing, but it can also be a cursed thing because it tempts the human heart. Now we've looked at how the book of Proverbs teaches us to view money. Now we're going to look at how it teaches us to make money.

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Now, sorry to say there's no Proverbs 32 where they've got like the ASX shares and telling you which ones to buy this week or whatnot. Proverbs ends at chapter 31. But here's what the proverbs actually says about making money. We all need to make money.

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It's part of life, but the way we make money reveals either our wisdom or our folly, our foolishness. So Proverbs 10:4 says, a slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich. Don't be lazy. Don't fold your hands and expect to have everything given to you. Work hard.

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Be productive and diligent. Don't expect it all to come at once. Patiently gather it in, save it, invest it in responsible places. Because Proverbs teaches, Proverbs 13, wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it. How do we make money?

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We gather it in little by little. We do diligent hard work, and we slowly grow it through patient options. And yet, we should know that there is a limit to hard work. I love how the Christian Standard Bible translates Proverbs 24:3. It says, don't wear yourself out to get rich because you know better.

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Stop. One of our modern day poets once said, get rich or die trying. In other words, do everything you can to get rich. Work harder than everyone else. Hustle.

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But this proverb tells the hustle to go to hell. Don't wear yourself out for riches. Don't neglect the Sabbath and the rest that God offers you. Don't neglect your relationships. Don't overwork for money.

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You are wiser than that. Be discerning to know when enough is enough. Be discerning enough to know that your relationship with God and having time for prayer and being investing in your household and your relationships is more important than the money you gain with those hours. If you keep hustling and hustling and hustling, you may be able to afford nice homes and nice holidays, but your relationships might not be very nice. The kind of wealth that is a blessing from the Lord doesn't require us to drive ourselves into the ground to get it.

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Proverbs 10 says, the blessing of the Lord makes rich, and He adds no sorrow with it. See, the wise way to make money is not to hustle after it, but not to be lazy either. It's a good thing to be diligent and hardworking, but the reason we work hard ultimately is because we love God and we want to please Him. We want to work in ways that honour Him, not because we want to get rich. Proverbs is positive about money overall.

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It teaches that the kind of wealth that comes from patient and diligent work is a good thing, but it never teaches us to love money or make money our great goal. Rather, wealth is presented as the result of a wise and faithful life. Proverbs 28 says, a faithful man will abound with blessings, but whoever hastens to be rich will not go unpunished. Don't hasten to be rich. Don't chase after money.

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How do we make money? We do good, honest, hard work. We get a little by little, but we do these things because we love God. This is why we're content in the situation that God places us in. We don't wear ourselves out to get rich, and we don't cut corners to keep money.

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If you want to be good with money in God's eyes, you need to view it the right way. You need to make it the right way, but you also need to use it the wise way. And that's how we're going to finish our time together. How to use money according to the book of Proverbs. Now the book of Proverbs talks a lot about sharing it.

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Talks a lot about generosity. Let me read a few verses for you. Proverbs 11 says, one gives freely yet grows all the richer. Another withholds what he should give and only suffers want. Whoever brings blessing will be enriched, and one who waters will himself be watered.

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Proverbs 19 says, whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and He will repay him for his deed. We withhold money from the poor at times because we think it's ours, but it's not. It's all God's. Everything we have is God's. Even our breath is God's.

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It's a gift. We withhold money sometimes because we trust in money for the good life. We think if we give it away, we'll miss out on happiness. We withhold money sometimes because we believe it is our strong city like that rich man. We think that if we give it away, we might be left vulnerable.

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But wisdom teaches us the right perspective on money. It's not the best thing. You can find the good life without it, so it teaches us to hold money loosely and to share it generously. The missionary Jim Elliot, he didn't just give up money. He gave up his life for the gospel to reach unreached people, and he once said, he is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

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He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. Mister Elliot is right. You're not a fool if you give up money that you cannot take with you into the next life to give to others. You are wise. Now maybe you are hard up against it right now.

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The Bible's nuanced on this. Like, talks about if you don't even... If you don't take care of your own household and family, you're worse than a non believer. So you need to have enough money to take care of yourself. Right?

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The Bible is nuanced, but I do know this. The global wealth report for 2025 shows that Australia is the second richest country in the world on a per person basis. We are the second richest people on the globe. Yet according to a CAF World Giving report, Aussies give only 0.8% of their income away on average.

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Less than 1%, the second richest people in the globe. The average giving in Africa is double that at 1.6%. Australia doesn't even feature in the top 10 most generous countries for people who donate. Seems like money has gotten a grip on one of the richest countries in the world, a grip on our hearts. And the stats for Christians are only slightly better in Australia.

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One Australian giving consultancy company says the average Christian in Australia gets 2.5 to 3% of their income away. Still, that's not enough. Are you good with money? Being good with money doesn't necessarily mean you're the wealthiest person. You do make it well, and you might gather it little by little.

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You might save and invest, and you might enjoy some because it's not wrong. But the wise person, according to Proverbs, they share it. They share it with the poor. They're generous with it. Don't let money lie to you.

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Don't let it grip your heart. The wise person uses their riches to bless and serve and benefit others. And if that's hard for you to do, just start somewhere. Just start somewhere. Just start giving a small amount regularly week by week.

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I want to encourage you to do that. If you don't normally give, if this is a difficult thing for you to do, then let me encourage you. Sometime after the service, pray, spend some time with the Lord, ask Him what He wants you to give, ask Him where He wants you to give, and then plan how you're going to use money wisely. Don't just leave it up to chance. I looked at that world giving report and a bunch of Aussies say they don't give because they weren't asked.

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Don't be one of those Aussies. Think about where the Lord might want you to give. Now there's two places to consider... That I want you to consider giving. First, if you're not giving here at church and you think this is part of your church family, this is your church family, then I want to encourage you to give.

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It's good to partner together in the gospel. In Philippians, it says... Paul says in chapter 4, you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving except you only. See, the New Testament talks about partnering together and putting money towards gospel ministry. And so I want to encourage you, if you're not giving to this church and this is your church family, I encourage you to give.

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Now recently, we got some wonderful news in our church budget. A few weeks ago, we had our members meeting, and we talked about how we're running a deficit budget at the moment. So we're planning to make a loss for this financial year, but praise God, the last couple of months, we've actually made a little surplus. So we've actually done better than what we've lost. Praise God for that.

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But I want to remind us as well that we're running a lean budget. We only have $150 budgeted for outreach for the entire year. Alright? I want to buy Bibles for new people that come along to give them away. There'd be so many other things.

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We could set aside money for carols events if we want to do them year by year. There's lots of other things that we can do. Now if you're skeptical and you're like, oh, Ben's just trying to get money into this church, that's fine. Give it somewhere else. God doesn't need you or me to do His work.

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He's not desperately begging you to give money here. So if you're like, I'm not sure if I trust this place or it's managing the money well yet, that's fine. Give somewhere else.

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Let me encourage you to give somewhere else like World Transform. Remember, Proverbs commends giving to the poor. There's a little link there on the screen if you want to scan it and check out World Transform's webpage. They're actually a denominational... So it's associated with our denomination.

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They're a ministry that's devoted to poverty relief around the globe, and they especially work in places like India. And you can purchase gifts on their website for people in need, so like chickens and goats to help them live sustainably. You can buy fresh wells for water, and they also work alongside gospel and evangelistic efforts to help get the gospel out in that country. So I want to commend to you World Transform as well. If you don't have time to look at that, the link is in the Church Centre app, and if you Google World Transform, it's the top result on the list.

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Proverbs emphasises generosity when it comes to using our money. How should we view money? Money can be a good thing, but it's never the best thing. Money can also be a cursed thing because it tempts the human heart. How do we make money?

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We do good, honest, hard work. We gather in little by little, but we don't neglect more important things. We don't wear ourselves out for it, we don't cut corners to get ahead. How do we use money? We can enjoy some of it, but the wise person uses it to bless and serve others.

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We use the money God has entrusted us to do good. This is how a wise person handles money. Now it's not enough just to know how to handle money wisely. I might know it's good to be generous, but if I don't feel that it's good, if I'm actually more excited about getting rich, then I'm going to have a hard time being generous. Jesus Himself knew that money issues stem from heart issues.

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Jesus talks about money in the heart in the Sermon on the Mount. He says in Matthew chapter 6, I think it is, Matthew chapter 7, do not lay up for your... Oh, that's Matthew 16. No. It should be Matthew chapter 6.

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Anyway, in His sermon on mount, do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. See, what Jesus is doing is trying to get our hearts excited about being generous with money. You see wealth here, wealth stored up here, it will get destroyed.

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Moth and rust will destroy, or maybe it will get stolen, or one will die. It'll all be left behind. It will end. It's... It will, you know, it'll be gone.

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But wealth in heaven, He's saying, it cannot be taken away from you. If you store up wealth in heaven through loving deeds, through faith, if you give towards the poor, then you will store up wealth for yourself in heaven. Then He gets direct with us because He loves us. He says a couple of verses later, no one can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

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You just can't. You can't serve God and love money a little bit. You can't worship God and still trust money a little bit. Either God is your provider or money is. Either God is your safety net or money is.

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Either God is your treasure or money is. Now the truth is money gets the better of us all sometimes. Sometimes we covet and crave after it. Sometimes we put trust in it that it doesn't deserve. Sometimes we hold it back from those we should have shared it with.

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But money never got the better of Jesus. As you read the Bible, you can see that money simply wasn't a priority for Jesus. He wasn't impressed by it. Think about when Satan was tempting Jesus in the wilderness. He showed Jesus all of the kingdoms of the world and their splendour, all the wealth and the pleasures He could have, and Jesus wasn't seduced like we so often are.

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He rejected it all like the poor wise man in the book of Proverbs, who has little but fears the Lord. In fact, Jesus didn't just resist the temptation to get rich quick. He gave up the wealth of heaven to take on a humble human nature. He gave up the infinite riches and glory of heaven to take on human form and become our servant. Jesus chose our spiritual poverty so that He would give us His spiritual riches.

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This is why Jesus came, to save us from the power of sin that seduces us to trust money, to save us from the guilt of sin for all the ways we've loved money more than God and people. Jesus came to set us free, but it cost Him. It cost Him His life. Jesus died a death that was so degrading that it was illegal for Roman citizens to be subjected to it. Jesus chose to be crucified like a slave and a criminal because He was paying our eternal debt at the cross, receiving the judgement our sins deserve.

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And He opened up His hands on the cross so that He could give eternal riches to you. See, Jesus used His riches to save spiritually bankrupt people, people like me. He is the only one who can free us from the love of money. Because when you know that you have won more than the lotto could ever give you as a free gift in Christ, it makes you feel rich. Now each of us has a choice today.

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We can serve money and do what it tells us to do, even if money asks us to drive ourselves in the ground and sacrifice our relationships to get it, or we can serve Jesus. We can put our trust in Him and receive far more as a free gift. It's not too good to be true. It's the good news. It's the gospel that God is far more gracious and generous than we have ever dared to believe.

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In Christ, a free gift, God offers you forgiveness for your deepest regrets, the love and peace you truly long for, and a share in Jesus' inheritance, which is more than a few billion dollars. It's the entire renewed cosmos. That's what Jesus is inheriting. And all is a free gift. God won't make you kill yourself to get it, earn it, or pay it back with interest.

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It's a free gift. How do you get in on these promises? Not by earning them, but through repentance and faith. Repentance means to turn around, to stop serving money and trusting it, to start handling it God's way. And faith means to trust God at His word, to trust in His Son Jesus, and to open up your hands and receive everything He wants to freely give you.

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Let's pray together. Father, we thank You for sending Your one and only Son, what is most precious to You, to die in our place for our sins so that we can freely receive an eternal inheritance as Your children. Father, You are our provider. And, Lord, we turn to You and we pray that You would implant within our hearts an unfailing desire for You. Lord, please free us from the deceptions of wealth, mammon, of possessions, and money.

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Lord, help us to love Christ. Help us to love You. So, Father, I just ask that Your Spirit will speak to each one of us personally. And wherever, however You want us to respond to this, that You lead us to respond in Your way. We bless Your name, Jesus, and we pray this in Your name. Amen.