-Transcript-
00:36 Amen. Thank you for joining me. Welcome to the Cafe today.
00:41 Today we are talking about something that will get your interest, will perk your ears up, will make you listen closer. We’re talking about riches. Riches and the idea of confusing righteousness for riches.
00:55 You know, this world is all about money, all about wealth, all about status. In this world, in this culture, when I say the world I mean the culture that we live in, the system we live in. Is it not all about getting rich? Are you not popular when you’re rich? We used to joke around when we were younger that the person with a swimming pool had a lot of friends in the summertime and people would laugh about that.
01:21 But is that not true? Everybody wants to go to the house and swim in the pool. Hey, you got a beach house? You’re extra popular. Lake house, mountain house, any kind of vacation property.
01:33 You become very popular. Oh, how people long for riches and wealth that they could have some kind of power, prestige, influence. And these things go hand-in-hand.
01:47 Look at many of the politicians on the national stage. They have some kind of money factor to them. Not all, but many have a business or a formal business or a wealthy spouse and so on and so forth.
02:00 And they’re in this sphere of influence. And they’re, you know, part of the reason why they’re there is because of their wealth. If you are well off, you can afford a great attorney.
02:12 If you’re not well off, you can’t afford an attorney. You’re just gonna have to work with whoever the state gives you if you were to go to court. That’s why in church before I even made the comment that rich people would be able to get off for many crimes that a poor person wouldn’t.
02:25 That’s just how our culture is. And our text verse here today kind of dives into this and looks at this idea on a deeper, more spiritual level. Proverbs 28:6. Proverbs 28: 6 “Better is the poor that walketh in his uprightness than he that is perverse in his ways though he be rich”
02:45 Better is the poor that walketh inhis uprightness than he that is perverse in his ways though he be rich. Now we see here a very simple statement. Proverbs.
02:55 I love Proverbs. And throughout virtually almost every verse of Proverbs, you have a good and a bad. You’ll have these two sides, a dichotomy, if you will, a comparison.
03:06And they’ll be the good thing and the bad thing. And we go through that as a family and study it most nights. Amen? And we often see this comparison.
03:16 One way that a comparison helps us put things in perspective is you can realize that God, through His word, through Solomon who wrote Proverbs, is teaching us that there is a good and a bad way to live. And better is the poor that walketh in His uprightness than He that is perverse in His ways though he be rich. And so the world will tell us, hey, get it however you can.
03:42 Once you got it, then you’re gonna be doing okay. And you know, if you say, well, where would I get that idea from? Look at a lot of movies and popular culture music that pushes this narrative. It doesn’t even matter how you obtain wealth.
03:51 As long as you do, you’re gonna have notoriety and you’re gonna have power. And the Bible is saying better to be poor and upright than to be perverse or to go against God’s ways and be rich. And this is all the more reason to follow Christ.
04:08 Because Christ is righteousness. We are not righteousness. Us on our own, we cannot have any good thing about us without God.
04:19 Amen. Romans 3:10-12, as it is written, there is none righteous, no not one. There is none that understandeth. There is none that seeketh after God. They’re all gone out of the way. They all are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good, no not one.
04:36 That’s Romans 3:10-12. Jesus reiterates this in one of the Gospels when someone called him good master. And he said, why do you call me good? There is none good but God.
04:47 Amen. And so we know on earth, and I think Jesus was speaking in a teaching way because Jesus was perfect here on earth, but he was teaching this idea as if you see a man, don’t call him good because no man is good. And God is telling us in Romans 3:10-12 that there’s none righteous, not one. And so we cannot tap into our own righteousness to walk uprightly.
05:10 I mean, think about uprightness that kind of is synonymous with righteousness. And Proverbs is telling us it’s better to be poor and walk in uprightness than to be perverse and rich. Well, if we’re poor, how do we walk in uprightness if we have no goodness in and of ourselves? We can’t.
05:30 And this is the key that I believe the Bible teaches us over and over again, is that on our own we can do no good thing. On our own we are bad trees unable to bear any good fruit. And that we need to trust in Christ alone.
05:45 Jesus Christ is our righteousness. Jesus Christ is the way that we become righteous. And when we become righteous, then we can live this proverb out.
05:58 And we can maybe not have a lot of physical wealth, right? Material wealth, as they’d say. But we could have God in us and be incredibly rich. The disciples were asked to help a man and they said, silver or gold, I have none.
06:10 But what I have I will give you. And they went to heal the man. That’s in the book of Acts chapter 3. We’ll just read it here.
06:20 Acts 3:1 -16. Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour. And a certain man, lame from his mother’s womb, was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple, which is called beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple.
06:36 Who seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, asked an alms. And Peter, fasting his eyes upon him with John, said look on us. And he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something of them.
06:47 Then Peter said, silver and gold have I none. But such as I have, give I to thee. Give I thee.
06:54 In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up. And immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength.
07:00 And he, leaping up, stood and walked and entered with them into the temple, walking and leaping and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God. And they knew that it was he which sat for alms at the beautiful gate of the temple.
07:17 And they were filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened unto him. And as the lame man which was healed held Peter and John, all the people ran together unto them in the porch that is called Solomon’s, greatly wondering. And when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? Or why look ye so earnestly on us,as though by our own power or holiness we made this man to walk? The God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified His son Jesus, whom ye delivered up and denied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go.
07:52 But ye denied the Holy One and the just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you, that’s Barabbas, and killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead, whereof we are witnesses. And His name through faith and in His name hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know. Yea, the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in thepresence of you all.” Well, wow, look at what Peter and John did there.
08:20 They didn’t have any money, Amen, and they were able to heal this man. And when people started to celebrate, they said, you know, in verse 12, Peter saw, he answered to the people, ye men of Israel, why marvel at this? Why look earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk? And then he gives God the glory, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his son Jesus. He goes into what they had done to Jesus, and he then says that it’s through faith that this man was made strong.
08:55 Faith. And so we see here a beautiful picture of the idea of having true wealth. And again, they said silver and gold, we have none.
09:03 So we see that they did not have money to help this person, and when they had asked him to look at them, they thought they were to give him some money, some alms, some offering, but they had power upon them. And that power was given to them, not by themselves, not by any righteousness in them, but by God. And then that man believed in that power and was healed.
09:26 And so we see here that Proverbs 28:6 is showing us, better is the poor that walketh in his uprightness, than he that is perverse in his ways, though he be rich. Now if Peter and John were the reverse, if they had a lot of money but they didn’t have God’s power resting upon them, what could they have done for that man? Just given him money. They couldn’t have healed him.
09:48 They wouldn’t be able to do anything for him. But because they had the power of God resting upon them, because they had great faith in God, these were the disciples, Amen And it’s amazing to see God use them and then describe that it was him and nothing that they had done on their own. So He used them to both heal the man as well as describe that it is nothing in them that did that.
10:11 And so we understand that being rich in this world may look like a good approach to life. And if we’re honest, many people will choose a career based upon how much money they can earn. Many people will work much overtime or second or third jobs to earn more money.
10:30 People are continuously trying to accumulate money. But are they spending the same amount of time with God or more time with God? Are they buying into the idea that spiritual wealth trumps this physical wealth? And unfortunately, I don’t think they are. And so we see, who has made us whole? Christ.
10:50 2 Corinthians 5; 21, for he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that wemight be made the righteousness of God in him. And so we received Christ, His holiness, His righteousness, when we believe on his finished work on the cross, on what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross at Calvary, and when He shed His blood, His precious blood, and being perfect, sinless, spotless Lamb of God, when He died on the cross at Calvary, and when we accept that free gift of salvation, and we are risen again with Him, we are new creatures in Christ, then we have received the spiritual so much more so than the material. Now God may choose to bless you.
11:30 You may have wealth. You may have a big savings account. You may have a great job.
11:35 You may have both. You may have plenty of money, and it doesn’t mean God’s going to have everyone that believes in him be poor. But what the Scripture and Proverbs is pointing out is a very true fact, that it’s better to be poor and walk in uprightness.
11:49 And in our minds, are we thinking that way? Are we thinking that it’s better to be poor and walk in uprightness, or are we thinking it’s better to be rich and perverted? Where does perversion come from anyway? Acts 13:10, And said, O fool of subtlety and mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy ofall righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord? And we see here this individual that was full of the devil being rebuked in Acts 13:10 is showing a characteristic of the devil, that the devil constantly perverts the things of God and the ways of God. And we see that Christ defeats the devil in the last days. Romans 16:20, And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.
12:35 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen. We know that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is going to defeat Satan and his armies in the last days.
12:46 He’s already defeated him at the cross once, and he’s going to defeat him again, but just by speaking the Word. Amen. And so we realize the pervert is the devil, the world is the devil’s system, and we must understand that to be holy, to be upright, has nothing to do with physical wealth, and that we can live for God and be poor materially, but be rich spiritually.
13:07 And it’s much better to do that, as the Proverbs says, than to live in this world and to strive for the things of this world, to lust after the things of this world. To do that and to live for it is a perversion, and it’s just gonna leave us into, the Bible word would be snare or trap. That’s where we’re led when we live that life.
13:25 And why? What for? What will we do as we go off into eternity? Will we just plead ignorance before God? We can’t. If we’ve been in His word, we understand the truth, and we understand that righteousness only comes by Christ, and we have to live for God in these last days as best we can, and take hold of His word, and take hold of His promises, and say, you know what, if we don’t have a lot, if we’re going through hard times, that’s okay. We have Jesus, and that’s more than enough.
13:53 And then when you go into the ministry, you can be like Peter, and you can say, silver and gold I have none, but what I have I’ll give to you,and you’ll have great power in the name of God, and you’ll have the Spirit resting upon you, because you believed God, and you valued him more than money. Thank you so much for listening. Take care.
14:13 God bless, and Amen.