Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Live No Lies | The Writings | Proverbs 11

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jensen Holt McNair. I came across an account on Instagram the other day, and it had a pretty large following. It's a motivational account. It's specifically aimed towards men, and it's pushing them to reach their goals financially. Now, this is what one of their motivational posts read. You only get one shot at life. Make it count. Your job as a man. should be to create and command as much money, power, and respect as possible. Provide for and protect your family and push past those limits you hold on yourself.

Starting point is 00:00:47 You're the only one stopping you from being great. Now, this account is not unique in its message. There are plenty of accounts on Instagram aimed towards both men and women, telling them how they can achieve their goals and become financially independent, to make the most money to get the cars and houses and clothes that they've always dreamed of. All you have to do is be motivated and follow their plan for wealth and success. Now, all of these accounts are selling you a vision of what the good life is. This one account that I stumbled across was just extremely explicit in their beliefs.

Starting point is 00:01:27 No soft cells. If you want to live a life with purpose, then you would better make your sole focus become gaining as much money, power, and respect as possible. You're the only one stopping you from living the good life, the best life, a life with purpose, and the key to getting there is gaining as much wealth as possible. Here's the problem. It's a lie. It is just point blank. It's a worldview saturated in the lies of the devil that will not deliver on what it promises. I'm not trying to be dramatic here, I just believe that you and I live in a world created by God. I believe that humans were created by God to follow his ways, to build his kingdom, to spread his love, justice, and mercy to the

Starting point is 00:02:16 end of the earth. I think that our chief goal and greatest good is to be faithful to our creator and to live in the ways that he created us to live. And so any other worldview that tells me that my purpose, my main goal, my main focus, the way to my happiness, the way to the good life is found outside of the boundaries of God's vision for my life? Well, it's a lie. See, in his book, Live No Lies, John Mark Comer writes this, when we believe truth, that is, ideas that correspond to reality, we show up to reality in such a way that we flourish and thrive. We show up to our bodies, to our sexuality, to our interpersonal relationships, and above all, to God himself in a way that is congruent with the creator's wisdom and good intentions for his creation. And as a result, we tend to be

Starting point is 00:03:10 happy. But when we believe lies, ideas that are not congruent with the reality of God's wise and loving design, and then tragically open our bodies to those lies and let them into our muscle memories, we allow an ideological cancer to infect our souls. We live at odds with reality, and as a result, we struggle to thrive. The devil works in lies. He loves to distort the truth. Don't forget about Genesis 3. Did God really say you would die if you eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? See, with a small tweak of the truth, the devil tempted the human heart to believe God did not hold the truth to human flourishing, and we've been tempted to believe the same lie ever since. Comer makes the point in his book that all good lies are full of truth. So let's go back to the

Starting point is 00:04:07 quote that I read to you from Instagram. This account talks about providing for family, protecting them. It talks about wanting to make your one chance at this life count. And these are good desires, desires that the Bible often talks about. The lie comes into play. when it tells us how to do those things, how to find purpose, how to protect and provide for our families. He says that your job should be to create and command as much money, power, and respect as possible. That is how you can make your life count. That is where you will find purpose. It's an old lie. The lie that wealth will solve your problems, that devoting your life to building success will give it value. I live in America, the land of opportunity. We love a success story, a rags to riches. We all want to

Starting point is 00:04:58 chase our dreams to become a success to gain wealth. That's how you get the good life. Wealth is often the measure of a successful life. But like Comer says, we were made to live by truth. And when we live our lives around lies like this one, we tragically struggle to thrive. It's the same point that we see made in Proverbs chapter 11. Now, chapter 11 is a is a collection of individual proverbs, short sayings of general truth. Now remember, these aren't prophecies or promises for how your life will turn out if you follow them. The proverbs are guidelines, they're rules that lay out the general way of wisdom, the way to live a life of truth, to live in the way you were created to live so that in general you can flourish, you can

Starting point is 00:05:43 tend towards happiness. And the first seven verses of Proverbs chapter 11 lays out two different ways of thinking about wealth. A way of truth and a way of lies. The way of the upright and righteous and the ways of the unfaithful and wicked. Verse one. The Lord detests dishonest scales, but accurate waits find favor with him. When pride comes, then comes disgrace. But with humility comes wisdom. The integrity of the upright guides them, but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity. Wealth is worthless in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death. These four verses all fit together to tell us a story about the righteous and the wicked, which sounds aggressive, but essentially we're looking at those who live by the ways of God,

Starting point is 00:06:31 the way of truth, and those who do not. We see the wicked using unbalanced weights to gain wealth. They live lives of pride depending on their own strength and ability. They're duplicitous in their search for wealth, and ultimately all their success at searching for wealth is worthless for them on the day of wrath. Now this is contrasted with the righteous, those who use accurate weights, who do business with integrity, who are humble. Ultimately, they may not achieve wealth, but their commitment to righteousness delivers them from death. The proverbs expand on the outcomes of the righteous and wicked in the next three verses. The righteousness of the blameless makes their path straight, but the wicked are brought down by their own wickedness.

Starting point is 00:07:16 The righteousness of the upright delivers them, but the unfaithful are trapped by evil desires. Hopes placed in mortals die with them. All the promises of their power comes to nothing. I cannot stress enough that we remember what a proverb is and is not. And with that in mind, we know that this isn't a promise that every single wicked person will die and every righteous person will live. Instead, what we see is a description of what it looks like to live life guided by truth and a life guided by lies. Truly, this isn't really even a juxtaposition of a wealthy person and a not wealthy person. What's going on here is a deeper heart issue. These final three verses we just read show us that. Verse seven gives it away. Hope's placed in mortals will die

Starting point is 00:08:05 with them. All their promise of their power comes to nothing. The ESV translates this verse, when the wicked dies, his hope will perish, and the expectation of wealth perishes too. When you believe the lie that the good life is a wealthy life, that to make your life count, you need to create and command as much money, power, and respect as humanly possible, your hope has been placed in something mortal, something that will not last, something that will fail to deliver you from the eternal reality that we will all face. Now, if you spend your life building your own kingdom, compromising on integrity, pridefully pursuing your own path to wealth, whether you're incredibly successful in that venture or not,

Starting point is 00:08:51 when you die and die you will, you will once again find yourself hopeless and empty-handed. The opposite is true for the one who has built their life on truth, who does not believe the lie of wealth, who does not put their hope in money, power, and respect. The righteous are guided by the truth that lives. living God's way is better. Living a life guided by humility, by integrity, by faithfulness, and righteousness will always be the most successful life. Wealthy or not, the righteous person has put their hope in the kingdom of God. And that kingdom is an eternal one, one that even death cannot separate us from. So whenever you're tempted by the lies of the deceiver,

Starting point is 00:09:35 remember that whatever they promise to give you in this life, all the promise of their power comes to nothing. The thing about the devil's lies is that they're sneaky. We may not be quite as explicit in our pursuit of wealth as the account that I found on Instagram. But take a moment and ask yourself, do I trust God to provide for me? Am I willing to make moral sacrifices in order to get ahead in my job? Do I overwork for the sake of making more money at the expense of spending time with my family or with God? When I do gain wealth or have financial success, do I thank God? Or do I pat myself on the back for my successes? Do I feel pride or gratefulness more often for my personal successes? Do I believe my life would be better if I just made more money? Maybe you wouldn't

Starting point is 00:10:25 ever say the main goal of my life is to get as much money as possible. But does your life, your choices, your beliefs about your security tell a different story? You can do your best to secure a good life for yourself here on earth. But if it doesn't align with the truth, if it doesn't align with the kingdom of God, with the ways that your creator designed you to flourish, in the end, it will all come to nothing. Put your hope in something that is truly, eternally, foundationally secure. Build your life on truth, and you will find favor, wisdom, and eternal hope in the kingdom of God.

Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Live No Lies | The Writings | Proverbs 11

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