Trust God in Money | More Wisdom, More Life | Pastor Zach Weihrauch

Well, welcome to the weekend here at Christ Community Chapel.

Welcome to you

if you're watching this in East Hall or in the gym.

So glad you are here as part of our weekend.

Listen, we're in week two of the Summer of More,

which is what we're calling this kind of historic season

we're in as a church.

Our sanctuary is being renovated, we're displaced, we're all over the place.

I told my wife last weekend, it was like running the circus.

There was something happening everywhere, there was a lot going on.

But we're not focused on what we've lost.

We're focused on what God's going to do during our displacement.

We're excited to see all that he does.

We're also continuing our sermon series

through Proverbs, as we're calling it More Wisdom, More Life.

You know, we our theme for the year in 2026 is More Life.

That's because Jesus said in the Gospel of John chapter ten, verse ten,

that he came so that we might have life and life more abundantly.

He wants more life for us.

Of course we want that.

So we're leaning into Jesus and saying,

hey, if you have more life for us, how do we get it?

And what we're learning in part is this when Jesus says he's come

so that we might have more life, he's saying a couple of things implicitly.

One is that we are currently living less life.

Right.

You don't need more life if you're already living life to the maximum.

Jesus is looking at our world and saying, you're not living the life

you were designed to live.

There's more out there for you.

The second thing he's saying is that only he can get us there.

That's why he says, I've come so that you might have more life.

The implication is, if I hadn't come, you wouldn't have gotten it.

Jesus is saying, I know how to get you there.

I guess I say that because it follows then

that if we want more life, we're going to have to listen to Jesus.

That's what this series is about looking at Proverbs, God's wisdom for more life.

But we're also going to have to expect that he will want to talk about things

that we don't want to talk about,

and that he'll talk about them in a way that will feel foreign to us,

that he'll push us to think differently about all kinds of things

so that we can go from less life to more life.

I just want you to keep that in mind because this week's sermon is on money.

So of course, Jesus is going to want to talk about things

we don't want to talk about, and he's going to think about them

in a different way.

If you have a Bible, I'm going to be reading in

just a second from Proverbs chapter 22 verse seven.

Proverbs 22 · chapter mention

Let me read it to you, and then I'll use an outline to guide our time together.

Here's what the writer of Proverbs says in Proverbs 22 seven to be on the screen

behind me, he says, the rich rules over the poor,

and the borrower is the slave of the lender.

The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.

All right, three points I want to use to guide our time together.

Their questions, they just go like this.

Are you trapped?

Are you leaking?

And are you ready to get out?

Are you trapped?

Are you leaking?

And are you ready to get out?

Let's start with the first one. Are you trapped?

The writer says the borrower is slave to the lender.

Of course he's talking about debt.

He's talking in particular, I think probably about consumer debt,

about going into debt in order to buy the things we want.

And he says, really, what debt is, is slavery.

Now here's the problem.

Debt is a huge part of American culture.

Our parents went into debt.

We have gone into debt.

We will teach our kids that car payments are normal,

that if you can't pay for something, you let visa or Mastercard

or American Express pay for it and you figure it out later.

We've learned to live with debt, but the writer says it's slavery.

So here's what I know.

We probably don't agree.

So when I ask, are you trapped?

I want to kind of tease out, what does he mean

that the borrower is slave to the lender?

I think he's saying two things.

One is logical and one is existential.

Let's start with the logical thing.

You know, before, let me give you a little econ 101.

Hopefully there are no econ professors here in the room.

Before there was money, we had a barter system.

Right? Like if I made shoes for a living.

I would make shoes.

And then let's say you grew apples

and I would show up at your house and I would say, hey,

how about I give you a pair of shoes and you give me a bushel of apples?

And everybody, one like

you didn't have to walk around barefoot, and I didn't starve to death.

It was a good 1 to 1 trade.

There's a problem with

that system, though, and that is next week

when I show up and I'm like, how about a different color pair of shoes?

You're less interested, but I'm still hungry.

So we can't we can't make a 1 to 1 trade.

So eventually someone said, well,

what we'll do, we'll create a system of currency.

And then and then Zach, you can sell your shoes to anybody who wants them.

It doesn't matter if you want what they make, they'll give you money.

And then you can take that money and you can buy apples,

even if the person who makes apples doesn't want your shoes.

So instead of turning shoes into apples, I turn shoes into money, into apples.

I mean, you with me so far, pretty simple, right?

Then someone came along though,

and they said, listen, Zach, you're not young, but you're not old.

You might say, you're in your prime.

You're going to make.

I was expecting more from that.

I am, I am in my prime.

You you have a lot of shoemaking ahead of you.

So I'll tell you what.

Instead of waiting for the next 20 years for all the money

you're going to make incrementally from making shoes, how about we do this?

I will advance you the money you would make.

And you can buy all the apples you want.

You can make apple pie, apple fritters, Apple like, you can do whatever you want.

And then you'll go to work and make shoes.

And I will get your future work and your future earnings.

You get money now, I get money later.

And the concept of debt was introduced.

But I want you to follow the logic.

The minute I take that deal,

I now work for you.

I go to work the next day to make shoes.

I'm not going to work to make shoes because I love making shoes.

I'll say this and I'll say more about this in a minute.

I'm not going to work because I'm passionate about shoes.

I'm going to work because I have to, because I need to make money to pay you

back.

I'm working not for my own profit, but for your profit.

What do you call someone who goes to work?

Not to benefit themselves, but to benefit the person who owns them?

A slave.

You see, the borrower is slave to the lender.

That's just logic.

You go to work to make the shoes because you have to your future

work, your future earnings belong to someone else.

But it's not just a logical point he's making.

It's an existential one.

In other words, it's our lived in reality look.

Most of us are a part of a generational wave of debt.

We saw our parents do it. We're doing it.

We'll pass it down to our kids.

It's never occurred to us to think critically about that.

That's why I can tell you that the average American monthly

spends $1,392 on debt.

Consumer debt, 11% of the average Americans income after taxes.

That's a different sermon.

After taxes give 11.5%

of their income after tax to debt.

So they haven't even paid the light bill yet.

The gas bill, the food bill, they haven't done anything fun.

They've done nothing like that.

They've just Uncle Sam gets his American Express

chase visa, whoever they get theirs.

You see, the reality is we

bought, we are

owned, we are working for someone else.

Our future work, our future earnings belong to other people.

In fact, when I read this passage and he says the rich rules over the poor,

it made me think that there are companies out there right now meeting and I guess

midtown Manhattan and their meetings are about how to convince you and I

we need more of the products they sell or how to convince you and I

that even if we don't have the money, that's okay.

We can just make payments.

A little bit of interest, no big deal, so that they can get not just our money

now, but our future work in our future earnings.

They are in meetings right now

trying to figure out how to own us, how to enslave us.

That's their business.

And so

the writer says the borrower is slave to the lender.

That's just logic.

That's just our lived in reality.

Let me ask you a question.

Are you trapped?

Do you belong to someone else?

Your future work? Your future earnings?

Are they already the property of someone else?

Well, if they are, then I have a second question for you.

And that is.

Are you leaking?

I'm a man, so I don't like to talk about my feelings.

Okay.

When I get home and my wife says, how was your day?

I say, it was, I see, you know, some men.

Yeah, it was fine.

It was fine.

And here's what I believe as a man,

if I don't talk about my feelings, no one will know I have feelings.

Okay, so I can have had a bad day.

Someone could have hurt my feelings. I could be feeling insecure.

But if I don't talk about it, no one knows. I like to think of myself.

It's like the Clint Eastwood of my dinner table, right?

I just squint and play it tough and no one knows what's going on.

And my wife says, Zach, you're not tough. You're an idiot

because she says, and I think people work with me would say this.

Everyone knows you're upset.

Like we feel it.

We feel your frustration.

We feel your disappointment.

We just don't know who you're mad at or how to fix it.

She'll say, Zach, you think you're holding it in, but you are leaking.

Let me ask you a question.

Is it not true that right now, more than any other time in American history,

we are pretty bad at relationships,

pretty bad at mental, emotional, social health?

I've never heard in my whole lifetime of as many families

broken as I have heard of now.

And I'm not just talking about divorce,

I'm talking about parents who don't speak to adult children,

adult siblings who don't speak to each other.

Where's that coming from?

Well, I think the answer is we're leaking.

Because, you see, when you are enslaved, it changes you.

Let me give you three ways that financial slavery will change you.

And then I want to show you how maybe it leaks out of you.

The first is it robs you of your purpose.

Remember, I told you, the minute I agree that I'll take your money now

and you can have my future shoe making.

I'm no longer in the shoe business because I love it.

I'm no longer in the shoe business because I'm passionate about it.

I'm in the shoe business because if I don't show up to work, you'll take my car.

You see, my point

is, if we don't work out of passion, we don't work out of purpose.

Some of us are in careers we hate.

And if I say to you, why don't you get out of it?

Why don't you do something else?

What will you say?

I can't, I have bills to pay.

And we mean in large part debt. It's.

Why would you ask a kid what they want to be when they grow up?

They always say something cool, right?

Like I want to be a firefighter or God help them.

They'll say, I want to play for the Browns.

You're like, you're right. Right.

They'll say those kinds of things because here's how a kid thinks about work.

They think about something they think would be awesome.

And I'll do that, right?

They think of purpose. They think of meaning.

You don't ever see a kid drive by a building and go, dad, what's that?

I said, that's a factory, son. They make things.

And he goes, I can't wait to to work there and turn a widget.

We end up in the jobs we end

up in because we have to add, we have to become.

We've already promised our future work in our future earnings.

We live lives of no purpose.

Well, here's the other thing.

We also.

It also robs us of our peace.

You see, if you're spending $1,392

a month on consumer debt, then here's what I already know.

You're worried about the next financial thing that's coming down the road,

and it crippling you because you can't pay for it.

If you're living life like this,

you are always on the edge of your seat for your kid to come home with.

One more thing we have to purchase parents, school administrators.

You're robbing us.

Just kidding. But you are really.

School's expensive, right?

Or you're waiting for something to break in the house

or to get in the car.

You hold your breath hoping it doesn't make a funny noise

because, you know, if it does, you just might be ruined.

You don't think that hanging over your head

changes you as a person.

You don't think that anxiety and that fear comes through?

Sure it does.

In fact, it robs us of our purpose.

It robs us of our peace.

And I think here's the third thing it robs us of our patience.

I think that's why we're so angry.

At least it's a reason why we're so bitter.

It's why we're lashing out.

We're not yelling at our kids because they're the problem. Their kids.

We're yelling at them because we spent the whole drive home

trying to figure out how we're going to pay for stuff.

We're not yelling at our spouse because they're the problem.

We're yelling at them because we're embarrassed.

We can't get control of our spending.

You see, we're leaking, we're leaking, we're financially enslaved.

And the consequence is it's destroying us.

So it's not just, are you trapped?

It's do you understand?

Your leaking?

It's coming out for the people you love and the places

where you want to matter, in the places where you want to make an impact.

That's what it does.

You know, when I read this passage, I couldn't help but think about a story

that I read when I was a kid, a book I had to read in school.

It was called where the Red Fern grows.

I don't know, maybe you read it.

It was a different time. It was.

It was about a little boy whose dream in life is owning two raccoon hunting dogs.

I guess they didn't have TV, I don't know.

And so he wants these dogs.

Finally gets the dogs. Mission accomplished.

And his grandfather says, okay, now you need a raccoon skin

to teach those dogs how to hunt, which is a little bit of a chicken

and egg problem, because how do you get the raccoon?

And the grandpa says, no, no, you don't need the dogs to get your first raccoon.

Here's how you do it.

And they go out into the woods and

and the grandfather drills a hole in the log,

and then he takes a quarter and he polishes

it really shiny, and he puts it in a hole in the log,

and he tells his grandson, he says raccoons are terribly curious.

A raccoon is going to walk through, he's going to see the quarter sparkle

and he's going to want it.

And I drilled that hole just big enough that if a raccoon flattens his hand,

he can get down in there and grab the quarter.

But I drilled it just small enough that the raccoon can't get his hand out.

If unless he lets go of the quarter and the grandfather says to

the grandson that raccoon will stay there all night, he won't leave.

He'll hold on to the coin and we'll get him in the morning.

And sure enough, that's what happens.

Like the grandfather shows up the next morning.

There's a raccoon there hissing at him, but he refuses to let go.

The grandfather walks up with a baseball bat and kills him.

It was a different time.

We read these kinds of books in school.

I don't know what to tell you.

And I remember even as a kid reading that thinking, this is crazy.

It's crazy for two reasons.

Number one, what is a raccoon going to do with a quarter?

Like?

Is that raccoon going to get the quarter out,

go to a convenience store, flip it on the counter and be like, gum, please.

And I got news for him.

Inflation gums.

Not a quarter anymore anyways, right?

So a raccoon can't use a quarter.

Even as a kid. I'm like, what a dumb raccoon.

What's he going to do? But here's the second thing.

The only thing that trapped the raccoon was the raccoon.

All he's got to do is let go.

He's literally not in a trap.

He's in a trap of his own making, and he can hiss all he wants

and get mad all he wants, all the way until the baseball

bat connecting with his forehead.

But he's the problem, friends, this is what the writer is saying.

And you already know what I'm going to say.

We are the raccoon.

We want the quarter.

We put our hand in the trap

and we can hiss and we can moan

and we can complain

all the way until it kills us.

But American Express is not the problem.

Visa is not the problem. Chase is not the problem.

All of them, you name them, they're not the problem.

I'm the problem.

All they do is polish the quarter.

So are you trapped?

Are you leaking?

Here's my third question.

Are you ready to get out?

Are you ready to get out?

Does it say, well, how do I get out?

Well, how's the raccoon? Get out.

I guess it starts like this.

This is just a quarter.

This is just a quarter.

You know, I was walking around my house the other day.

In my house is a monument to all the things my kids said they wanted.

Like, I'm walking through my basement.

There's a bat cave down there and all these Batman action figures.

And so I say to my nine year old son, Graham, do you still play with Batman?

He's like, dad, please.

Right?

And I'm like, man, I remember. I remember how much that cost.

I remember giving it to you on Christmas.

I remember being the coolest dad ever.

And you don't care about it anymore.

And what Graham now knows that as a nine year old that he didn't know

as a six year old is that's just a quarter.

But we're not any different.

Instead of bat caves, we get cars,

set of Barbies, we buy clothes,

still lay, goes.

We go on vacations that we can't afford.

That in the end, don't really matter.

So the raccoons got to realize it's just a court.

Our friends, you and I have got to realize

our lives are full of backs.

So what?

The second thing the raccoon has got to realize, you know,

this is a quarter is not worth his freedom.

Even if you love your car, even if you love your clothes,

is it worth not being able to sleep at night?

Is it worth losing your temper over your kids?

Is it worth eating away at your marriage?

Is it worth going to a job every day that you hate?

No, no it's not.

And the third thing the raccoon has to decide is he'd rather live.

He'd rather live you to run into the woods.

So you see, until you and I own the fact

that we're in a trap of our own making, that the things we want are just quarters.

That quarters are not as good as freedom.

We can't be set free.

But the minute we begin to think that way, we can be.

Of course. Then that begs the question. Okay.

All right, I'm there.

Now what will the answer is you need someone to lead you to freedom.

And that's someone is Jesus.

Do you know Jesus understands you in a way you couldn't

possibly understand yourself?

Of course he made you. That's an advantage.

2000 years ago, before there was an America, before there was a visa.

Before there was an American Express, before you own the car,

wore the clothes, went on the trip before any of that.

Jesus saw into your heart.

In Matthew chapter six, I want you to see how he understands us.

I'm just going to read it to you, Lacy.

First, here's what he says about all the quarters that we buy.

Here's what he says in Matthew chapter six, verses 19 through 21.

He said to be on the screen, he says, do not lay up for yourselves treasures

on earth,

where moth and rust destroy and we're thieves.

Break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves.

Treasures in heaven were neither moth nor rust destroys.

And where thieves do not break in and steal.

Listen for where your treasure is, there will be your heart also.

You know what Jesus is saying is, don't give your life to bat caves.

Because the car is awesome the first day you buy it,

and then the kids fill it with French fries.

Don't do it. You'll regret it.

That's what he's saying. Don't you see how he sees us?

He's going to listen to the clothes. The Carthage's back caves.

They're just quarters. They won't make you happy.

You'll fill your heart with those things. And then what do you end up with?

A heart full of rust.

A heart full of disillusionment.

A heart full of disappointment.

Jesus says the next consequence of that is you'll be anxious.

Listen to what he says again.

2000 years ago, he says this Matthew 625 and then 34 he says, therefore I tell you,

do not be anxious about your life, what you'll eat, or what you will drink,

or about your body.

What you'll put on is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?

Verse 34 therefore

do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.

Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. You see what he's saying?

He's saying, listen, if you if you go down the road of materialism,

you will cram into today not just today's problems, but tomorrow's problems too.

That's how many of

us are living today's problems and the fifteenths problems,

today's problems, and the 30th or the first of the month.

Their problems, today's problems, and next year's debt coming due problems.

And finally, Jesus told us the way out.

Matthew 633. This is what he says.

But seek first the kingdom of God

and his righteousness, and all these things will be out of you.

Jesus says, would you just trust me?

Follow me, listen to me,

would you let me tell you what's really valuable?

Would you let me tell you how to handle your money in a wise way?

Will you set your goals in alignment with my kingdom?

Will you build your budget in alignment with your kingdom?

He says, if you will.

This is what he says, a promise, if you will.

I'll take care of you.

I'll take care of you.

Friends, I understand we watched our parents live this way.

That doesn't mean we have to.

And I got to tell you, it definitely means we do not have to teach our children

to live this way.

You were not built for slavery.

You were built for more life.

Let me pray for you.

Father God,

thank you so much for this passage for speaking about issues like money and debt.

They're painful, but it's where we live.

Thank you for seeing us and knowing us.

I pray that you would begin for many of us, to sparkle

a little more than the quarter that we've been chasing,

that we might let go of it and chase after you to freedom.

The Jesus name we pray. Amen.