2 The Person behind the Money
“You’re not my daddy. You’re my grandpa,” she said as she laughed at herself and said further, “That’s funny, Grandpa.” We were visiting her and her mom and dad for the day, and our three-year-old granddaughter had taken me by the hand into her bedroom to show me something. Trying to get my attention, she had inadvertently called me “Daddy,” which she immediately corrected and then laughed at how silly it was to confuse me with her father. This little moment amazed me. Here was this little three-year-old, with not much life behind her and living in a rather small world, yet she has already come to see her world in defined and organized ways. She has thought about the web of relationships that she lives in and how she relates to everyone in that web. And she surely finds comfort in having it figured out and knowing her place.
What my granddaughter doesn’t have any grasp of is the significance of her thoughts about herself. In fact, what she was doing in our humorous little conversation is something she will do every day of her life, and because she does, it will shape the choices and decisions she makes in every single area of her life. She will have countless conversations and debates with herself about this topic. She will lose her way or change her mind again and again, but she will never quit thinking about what made her laugh on that day as a little girl.
Perhaps you’re thinking, “Paul, I’m confused, I thought this book was about money. What does this cute little moment with your granddaughter have to do with that?” Well, I think I made it clear in the last chapter that it is impossible to think biblically about any sector of your life in isolation. There is a way in which everything is connected to everything else. Everything you say and do in areas of your life that seem totally disconnected issues from the thoughts and desires of the same heart. Everything in your life is organized and connected by the foundational thoughts, desires, purposes, goals, interpretation, and worship of your heart. You and I are always thinking something. We are always wanting something. We are always being ruled by something. We are always disappointed by something. We are always celebrating something. We are always running after or running away from something. We are always confused by something or trying to figure out something. And the interconnectedness of it all means that nothing in our lives exists in isolation.
Our lives are shaped not just by people and situations, but we give shape to our lives by the way that we think about all that is. With her own little three-year-old relationship organizational chart, my granddaughter was grappling with one of the most formative issues in the human existence, identity. Her parents never told her to do this. She wasn’t given a preschool class in identity formulation. In fact, like most of us, she has no awareness that she’s doing it. The drive to keep honing her sense of identity was hardwired inside her by her Creator. She cares about who she is because he decided that it was important for her to care. This is why God’s first act after having created Adam and Eve was to talk to them. In that talk he was imparting to them identity, because if they were ever to be who they were made to be and do what they were designed to do, they needed first to know who they were.
Now, back to the question of what this has to do with money. Please read the next statement a few times before you read on. You can’t understand money if you don’t understand who you are, and money is one of the principal ways you demonstrate who you think you are. There is no better indicator of the identity you have assigned to yourself than the way you use money. Why does one person proudly throw money around? Why does another person use her money to buy all the cultural markers of success? Why is that neighbor of yours so proudly vocal about his charity? Why has yet another person never been able to stay out of debt? Why does that couple quietly give away such a big portion of their income? Why is your friend so gripped with money fears? Why does she struggle with envy and embarrassment whenever she is around her wealthy friends? Why does he try to hide the fact that he grew up in poverty? Why did Jesus talk about this topic more than any other? Why is money such a big deal? Why are some of us never satisfied, even though we have so much money, and why are some of us content with so little?
The answer to all these questions is identity. In a fundamental way, the drama of identity often plays out in the arena of money. You and I again and again make clear who we think we are by the way we use our money. So I want to get you to think biblically about identity so that you can live rightly when it comes to money. Following are the four identities the Bible assigns to us all.
1. Creature
I don’t know if you have thought about this much, but you and I aren’t the authors of our own stories. It is a bit mind-numbing to consider the fact that our stories were written before the foundations of earth were set in place. We were designed by God with certain capabilities and limitations to fit with the Creator’s purpose for each of us. Every function of our being and every experience and location of our lives are the result of the exercise of the will and purpose of the One who created us. We didn’t think ourselves up, and we certainly didn’t emerge by chance out of the primordial soup.
We are God’s idea, we reflect his design, we exist for his purpose, and we have been commissioned to do his will. It is interesting to note that the first thing God did after creating Adam and Eve was to talk to them. He did this because they didn’t have a clue who they were, what life was about, their daily duties, and where in the world they came from. Yes, they were perfect people, with an unobstructed relationship with God, but they were fundamentally unable to answer the foundational questions of life that form the basis of every choice and decision they would make, every action they would take, and every word they would say. As I said earlier, even at the level of the smallest of human actions or desires, what we want and what we do are rooted in our sense of who in the world we are. So identity confusion always leads to behavioral trouble. In some way, “I am” always precedes and determines your “I will.”
Being a creature means that when it comes to money, you and I weren’t designed to find our own way, to make it up as we go along, or to write our own set of rules. In fact, being a creature means that we have no ability to understand anything fully and correctly without the essential help of God’s revelation. Being a creature means looking to the Creator to understand the meaning, purpose, and danger of anything. We cannot understand the reason for and the proper use of money apart from God’s wise counsel, anymore than Adam and Eve could have understood God’s plan for them in the garden without God lovingly explaining it to them. God made you, God made the world you live in, and the very concept of valuables, currency, and how we are to relate to them came out of the mind of God. Money really is one of the most frequent and powerful ways that you demonstrate who you think you are. Your use of money really does depict your sense of identity. And if you are carrying the identity of creature around with you, you know that you have been called to surrender all your understanding of money and your use of it to the wise counsel and purpose of your Creator. To use money however you want to use it, to get whatever pleases you, is a denial of your identity as a creature of God. How does your use of money portray who you think you are?
It’s sad to have to say this, but none of us is okay. We are all broken, still in need of the further work of redemption. When it comes to money, to acknowledge that we are sinners immediately confronts us with the fact that we need more than a food accountant and a wise budget. If wise life strategies were all we needed, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus wouldn’t have been necessary. Here’s where I think David’s confession recorded in Psalm 51 is incredibly helpful. (Take time now to stop and read Psalm 51).
After David is confronted about his sins of adultery and murder, he first cries out for mercy:
Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions. (v. 1)
Sinners need more than education. They need more than practical life strategies. They need more than external restraints on their behavior. Sinners live in desperate need of mercy. They will only ever be what they were designed to be, and do what they were designed to do, when they have been blessed with the rescuing, forgiving, empowering, transforming, and delivering mercies of the Savior. Our money dysfunction requires more than usable strategies for controlling expenditures and increasing income. You come to understand this when you consider what David reflects in his confession.
David understands that his problem isn’t his eyes, or that beautiful women exist in the world, or that he lives near such a woman as Bathsheba; his problem is sin. He has come to understand that something inside him caused him to be susceptible to dark, wrong, immoral, selfish, and dangerous things. He had come to the awareness that the sin inside him could make him look at what God clearly says is ugly and see something magnetic and attractive instead. He had come to confess that bad things had so powerfully come to look like good things that he had quit caring about who he was and about what God said he should do. His confession clearly says that what he did was not the result of poor education or a bad environment but the result of a dark force living inside him.
David describes that dark force with three helpful words:
Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin!
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me. (vv. 1–3)
He confesses that inside of him is iniquity. Iniquity is moral uncleanness. It was the moral impurities inside him that caused him to desire and do the morally wrong thing. It is important to remember that it is always the evil inside us that hooks us to the evil outside us.
He also confesses that inside him are transgressions. A transgressor willingly and knowingly steps over legal boundaries. To park in the “no parking” spot, even though you see the sign, is to be a transgressor. We step over God’s boundaries, not just because we are ignorant of them, but because we come to a point where we don’t care what God says. We have taken our lives into our own hands, and we will do what we have to do to get what we want. There is a rebel heart inside every sinner.
Finally, David confesses that there is sin inside him. If iniquity expresses moral impurity and transgression moral rebellion, then sin expresses moral inability. Sin renders us unable to live up to God’s design and according to his will. Sin makes us weak, easily susceptible, and all too frequently defeated. Sin causes us not only to fail to live up to God’s standard; sadly, we also seldom consistently live up to our own standards.
So our problem with money is first and foremost a moral problem. Every misuse of money is rooted in and driven by the iniquity, transgression, and sin that every single one of us came into the world with. That’s where David goes next. He humbly acknowledges the reality that at the root of every wrong he has done is something that he was born with:
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me. (v. 5)
One more game-changing observation from David’s prayer of confession is vital. In acknowledging that he is a sinner, David confesses that the only hope for him is heart change. As with all other sins, adultery is first a matter of the thoughts and desires of the heart before it is a matter of specific choices and behavior that take you beyond God’s moral boundaries. You do it with money. Money problems aren’t first problems of the luxurious mall, or the wallet full of credit cards, or a small paycheck, or too many clothes, or an all-too-luxurious car, or lavish vacations. You can be poor and have deeply spiritual money issues. Money problems are heart problems. They are always about the cravings that rule your heart:
Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,
and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. (v. 6)
They are always about what you are really living for. They are always about what you think will make you happy. At some level, they are always about the real object(s) of worship in your heart.
So the only hope for us is the thing David asks for in one of the most well-known prayers in all of Scripture: “Create in me a clean heart” (v. 10). It is a cry for something David has no power whatsoever to produce in himself—radical, long-lasting heart transformation. And it is the reason for the bright promise of the new covenant: “I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you” (Ezek. 36:26). You and I will never grow in our money lives if we fail to address the deeper issue of the heart. Remember, sin is always a matter of the heart before it is a matter of our decisions, investments, and spending behavior. Where does your use of money expose the need for heart change?
3. Sufferer
It may seem as if this third identity has nothing at all to do with the issue of money, but it does. Romans 8:18–23 makes very clear that we live in a terribly broken world. Paul says there that the whole world is “groaning . . . as we wait eagerly for . . . redemption.” It’s a provocative phrase. You groan when you’re in pain, you groan when you’re discouraged, you groan when you’re overwhelmed, and you groan when you’re suffering. Every day you awake to a world that is broken and groaning, and nothing in your life will escape its brokenness. This means that if you’re not suffering now, you’re near someone who is, and if you’re not suffering now, you will someday. Because of the brokenness of the world, it is impossible for your conception of money not to be shaped by your identity as a sufferer.
Perhaps your suffering is poverty. You just never seem to have enough money to pay for the bare necessities of life. There are huge temptations for the poor. One is that you begin to think of money as your own personal savior, that is, the thing that would deliver abundant life to you, rather than Jesus himself (see John 10:10). Maybe your money life has been damaged by the greed of others, such as a boss, a business partner, or a family member. To suffer the greed of others tempts you to give way to bitterness and fantasies of vengeance (evening the financial score). Both poverty and being harmed by the greed of others expose you to an even more deadly temptation. They tempt you to question the wisdom and goodness of God, and when you doubt God’s goodness, you quit resting in his care or seeking his help.
Maybe you’ve suffered poor modeling. Perhaps you lived with parents who never budgeted and were always in a cash bind. Perhaps you were never taught how to handle money, how to design a workable budget and the importance of knowing the difference between wants and needs when you’re spending. Perhaps you went into your adult life not knowing fundamental things that would keep your financial world in order. Perhaps you’ve repeated the patterns of your parents, and you’re now paying the price. The financial brokenness of your parents has led to the same in your world. You solve this, not by being bitter toward your parents and making sure they know what they did to you. No, you’ll deal with what you’ve suffered only in a spirit of forgiveness, by humbly confessing the bad choices you have independently made, and by running to the Lord for his rescue, forgiveness, and wisdom.
Maybe your story is physical sickness that has wrecked your finances and/or removed your ability to work. Maybe your sickness has left you afraid of the next phone call, afraid to get the next day’s mail, and afraid to even think about how you’re going to get out of the money pit that you now find yourself in. It’s important to recognize that your sickness hasn’t left you just with money trouble, but also with heart trouble. Maybe it’s the feeling that God plays favorites, or that he doesn’t hear you when you pray. Perhaps you question the wisdom of his sovereignty or the goodness of his grace. Maybe you don’t just doubt God, but there is also an underlying current of anger toward him. Maybe you feel you’re a victim of circumstances, like a pawn in a game over which you have no control.
Here’s how suffering collides with your financial life. If suffering produces a vertical cynicism in you, if it causes you to doubt God’s presence and promises, and if you no longer believe, at street level, that you can rest in his care, then you will be very tempted to take your life into your own hands and to write your own rules. Taking your life in your own hands is essentially telling yourself that you’re smarter than God, and telling yourself that you’re smarter than God is never a pathway to money peace and sanity. In fact, taking your life into your own hands is always a recipe for adding additional trouble to the trouble that you’ve already suffered. It is vital to remember that sin first infected this world because a husband and a wife questioned God’s wisdom, thought they knew better, and took their lives into their own hands.
Every sufferer needs to run toward the comfort of knowing that the One who rules over all things is a fellow sufferer. He was tempted in all the same ways that you are (Heb. 4:14–16). He understands the damage that suffering does. He is sympathetic to your situation, and he offers you mercies that are form-fit for your individual need. And it really is true that he exercises his sovereign power for your good even in those moments when what you’re going through doesn’t seem good at all (Eph. 1:15–23). He knows what it’s like to be hungry. He knows what it’s like to be homeless. He knows what it’s like to feel disliked and cast out. He knows what it’s like to suffer injustice. He knows what it’s like to be forsaken and betrayed by one’s closest companions. So in your travail he doesn’t look down on you; he will never mock you in your moment of need, and he doesn’t condemn you. No, he enters into your suffering with patient grace, faithful love, and life-altering wisdom. In your money suffering, run to your suffering Savior. Where is there evidence in your use of money that you’ve doubted the goodness and wisdom of God and taken your money life into your own hands?
The word saint wonderfully captures this fourth piece of your identity, but modern usage has lost the original intent of its meaning. Most people who hear the word saint think of someone like Mother Teresa, Martin Luther, or Martin Luther King Jr. and then respond, “I’ll never be one of those.” Saint in the Bible does not connote someone who has reached a nearly divine level of character and influence. Saint isn’t shorthand for “forever revered Christian hero.” We need to reclaim the word saint.
In the Bible saint is shorthand for those who had been rescued, redeemed, and forgiven and are being restored by the grace that is theirs because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. In other words, by biblical definition, all true believers in Jesus Christ are saints. This means that you have the full right and privilege of approaching your money as a saint.
Remember, saints aren’t perfect; they’re simply those who have been redeemed. No saint has ever been so righteous as to earn God’s love. No saint has reached such perfection of character that he has no more need of God’s forgiveness. No saint will ever be with God in eternity on the basis of his own merit. Saints do dumb things. Saints step over God’s boundaries. Saints say they believe but then don’t live as though they do. Saints fall into thinking that they’re smarter than God. Saints live in moments where they’re tempted to question God’s goodness. Saints go through days filled with more self-awareness than God-awareness. Saints sometimes give into temptation, sometimes lose their way, and sometimes forget who they are as the children of God. Saints sometimes pile up debt; saints sometimes make money messes and sometimes take their money life into their own hands.
You see, the glory of being a saint is not what you have done or are doing, but what God has done and is doing for you. Being a saint means you never carry your money burdens alone. It means that God is with you in every money struggle. Being a saint means you don’t have to deny responsibility, shift the blame, run and hide, or be paralyzed with guilt when you’ve made a money mess. In your darkest moment of money foolishness, you can run into God’s presence assured of his forgiveness and help. Being a saint means God has opened your heart to his existence and your mind to his wisdom. You are now blessed with knowing that, at its very core, your life isn’t about your comfort, pleasure, and satisfaction, but about his glory. Being a saint means your eyes have been opened to the fact that the deepest longing of your heart will never be satisfied by something you can buy with your money. Being a saint means you have come to know that money can’t buy happiness and that it will never be your personal savior.
But there is more. Being a saint welcomes you out of the fear of honest self-examination, because you know that everything that could ever be known about you has been fully covered by the blood of Jesus. You can rest assured, knowing that all your money sins—past, present, and future—have been forgiven. And you can go to sleep each night knowing that there is simply no money trouble that lives beyond the reach of the power of God’s amazing grace.
The primary hope of every saint is that God’s grace and wisdom bless you with the promise of fresh starts and new beginnings. Your money problems aren’t the end of your personal story. Your money future is not determined by the level of your discipline, insight, and ingenuity alone, because God blesses you every day with his infinite wisdom and limitless power. As one of God’s saints, when it comes to money you are not hopeless or helpless, because the author of reliable hope and the source of true help is now your Father.
So saints commit themselves to using their money according to God’s purpose and for his glory, but when they don’t, they do not give way to humiliation, desperation, and personal recrimination. Instead, with hope and courage, they get up, dust themselves off, seek God’s forgiveness, rescue, and empowerment, and determine to grow in their commitment to live with their money God’s way. Has your money life been shaped by the blessing of knowing you’re one of God’s saints?
May your daily money habits be shaped by a clear understanding of the four identities Scripture assigns to you (creature, sinner, sufferer, saint) and that you carry with you into every money moment of your life.
Review and Reflect
1. Paul Tripp writes, “There is no better indicator of the identity you have assigned to yourself than the way you use money” (p. 27). What do your spending habits reveal about how you view yourself?
2. How does acknowledging that we are creatures under the authority of our Creator give shape to our view of our personal resources?
3. How would you answer Paul Tripp’s question, “Where does your use of money expose the need for heart change?” (p. 32).
4. If we allow suffering to make us cynical, how is this likely to impact the choices we make concerning our money? How does Hebrews 4:14–16 serve as an antidote to cynicism?
5. In what ways does our union with Christ invite us to take steps toward concrete changes in the way we approach our finances? How does being united to Christ reshape our identity?
Heart Reset