4 Money and the Grace of Surrender
For many people, John was the definition of success. He had come from a poor family. His early years afforded him few advantages. He determined that he would make it. He refused to continue to live the way that he had grown up. He got his first job at fourteen and worked his way up. It wasn’t long before he was given greater responsibilities and, with them, greater pay. He never stopped climbing the corporate ladder until he was the man in charge. John’s life was the image of wealth and success. His gated, suburban mansion was featured in magazines. And he had three vacation homes in places we’d all want to be. He drove the best cars, ate the best food, and wore the best clothes. There was never a moment when he was in debt, there was never a bill that he failed to pay, and he never lived with the pain of financial stress. His massive budget was always in order, and his financial future was more than secure. He knew how to handle his money and seemed to do so well. The investments he made were good ones, such that he never lost any of his money.
From a distance, there seemed few reasons to critique John’s financial life. But John’s world of money was deeply flawed and broken. John had completely missed the whole reason God created treasure (money) and placed it in human hands. In being so focused on and committed to his use of money, John had missed the whole point of money. What appeared to be success was not success at all. What seemed right was, in fact, sadly foolish. In spite of all the markers of success, John was not a man to admire, but one to pity. He had worked so hard, he had been so careful, he had weighed every decision and guarded every penny, but it had all been misguided and misdirected. The flaw in all that John had done with his money was this: it had been guided by one thing, John.
John’s mistake was that while he had been careful with his money, he had not been prayerful. A financial life that is lived to the glory of God and meets the requirements of the two Great Commands (love of God and love of neighbor) doesn’t begin with learning financial principles, the qualities of a good investment, and how to structure a wise and workable budget. An economically and spiritually healthy outlook on money begins with a prayer. Notice that I wrote “a prayer.” I’m not just talking about prayer in general, but about a specific model prayer, that is, the prayer that our Lord passed down to us in his most lengthy sermon, the Sermon on the Mount.
Before we look at how financial sanity is found in the words of that great prayer, I want to look back at John and his money for a moment. Although John would say he believed in God, it made very little impact on the way he thought about and used his money. Rather than being driven in financial decisions by an awareness of the centrality of God in all things, his decisions were driven by autonomy (“My money belongs to me to use as I want”) and self-sufficiency (“I have everything I need in myself to use my money well”). To John, his money was his money. As long as he didn’t hurt someone as he acquired or spent it, John saw his money as his to use as he saw fit. John’s faith seemed to have little impact on his use of money.
Now, I want to stop here and admit something. There are ways in which I am more like John than unlike him, and I would imagine you are too. I like to be in control. I like to have my own way. I like my plans to happen without interruption. I like people to agree with me. I like my days to be predictable and easy. And because I like these things, I am tempted to use my money to get them. Money can give you control. Money can purchase an easier life. Money can even make people like you more. Money can buy temporary pleasure, comfort, and ease. Could it be that an embarrassing amount of our money is spent on one thing—us? And could it be that by the time we have finished spending our money on ourselves, we have little money left to invest in anything else? Admit with me that living for something or someone other than ourselves does not come naturally. Independent, self-sovereign living is what comes naturally. Making ourselves the most important thing is natural, but it is not the way God designed us to live, so it is not the pathway to the wholeness of life that we all want.
God created us to be dependent. He created us to follow his commands and to submit to his will. Real life and true freedom are found when we willingly and joyfully surrender to the One who created us, knows what we need, and rules what we could never ever control. But something else is vital to remember: we were never designed to put ourselves in the center of our world and make our lives all about us. We were never created to live for little more than our personal comfort, pleasure, happiness, and success. In God’s plan for us, we will never find the rest of heart that we all seek until we live according to the purpose and glory of the One who created us. Self-sovereignty is a delusion. Self-glory is a disaster. Independence does not work. Self-rule never goes anywhere good. Living for yourself never delivers what you hoped it would. With all his success, John could never stop working, never stop investing, and never stop spending. He couldn’t stop, because he was never able to find what he was looking for—true contentment, true joy, and lasting peace.
But John was not dead, and the final chapter of his story had not yet been written. The beginning of the rescue of John and the rebuilding of his financial world began with a prayer, that very same prayer that I wrote of earlier in this chapter. The words of the Lord’s Prayer began to open John’s eyes and change his view of money forever:
When you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
Pray then like this:
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.” (Matt. 6:5–13)
You may be wondering what this prayer has to do with a life of financial sanity. The Lord’s Prayer is not born first from need. Much of our prayer arises from need and involves a long list of things that we hope God will deliver. The words of this prayer arise from a posture of surrender, which is precisely why it is so helpful when it comes to how we view and use the money that has been entrusted into our care. Financial sanity doesn’t begin with hard work and careful budgeting, although both are beneficial. Money sanity begins with surrender, a surrender that rescues us from ourselves and frees us to use what God has provided in the way he intended. Let me unpack the money sanity found in the words of this prayer by focusing on its opening words, because those words set the posture and direction of this prayer.
Money Sanity in the Lord’s Prayer
1. Your Money Identity: “Our Father in heaven”
It is something everyone does, as we touched on earlier: we each assign to ourselves some kind of identity. From their earliest days, children begin thinking about this. The identity you assign to yourself determines how you think about life and how you respond to everything that comes your way.
When we come to Christ and are adopted into his family, we are blessed not only with his forgiveness and a secure destiny, but with a brand-new identity. Between the “already” and the “not yet,” we are blessed to be the children of God. The gospel of Jesus Christ doesn’t just define for us who God is and how he responds to us, but it redefines everything about who we are. This new identity carries with it new provisions and new potential.
In Matthew 6:31–32 Jesus argues that because we are now the children of God, we don’t have to give way to the normal anxiety that most people feel over the question of whether their needs will be met. Because we now have a wise and loving heavenly Father, who owns everything and is in control of everything, we can rest assured that all of our needs will be met. This means we have been freed from the fear of want that causes us to focus all of our time, energy, and money on making sure all our needs are met.
Sadly, this is not the view of money that most of God’s children have. They think that the primary purpose for the resources they have been given is personal provision, and they will give God the 10 percent tax he requires, and if anything is left over, they will give to his work. Connected to your welcome into the family of God is the promise that God will supply what you need to be what he has called you to be and to do what he has called you to do. He hasn’t promised to fund your dreams, but he will meet your needs.
Paul argues in Romans 8:31–32 that the cross is our guarantee of God’s faithful provision. If God would go to the extent of controlling nature and the events of human history so that Jesus would come at the right moment to live like we could never live and die the death we should die and rise again defeating sin and death, would it make any sense for God to then abandon us, failing to meet our needs? You can be sure that since God was willing to give you his Son, he will give you everything you need now and until he takes you to the place he has prepared for you.
Now, with this new identity also comes new potential. This is another thing that every human being does—we all are constantly measuring our potential. Whether it’s the toddler measuring his potential to wobble across the room, or the teenager measuring his potential to drive in traffic, or the single woman measuring her potential to live and work alone in the big city, human beings are always defining and measuring their potential.
Not only does your new identity give new meaning to the purpose for your resources; it changes you on the inside. As God’s child, your eyes are now open to his truth, and a new set of desires has now been enlivened in your heart. Your heart is now open to something bigger than your little kingdom of wants, needs, and dreams, and your eyes are open to the grand purposes of the kingdom of God. And your resources are free for investing in a greater and more lasting purpose than personal provision. What if the main purpose for your money as a child of the Father is not personal provision, but giving to others and to your Father’s work? How would that change the way you think about your finances and use your money? Financial sanity begins with knowing your Father and surrendering to his wise plan.
2. Your Money Purpose: “Hallowed be your name”
I have written about this before, but it is necessary to do it here again. These four words—“Hallowed be your name”—are more than a prayer for God’s name to be known and revered; they are a commitment to expend the time, energy, and resources you have to that end. So these words are specifically and practically helpful when it comes to understanding God’s purpose for your money and his will for how you use it. Let me explain. Whether you have thought about it or not, you always save, spend, or invest your money in the pursuit of someone’s name. You spend your money to make your name great or to make God’s name great. Now, this sounds way too simplistic, but it is true for all of us, no matter how much money we have.
So much of what attracts us to buying what we buy is that we are buying not just a thing but an image. We buy clothes because they are cool (fashionable), so they make us look cool. We like a certain car for the image attached to it. We want to live in a certain neighborhood because it has a good image. We don’t just pay to go to a beautiful resort location, but we send selfies back home to let others know we are there. We spend so much on things because of what we think of ourselves and what we want others to think of us. Image drives much more of our spending than most of us have ever considered.
Sadly, with our wallets we tend to be glory thieves, wanting for ourselves what belongs to God. We want people to respect us and to see us as successful. We love to be the center of attention. We want people to know what we’ve accomplished and be impressed. We spend in pursuit of our own glory more often than we think. Although God is our provider, and our successes actually come from God’s hands, we claim them as our own and steal the glory that belongs to God. All this leads to houses that are bigger than we need, more clothes than we can reasonably wear, more food than we should ever eat, more luxuries than we should desire, and more debt than anyone should ever carry.
Don’t misunderstand. It’s not wrong to invest in a home for your family or to feed your children well or to take a weeklong sabbath of rest and relaxation somewhere nice with your loved ones. God calls you to do all those things. I’m attempting to get you to examine how much self-glory drives the way that you spend your money. Contrast that with a view of personal finances that is shaped by a heart-ruling, desire-shaping, and decision-forming commitment to do all you can with what you have to make God’s name great. When my heart is committed to and satisfied by the glory of God, my heart is content, and I am thereby freed from the debt-inducing tyranny of hoping that the next big purchase will finally make me content. Spending in pursuit of personal happiness never results in lasting happiness; it only results in the acquiring of debt and all the emotional and spiritual stress that goes with it.
Embedded in the words “Hallowed be your name” is a call to invest your resources in worship of and for the sake of One infinitely greater than you. If you did that, how would it alter the way you view and use your money? These four words infuse your money with a grander purpose than what drives the budgets of most of us. Financial sanity is rooted in surrendering your use of money to the glory of One greater than you.
3. Your Money Commitment: “Your kingdom come, your will be done”
It’s true for me, it’s true for you, and it’s true for everyone who will read this book: life between the “already” and the “not yet” is one big war of kingdoms. Your parenting is formed by the kingdom you serve. Your joys and disappointments are shaped by the kingdom you have tied your hopes to. Your marriage is guided by the kingdom you serve. Your relationship to your neighbors is kingdom driven. And your finances are always assessed, spent, and invested in pursuit of a kingdom.
When it comes to kingdoms, there are really only two choices. With every choice, decision, or action, you live out of a deep heart allegiance to the kingdom of self or the kingdom of God. I’m not saying that you are always conscious of this or that your decisions are intentionally kingdom driven. What I am saying is that with everything you do, you are either serving the purposes of God or the desires of self. This conflict of kingdoms is brilliantly laid out for us by Christ in Matthew 6:19–33, where Jesus argues that if you live for the right-here, right-now pleasures of the kingdom of self, you will tend to invest your time, energy, and money in the physical treasure of this present world. You will attempt to satisfy the longings of your heart with earthbound treasures, that is, with people, places, and possessions. The core lie of the kingdom of self is that by satisfying your self-oriented desires, you will find life. And the corollary lie is that physical things will be the delivery system.
This whole delusional system is driven by the reality that as sinners we tend to live for ourselves, to make life all about us. We tend to be obsessed about what we want, why we want it, how we want it, when we want it, and who we want to deliver it. We invest so much of our time and energy acquiring things for the sole purpose of our comfort and pleasure. We keep telling ourselves that the next thing will be what satisfies us, but it never does, so we go out and buy something else.
The car that we told ourselves we’d always wanted doesn’t satisfy us for long. Soon we have our sites on another that we think we’d like better. The house we bought, vowing that it was the last house we’d ever live in, now no longer seems so special, and we begin to notice other houses in other neighborhoods. We rent storage rooms and fill them with the discarded delivery systems of promises that never delivered. Sadly, so much of our money is spent looking for life in all the wrong places.
This is why Jesus’s words in the Lord’s Prayer, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” are so important to hear, to pray, and to live. Embedded in these words is a plea that God, in grace, would cause our hearts to love his kingdom more than we love our own, and embedded in that plea is the hope for financial sanity and practical-spending wisdom.
How would your finances change if you loved God’s kingdom so much that it is where you wanted to invest your time, energy, and money? How specifically would a God’s-kingdom focus serve as your defense against frivolous and selfish spending? Are you ready to pray, “Your will be done right here, right now, in my finances as it is in heaven”? If you would budget with God’s kingdom in view, how would your budget change? If you would give with God’s kingdom in view, how much more would you be giving? Are the large purchases you make driven by God’s kingdom? Are your incidental purchases made in allegiance to what God says is important and of eternal value? Is your car payment too big or your mortgage too heavy? Where is this issue of kingdom allegiance laying out for you an agenda of financial change? True, God-honoring financial sanity is only ever found when you surrender the kingdom of self to the greater purposes and the eternal vision of the kingdom of God.
4. A New Way of Living with Your Money: “Give us this day our daily bread”
It’s only after surrendering your heart to the first part of the Lord’s Prayer that you can honestly pray these words. Embedded in this prayer is a request for a contented heart. Embedded in this prayer is a request for the ability to trust in the Father’s promise to provide. Embedded in this prayer is a desire for a heart filled with praise and not complaint. Embedded in this prayer is a cry for freedom from a heart ruled by an endless quest for more. Embedded in this prayer is a cry for rescuing and empowering grace.
I’m afraid that although many of us pray this prayer, few of us would be content with God’s answering it. Most of us crave more and collect much more than just our daily bread. Could you honestly pray, “God, if you would just meet my basic needs (not wants, demands, or desires), I would be so grateful”? What would God have to give you in order to satisfy you? Could it be that, in reality, we need much less than we think we need and we have loaded into our “need” definition many things that are not needs at all?
More than just the meeting of needs, this is a prayer that cries out for a heart so satisfied with the provisions of the Father that the wallet is freed to invest in the bigger and better agenda of God’s eternal kingdom.
The vast majority of our debt and financial stress would be alleviated if we would surrender our desires to our Lord’s faithful provision of what we truly need. A contented heart is a necessary ingredient in any long-term lifestyle of God-honoring financial sanity.
I must confess that this has been a hard and deeply convicting chapter to write. As I wrote, I celebrated how this prayer provides a model for us of where contentment and the resulting proper use of our resources are to be found, and I mourned how far I still am from the claims it makes on my money. Sure, I have determined to live generously and to pass on to others the blessings God gives me. And, no, I am not in great debt. In fact, I don’t even carry a credit card. But my heart still looks for life where it can’t be found. I am still way too attracted to stuff I don’t need. I am way too skilled at justifying expenditures that should never have been made. And I struggle with these things because I still live with too much allegiance to that little kingdom of one, the kingdom of self.
So, I end this chapter by going back to the confession and prayer of King David in Psalm 51. I make his word a personal prayer; I hope you will pray it with me:
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me. (Ps. 51:10)
And with this prayer, we can acknowledge that debt is not first a size-of-the-paycheck or adequacy-of-the-budget problem. Debt is the financial result of a heart problem, and for that we need forgiving, rescuing, and transforming grace. Isn’t it wonderful that we can rest assured that this grace is what God has promised to bestow on each one of his children? And when God makes a promise, he always delivers!
Review and Reflect
1. Jesus instructs us to pray to God as our Father. How does knowing that you are a child of God specifically address your financial anxieties?
2. Romans 8:31–32 shows that the cross is our guarantee of God’s faithful provision. Ponder the answers to the two questions posed by the apostle Paul in these verses.
3. Paul Tripp writes, “With our wallets we tend to be glory thieves” (p. 62). Explain how.
4. As you assess your spending during the past twelve months, what heart allegiances are exposed? Which kingdom—the kingdom of God or the kingdom of self—receives the larger share of your investments?
5. How can praying, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matt. 6:11), result in a new way of living with your money?
Heart Reset