The Spiritual Balance Sheet: True and False Riches Text: Proverbs 13:7
Introduction: The Age of the Facade
We live in an age of managed appearances, a time of carefully curated realities. Our world is saturated with the art of the front. Men drive cars they cannot afford to impress people they do not know. Families are saddled with mountains of debt to maintain a lifestyle that exists only on the surface. Social media has turned this into a high art form, where everyone is a public relations expert for their own personal brand, projecting success, happiness, and prosperity, often when the reality behind the curtain is one of quiet desperation and spiritual bankruptcy. We are experts at pretending.
This is not a new problem, but it is one that modern technology has amplified to a deafening roar. The temptation to value the appearance of a thing over the substance of it is an ancient one. It is the temptation to have the reputation for wisdom without the labor of study, the appearance of righteousness without the pain of repentance, and the glow of wealth without the diligence of work. It is the desire for the crown without the cross.
The book of Proverbs is a bucket of cold, clear water thrown on such foolishness. It is relentlessly concerned with reality. It deals not in what seems, but in what is. It is a book of spiritual accounting, teaching us to distinguish assets from liabilities, true profit from ultimate loss. And in our text today, Solomon gives us a sharp, two-sided proverb that acts as a divine audit of our lives. It presents us with two characters who, in the economy of God, have their balance sheets turned upside down. One has a public image of wealth but is privately destitute. The other has a public appearance of poverty but is privately, gloriously rich. This proverb forces us to ask a fundamental question: what is real wealth?
The Text
There is one who pretends to be rich, but has nothing;
Another pretends to be poor, but has great wealth.
(Proverbs 13:7 LSB)
The Puffed Up Pauper (v. 7a)
The first character Solomon shows us is a man engaged in a tragic charade.
"There is one who pretends to be rich, but has nothing;" (Proverbs 13:7a)
This is the man who "maketh himself rich." The Hebrew carries the sense of a reflexive action; he is the agent of his own deception. This is not someone who is merely mistaken about his financial situation. This is a man who is actively, deliberately projecting an image of wealth that does not correspond to reality. He is all hat and no cattle. He has the big talk, the flashy exterior, the confident swagger of a man of means. But when you look at the ledger, the account is empty. He has nothing.
On a simple, practical level, this is a picture of the fool who lives beyond his means. This is the man who borrows and spends to maintain a facade, ensuring his eventual ruin. He buys things he doesn't need with money he doesn't have. He despises the slow, patient path of diligent labor and saving, and instead opts for the shortcut of appearances. But as with all Proverbs, the wisdom here cuts much deeper than just financial advice.
The ultimate fulfillment of this character is the spiritual poser. This is the Pharisee in Luke 18, standing in the temple, praying "to himself," listing his spiritual achievements for all to hear. "God, I thank you that I am not like other men." He sounds rich. He sounds spiritually prosperous. But Jesus tells us he went home unjustified. His spiritual account was zero. He had nothing.
This is the church at Laodicea. They said, "I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing." That was their press release. That was their testimony. But the Lord Jesus, whose eyes are like a flame of fire, gives them the true audit. He says they do not realize they are "wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked" (Revelation 3:17). They were pretending to be rich, but they had nothing. They had mistaken their material comfort for spiritual health. They had mistaken their cultural influence for genuine faith. They had mistaken their religious activity for a relationship with Christ. They were bankrupt, but were masters of the cover-up.
This is the man who builds his house on the sand. It looks impressive, right up until the moment the storm comes. The pretense of wealth is a flimsy shelter in the day of judgment. When God demands an accounting, the fancy car, the big house, and the respectable reputation are all worthless currency. The man who has spent his life cultivating an image discovers in the end that he has cultivated nothing of substance.
The Hidden Millionaire (v. 7b)
In stark contrast, Solomon presents us with a second man, whose reality is the inverse of the first.
"Another pretends to be poor, but has great wealth." (Proverbs 13:7b)
Here we have one who "maketh himself poor." Again, it is a deliberate act. But this is not the false humility of a Uriah Heep. In the context of Scripture, this is the man who does not flaunt what he has. He is not invested in the project of impressing others. His focus is on substance, not show. He may live simply. He may be overlooked by the world. He may appear to have little. But in reality, he possesses "great wealth."
This is the man who understands that true riches are not tallied in dollars, but in righteousness, wisdom, and faith. This is the man who is "rich toward God" (Luke 12:21). His treasure is in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal. His portfolio is secure because it is held by God Himself.
This is the apostle Paul. By worldly standards, his life was a catalogue of poverty and loss. He describes himself and the other apostles as "sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything" (2 Corinthians 6:10). What an astonishing balance sheet. On the one side: having nothing. On the other: possessing everything. This is the divine math of the kingdom. Paul had Christ, and in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Therefore, he was infinitely wealthy.
This is the church at Smyrna. The world saw their affliction and their poverty. Jesus saw their true condition. He says to them, "I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich)" (Revelation 2:9). The world looked at their shabby clothes and humble meeting places and wrote them off as failures. Heaven looked at their steadfast faith in the midst of persecution and declared them billionaires in the currency that matters.
This is the man who is lowly in his own eyes, like the tax collector who would not even lift his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and said, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!" He made himself poor. He claimed no spiritual assets. He declared spiritual bankruptcy before the throne of God. And Jesus said that this man, not the Pharisee, went home justified. In emptying himself, he was filled with the true riches of God's grace.
The Great Exchange
So this proverb lays before us two ways to live. One is the way of the facade, obsessed with outward appearance, which leads to inner emptiness. The other is the way of substance, focused on true spiritual treasure, which leads to a wealth that the world can neither give nor take away.
But how do we obtain this true wealth? How does a man who is genuinely poor, a sinner with nothing to offer, become truly rich? The gospel gives us the answer in the ultimate example of this proverb's truth. The Lord Jesus Christ is the one who, though He was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor, so that we by His poverty might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9).
He was rich. He possessed the glories of heaven and the worship of angels. He was in very nature God. Yet He "made himself poor." He humbled Himself, taking the form of a servant. He was born in a stable, lived a life of no reputation, and died a criminal's death, naked and abandoned. He had nothing. He was forsaken by His Father. He plumbed the depths of poverty, both material and spiritual.
And He did it all for us, who were the ultimate pretenders. We were the ones pretending to be righteous, pretending to be good, pretending to be spiritually solvent, when in fact we had nothing but a debt of sin we could never repay. We were the puffed up paupers.
And on the cross, the great exchange happened. He took our nothing, our sin, our bankruptcy, our poverty upon Himself. And in return, He gave us His "great wealth." He gave us His perfect righteousness. He gave us His status as beloved sons of the Father. He gave us an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. He made us co-heirs with Him of the entire universe.
Therefore, the Christian has no business pretending. We have no need to pretend to be rich, because in Christ we already possess everything. And we have no need to fear being poor in the eyes of the world, because our true wealth is hidden with Christ in God. Our task is to live in the reality of that transaction. We are to stop trying to impress the world with a flimsy facade of our own making and instead rest in the solid gold reality of the riches we have been given in the gospel. Let the world chase its phantoms of wealth. We have the substance. We have Christ, and in having Him, we have everything.