Welcome And The Big Warning

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All right, welcome back. Today we are in Proverbs chapter 11, verse 15, which I'll title Don't Cosign What Isn't Yours, dealing with surety, burdens, and the kingdom within. And I want to warn you up front, this one starts with financial wisdom, but it does not stay there. Because by the time we are done today, I think you're going to see that this verse is really about something much deeper than your credit score. It's about you and what you are carrying, and whether or not God ever asks you to pick it up. I'm going to be honest with you today because I have some personal things that I grew from learning about this. Because these last few podcasts have been teaching me just as much as I hope they are teaching you. And I think there is something valuable in watching somebody work through a lesson in real time rather than just hearing someone who sounds like they have it all figured out. I have not figured it all out, but I'm learning, along with y'all. So let's get into it.

Surety Explained And Why It Hurts

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The verse What surety actually means So the verse says he who is surety for a stranger will surely suffer for it, but he who hates being a guarantor is secure. Now before anything else, I want to clear up a misunderstanding that I hear a lot of people read verses like this think. Some people read Proverbs verse eleven fifteen and Proverbs twenty two seven where it says the borrower is a slave to the lender, and they conclude that all borrowing is a sin, that going into debt for anything is against scripture. That's not what this verse is saying. This is a massive difference between borrowing and surety. And Solomon is talking about surety, not borrowing. Surety means you are putting your name on someone else's debt. You are cosigning. You are telling a lender if this person does not pay, I will pay it. You take one hundred percent of the financial risk with zero control over the other person's choices, their character, their circumstances, or their follow through. That is the trap Solomon is warning about. Cross reference Proverbs six, and you see how seriously Solomon talks about this. He tells his son that if you have ever done this, if you ever been reckless enough to cosign for someone, do not even sleep until you have gone back and gotten yourself free from that agreement. Beg if you have to, humble yourself, but get your name off that line. And Proverbs twenty seven thirteen says take the garment of one whose surety for a stranger. In the ancient world creditors would literally walk up and take the coat off your back if the person you backed disappeared. You were that exposed. So the practical principle here is clear. When you cosign for someone else's debt, you are carrying a weight that is not yours and cannot be controlled by you. And when it goes wrong and Solomon says it will, you suffer for it.

Borrowing Is Not Always Sin

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But what about borrowing, Ed? Now let me show you why I said borrowing is different, because I think this is important and a lot of people get confused here. There is a woman in Second Kings chapter four, whose husband has died. Her husband, it says, was a good man, a follower of the prophet Elijah, a man who feared the Lord, but he had debts, and now the creditor is coming to take her two sons as servants to pay what he owed. Notice how the Bible says he was a good man, not a bad one, even though he had debt, but now he has passed and left his wife with that debt. So she goes to Elijah in desperation, and here is what Elijah tells her to do. Go borrow vessels at large for yourself from all your neighbors, even empty vessels, and do not get a few. God told her to borrow, not just a little, as many as she could find. Then he multiplied the oil she had until it filled every borrowed vessel. She sold the oil, paid off her debt, and had enough to live over to had enough left over to live on. God used borrowed capacity as a vehicle for his provision. He did not condemn the borrowing, he redeemed the situation through it. Think about that for a second. She came to the prophet with nothing but a little oil and a house full of debt. And God's answer was not wait for a miracle to drop from the sky. His answer was go borrow. Go get vessels, go participate in your own deliverance. Then he stepped in and multiplied what she brought into the alignment with his instructions. This is a picture of faith and action working together, not passive, not reckless, not cosigning someone else's crisis. She was borrowing for her own family's survival with a plan under the direction of God and with everything on the line. Again, as a side note, this is an example where you personally need to hear from God yourself. Just don't go run out and start borrowing thinking he's going to get you out of it unless you hear from him. And if you're not hearing from him, little side note, need to get the book, God, why won't you talk to me? It'll save you a lot of time and then you can start living this life. So let's talk about me. I have borrowed money in my life. I've borrowed to build my business, I have debt on property, I have debt I manage every month. And I believe God has been present in all of it. Not because debt is without risk, but because borrowing for your own vision with your own skin of the game and your own commitment to repay is a completely different thing from cosigning a stranger's obligation. The difference is accountability. When you borrow for yourself, you are the one responsible. You make the payments, you feel the pressure. You have every reason in the world to see it through. When you cosign for someone else, they get the benefit and you get the reliability. And Proverbs says that equation always ends the same way. Borrowing for your own God given vision with full responsibility is not the same as putting your name on someone else's debt and hoping they come through. One you control, the other you cannot.

Compassion With Boundaries

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The deeper principle is burdens God never assigned to you. Now here's where it gets personal because this verse is not only about financial agreements, it is about a pattern of the heart. Why do people cosign in the first place? Usually it's compassion. Someone they love is in trouble and they want to help. Someone they care about needs a chance and they want to give it. The motivation is not bad, the motivation is actually good, but the execution crosses a line. They take on a weight that was never theirs to carry for a situation they cannot control, and hopes that the other person will come through. And Proverbs says that person will surely suffer for it. Not because compassion is wrong, but because there is a difference between being a neighbor and trying to be someone's savior, and that distinction runs through everything. Look, Jesus told the story of the good Samaritan. A man is beaten, left for dead on the road. The Samaritan stops, bandages his wounds, puts him on his own animal, and takes him to an inn, pays for his care, and tells innkeeper he will cover anything additional on his return. That is extraordinary generosity. That is radical compassion. But notice what the Samaritan did not do. He did not move the man into his own house permanently. He did not take over the man's life. He did not give him everything and then follow him around, making sure he made good decisions. He gave what was needed for the moment, paid what was his to pay, and left the rest in capable hands. That is the difference between a neighbor and a savior. A neighbor sees something hurting or someone hurting and has real compassion. They give from what God has entrusted to them. They bind up wounds, they help in the moment, they reflect the heart of Christ. A Savior takes responsibility for another person's entire life. They begin carrying burdens God never assigned them. They try to rescue everyone from every consequence, and eventually they get crushed under a weight that only Jesus was ever meant to carry. God never asks you to be everyone's Savior. He already sent one. He asks you to be a neighbor. Paul says in Romans thirteen eight, owe no man anything except to love him. The obligation of love is real. The obligation to absorb every consequence of every choice someone else makes is not.

A Father Learns To Step Back

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Let me get honest about something I was wrestling with recently because I think it illustrates exactly what we're talking about here. One of my daughters is going through a difficult season, and as a father, my instinct is to fix it. I had this picture in my head of setting her up, getting her a nice place, creating the right environment, giving her the infrastructure so she could get back on her feet and start thriving. And there was compassion in that, real compassion. I'm not going to pretend the motivation was wrong. But every time I started moving toward it, there was a check in my spirit, a quiet resistance. And after sitting with this verse, after working through what cosig really means, I started to understand what that check was saying. That was not a burden God had assigned to me. Not because I do not love her, I love her deeply, but because what she needs is not another cushion from her father. What she needs is her own faith, her own walk with God, her own lessons from the fire. And if I swoop in every time the heat rises, I do not rescue her, I delay it. And why do I have faith? And who do I have faith in anyways? Me with my ability to arrange circumstances or God with his ability to grow her into who she is supposed to be. Putting that burden down was not abandonment, it was the most faithful thing I could do for her and for me. I also had to learn, and this has been a hard one, to keep my mouth shut in the right moments. A verse we looked at a few episodes ago said he who is faithful of spirit conceals the matter. Sometimes the most loving thing is not the speech I have been preparing, it's the restraint to wait, pray, and trust God with the timing. We're in a better place now, and I honestly believe part of that is because I stepped back and stopped trying to manage what was never mine to manage in the first place.

Your Mind Is Your Kingdom

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Now here is where this verse went somewhere I did not expect when I woke up this morning. I want to share something personal about how my day started, because I think it connects to everything we have been talking about in a way that surprised me. I went to bed last night with four or five things unresolved, things pressing on me, pressures, family things, decisions I have not made yet. When I woke up this morning those things came right back. They were queuing up immediately, ready to take over before I even had a cup of coffee. And then I had a thought, and I believe it was from the Spirit of the Lord. It was quiet and simple, and it said, Do you really want to think about those things first thing in the morning? And I stopped and I said, No. And then the thought came, you can choose what you think about. You do not have to let those things in right now. This is your kingdom. Now my brain is not strong enough to perfectly filter every anxious thought all the time, and I'm not gonna stand here and tell you I have mastered this, but the knowledge, the revelation, the remain of per se, that I have a choice is itself a kind of freedom I had not fully grabbed hold of before. Because ironically that is another form of cosigning. When I wake up and immediately hand my morning over to every unresolved problem on my list, I am cosigning for burdens God never told me to carry before breakfast. I'm letting fear write the agenda for my day before I have even heard from the one who actually knows how the day should go. Philippians four eight says whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is anything excellent, and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. Paul does not say those are the only thoughts that will ever cross your mind. He says those are the ones you should choose to dwell on. Dwell is an intentional word. You do not accidentally dwell on something, you settle there, you stay there, you set the course. Second Corinthians five says we are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Taking thoughts captive is not the same as never having a difficult thought. The thought may knock on the door, the question is whether it gets a seat at the table. You do not have to stop every bird from flying over your head, but you do not have to let it build a nest in your hair either. Remember Proverbs four twenty three says it directly watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life. So guard your heart, not everyone else's heart, yours. Your thoughts are like the gates of a city in the ancient world. You do not control who walks up to the gate, but you decide who gets through it. Proverbs twenty five twenty eight says a man without self control is like a city with broken walls. Without walls fear walks in, anxiety walks in, lies walk in. Every enemy finds an easy entrance. With walls, with guarded gates, the king decides who enters. You are not obligated to cosign every anxious thought that shows up at your door first thing in the morning. That burden was never yours to carry either. There is a verse in Hebrews four hundred eleven that sounds like a contradiction the first time you read it. It says therefore, let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall through following the same example of disobedience. Work to rest, strive to be at peace? How does that make sense? Here is how I understand it after this morning. The striving is not toward earning something from God. The striving is against the pull of your flesh and your anxious imagination. It is a deliberate decision, the act of choice to refuse everything that pulls you away from trusting him. That is what I did this morning. I was not striving against God. I was striving against the habit of letting stressful thoughts set the agenda. I was choosing to push those thoughts aside and say not right now. First I meet with the Lord, then we will handle those things together. And Isaiah twenty six three describes exactly that. It says the steadfast of mind you will keep in perfect peace because he trusts in you. Notice the order. Trust comes first, then the mind stays on him, then peace follows. It is not get all your problems solved, then you can have peace. No, it is trust God with the problems. Stay your mind on him, and peace arrives as a result. To me that is what the blessing is, not cash from the sky. That is the blessing, not just circumstances being arranged in my favor. The blessing is hearing his voice before fear gets the first word. The blessing is waking up and having a father who gently says, You do not have to start there. Come here first. Let me bring everything together.

Two Questions To Take Home

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Proverbs eleven fifteen starts with financial wisdom. Do not cosign a stranger's debt. Do not take on one hundred percent of risk for a situation you cannot control. That is practical. That's real. And that principle will save you and me from a lot of pain. But underneath the financial instruction is a deeper one. Stop carrying what was never yours to carry. Stop trying to be everyone's savior. Jesus already did that. He is not asking you to carry what he already died to carry. He is asking you to be a neighbor, to love, to give, to show compassion, but not to absorb every consequence of every choice every person around you makes. Stop cosigning for thoughts God never assigned to you. Your mind is your kingdom. You decide what gets through the gate. The anxious thought will knock, but don't automatically give them a seat at the table. And guard your heart from the slow drift where compassion turns into control. Love turns into enabling and generosity turns into weight that crushes you because you become someone's functional savior instead of their neighbor. As I was sitting with all of this today, I realized something about the last several podcasts we had been in together. Look at the progression. Verse thirteen was to guard your mouth, guard what comes out of it. Verse fourteen was to seek wise counsel, what comes into you. Now verse fifteen says guard what you carry, what you pick up and refuse to put down. Those are three areas where wisdom either protects the heart or exposes it. And Solomon is building something here, a portrait of what a person with genuine wisdom actually looks like on the inside. So before we close today, I want to leave you with two questions not rhetorical ones, real ones. Take them with you and actually sit with them. First, Lord, who have you called me to love? Second, Lord, what burdens am I carrying that you never asked me to carry? If you actually listen for the answers, he will give them. Sometimes he will say, Go stop and help that person. Other times he'll say, Put that down. It was never yours to begin with. Both answers are wisdom. Both answers come from the same shepherd. And then here is the sentence I want to leave with you, the one that I think captured not just verse fifteen, but the whole of Proverbs eleven so far. And it is wisdom does not harden the heart against people. It guards the heart from carrying what belongs to God. So today, go be a neighbor, put the weight down that was never yours to carry, and let the Lord be the Savior, because He already is. Well, we will pick up right here next time. Until then, stay in the Word, guard the gate of your mind and trust the one who has already handled everything. God bless and have a wonderful day.