Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] This morning.
[00:00:02] My name is Craig Jarvis. I am the lead pastor.
[00:00:06] Where am I again? Village. Village Church East.
[00:00:10] It's hard to get old, isn't it?
[00:00:14] Not for the end of my part.
[00:00:18] So today we're talking about. We're continuing our conversation on being good managers, and we're going to be talking a little bit about investments. Investments. How many of you love to have investments?
[00:00:30] How many of you love to spend your money without investing it? How many of you would like to have investments without investing? That would be nice, wouldn't it? Yeah.
[00:00:38] Well, we live in a world that wants to be sure that we put our money into the investments that they send our way.
[00:00:47] And so today we're going to be talking about what kind of investments a wise manager makes. And so we've actually been working through this series. It's been a fun series to do.
[00:00:57] Darren did a fantastic job last week, did he not? Oh, my word.
[00:01:02] Love that, Darren. Thank you for sharing this series with me. We began by talking about a manager's rationale. I'll live better when I'm settled on who owns my stuff.
[00:01:14] We talked about God being the owner of all things. We talked about a manager's reasoning.
[00:01:19] Trusting God breaks the grip of fear. When we trust God, it breaks that grip of fear, like we might lose it all.
[00:01:26] We talked about the feeding of the 5,000. That was kind of fun to do. And then a manager's reward is today. How far does an investment with God actually go?
[00:01:38] So for my generation, I'm an ex, and for my generation, we kind of are dealing with some situations that we maybe wish we had invested in, but we didn't. And so we missed off on the payoff. Like bitcoin. Bitcoin would have been a great one, right?
[00:01:59] I've used this illustration before, but it always makes me feel bad, and so I'm hoping it makes you feel bad, too. If you invested 10 bucks in Bitcoin in 2010, how much would you have today? Well, with the fluctuation, it varies, but about $200 million, so. Oh, too bad on that one, right? How about investing $1,000 in Apple in 1990? Remember those big bricks they had for the computers? You know those colorful. Remember those colorful Apple computers with the big screens on them? If you had invested $1,000 in Apple in 1990, you'd be a millionaire today. You'd just be short of a million dollars. How about Nvidia? That was a good one, right? Have you heard of Nvidia?
[00:02:44] Oh, boy. Well, Nvidia is one of the best investments in the last 10 years. Over the past decade, Nvidia returned roughly 24,000% to investors. 24,000%.
[00:02:57] And that means that if you invested $1,000 in 2016, it would be worth about 246,000 today. Oh, if only, right? You hear about these things and all of us think the same thing. Oh, I wish I had invested back then. Well, let me tell you about one of the best investments you missed out on. All right? The best investment in human history may have been, well, this is real estate. So it may have been this particular individual named Peter Minuit. Have you ever heard of Peter Minuit?
[00:03:28] Peter Minuit in 1626, purchased the island of Manhattan from the Native Americans for $24 worth of stuff.
[00:03:43] 24 bucks? Yeah. And he brought them a case with a lot of colorful stuff, and they gave him Manhattan.
[00:03:51] If you owned the island of Manhattan today, you would be worth about $1.7 trillion.
[00:03:59] So. Oh, that was a good investment, wasn't it?
[00:04:03] An investment that seems small at the time but gives huge rewards later always leaves me thinking, and I don't know if it leaves you thinking, but it always leaves me thinking, oh, I've missed out on the opportunity.
[00:04:17] If only I have invested. If only I had invested in these opportunities, but I didn't. So my goal this morning is to help you feel a little bit encouraged if you've missed out on some of the Nvidia and the bitcoin and the buying Manhattan opportunities.
[00:04:36] Let me encourage you, you still have an awesome opportunity to. To make some really good investments.
[00:04:44] And this is what brings us to our passage this morning.
[00:04:48] I just want to encourage you, you haven't missed out on the best investment at all. Jesus uses these exact same terms, investment terms, when he talks about small acts of faithfulness we do today that pile up for a payback in eternity.
[00:05:06] And so the reward of every great manager, of every good manager for the Master, for our Father in heaven, is to be sure that whatever we're investing in has eternal rewards.
[00:05:20] So let me take you to a passage of scripture this morning. Luke chapter 12. Luke chapter 12 actually begins as a real time event in Jesus life. And then it turns into something a little bit different. Luke chapter 12. We're going to start in verse.
[00:05:34] I want to introduce you to a brother who is disenfranchised.
[00:05:39] He's actually put out. He's not happy at all with his brother. So if you have your brother here this morning, you're going to relate well to this story. If you're sitting by your brother.
[00:05:53] Yeah, there you go. All right. Someone in the crowd. Verse 13. Someone in the crowd said to him, teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. All right? This is a guy, he's not happy. There's an inheritance that has been given to him and his brother, and he's getting the short end of the stick. He goes to Jesus. Jesus is not a judge.
[00:06:16] Jesus is not an arbiter. Jesus is a guy that has been building his reputation as a very smart rabbi. And so this brother goes to Jesus thinking to himself, I'll get somebody that knows what they're talking about on my side and maybe he can talk some sense into my brother. This guy's heart is really unhappy because he's getting the short end of the stick. Now, I don't know if anyone is here and you've gone through an inheritance dispute. They are not pretty. I've done funerals where, where people have come into the funeral for their mom, their dad, their grandma, whatever it is, and they won't sit together because there is a problem with how the inheritance is coming down at my house.
[00:07:05] My siblings, I just found out at Christmas, put their names on all the things around the house that they want.
[00:07:11] Nobody told me that was even an option. So I'm going, oh, I'd like that table, because it reminds me of my dad. Oh, no. My sister's name is posted underneath of the. Now, listen, if you do that with one of the chairs in here, it doesn't make it your chair all the time, okay? Just so you know, this guy wants justice and he's not getting it. So he comes to Jesus and he says, you are an important rabbi. You're somebody that we both respect.
[00:07:38] Will you talk to my brother for me?
[00:07:40] Verse 14, Jesus says, Man, who made me a judge or an arbiter? Over you. Now, this response is striking for two reasons. Number one, Jesus was not a judge. So he's simply saying, I have no power to do this. Like, why are you asking my help? I'm not a judge, so I can't do anything to help you.
[00:08:04] The other reason this is striking is because Jesus is the final judge. Did you know that Jesus is the final judge? In John 5:22, Jesus himself says, for the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son.
[00:08:22] So we will be judged by the sandalwear and hippie loving beachcombing guy that we portray as this passive loving guy. At some point in history, some point in eternity, all of us will face him as a judge.
[00:08:40] Interesting.
[00:08:41] Jesus takes this situation in Luke chapter 12 and addresses an internal problem, and he points it out to the guy.
[00:08:52] So in verse 15, he says, dealing with a deeper issue for this brother, he said to him, take care and be on your guard against all covetousness.
[00:09:03] For one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. And I put that in yellow because I thought it'd be fun to say together. All right, you want to say this together? Here we go. I'll start off. He said to them, Jesus said, take care, be on your guard against all covetousness. Here we go. For one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.
[00:09:26] We do not believe that.
[00:09:30] We don't.
[00:09:31] Just because Jesus says it doesn't mean we believe it.
[00:09:36] Think about.
[00:09:37] And this is naturally. This is why when you hear about all those missed opportunities for investments. Oh, $1,000 for Nvidia, 10 bucks for Bitcoin, we all have the same emotions. Oh, should have done that if I had invested. How much better my life would have been if I had made a $10 investment in that whatever it is and got my dividends back.
[00:10:04] We live and breathe in a culture that judges success based on the stuff we own and what we can accumulate for ourselves.
[00:10:12] You don't believe this.
[00:10:14] Have you ever met somebody at a party that you didn't know?
[00:10:17] Probably all of us have. Right. Got introduced to them. You got left alone with them, and you're thinking to yourself, what in the world do I say to this person that I don't know? And so most of us will go to, you know, we don't want to talk about the weather because we don't want them to think that we're dumb.
[00:10:32] So we go to the Go to statement.
[00:10:35] Hi, I'm Craig. Hi, I'm Jim. Whatever. Okay, nice to meet you. What?
[00:10:41] Yeah.
[00:10:43] What do you do?
[00:10:44] Why do we ask that question?
[00:10:47] Think about that. Why do we ask that question? That is a really weird question to ask. What do you do for a living?
[00:10:55] It's interesting. I think the reason we do that is because what we're really asking is, what. What have you been investing your life in?
[00:11:04] What have you been working toward that is going to make you more of you later on in life?
[00:11:12] We're in this American culture. I think we have a tendency to kind of evaluate the worth of the person we're meeting based on what they invest in in their lives.
[00:11:23] And it's asinine because who's the most important person to you right now? If You're a believer. If you're a believer, who's the most important person here right now?
[00:11:32] Jesus. Right? Right.
[00:11:34] What did Jesus do for a living?
[00:11:38] He was a carpenter. Right. He didn't own anything. He borrowed everything. He didn't even have a house to live in. He shacked up at people's houses as he went through town after town. He was, you know, if he needed food, he's multiplying stuff so that he could. No, that's not true. But, you know, Jesus is not. He's not on the rich side of things.
[00:11:58] We think to ourselves, the most important person in my life is Jesus Christ. And yet I would. If I went up to him and said, so what do you do for a living? Well, I'm a poor carpenter. Oh, really? Let me go talk to this guy over here.
[00:12:13] Unless you need some home repair, you wouldn't get into much of a big conversation with Jesus.
[00:12:19] So Jesus says, listen, what I want you to do is take care.
[00:12:23] Be on guard against covetousness.
[00:12:27] Do you know the number 10 commandment in the 10 commandments?
[00:12:32] Don't covet.
[00:12:34] Like the first four have to do with God. Remember God's day, Honor God's name, honor God's reputation. Don't use his name in vain. Like, those are the one God kind of stuff. And then you got the middle one, the fifth one. And that's honor your parents. And that's good because it teaches you social responsibility at home before you're thrust into the world where you don't steal spouses and you don't steal reputation of people around you. Don't steal their stuff. No stealing, no lying about a reputation of somebody else.
[00:13:05] You just got this. No, no, no, no. And then you get to number 10 and it says, here it is, don't covet. Stop coveting. And I think number 10 is number 10 because it's a summary of all the other ones.
[00:13:17] When you start coveting somebody else's stuff or their name or their reputation or their spouse or their. That's when you get into trouble. And so Jesus in this passage, he says, listen, what I want you to do is guard against covetousness.
[00:13:31] It's a very dangerous thing to play around with.
[00:13:35] And we have a tendency to walk the line on covetousness even when we're not aware that we're doing it.
[00:13:41] In fact, when Jesus says, be on your guard against covetousness here in this passage of Scripture, it's the present middle imperative, which means nothing to anybody here. Because unless you're an English major. Who cares what a present middle imperative is?
[00:13:55] But if you look at it the way that Jesus says it, he's literally saying, keep guarding continually your heart against covetousness. Don't give up.
[00:14:08] It's an active. Avoid covetous. Stand guard against it. Because greed doesn't knock politely at the door of a heart. It sneaks in when you're not paying attention.
[00:14:20] And all of a sudden you begin to covet things that you don't need simply because you've allowed this covetous heart to grow inside of you and inside of me. Covetousness is not passive. It disguises itself as guarding your future. You know, you think about covetousness, if I only had this, I'd be better off here. If I only had this, my kids would be better off if I only had. And so covetousness sneaks in the back door and all of a sudden we go, wait a second, I'm. All of a sudden I'm becoming a pretty covetous person.
[00:14:56] All things are not bad things. But anything can turn a heart bad quickly.
[00:15:03] It's not bad to want family, security or the best for your kids, but it is when it sneaks in and makes us something that would not please God.
[00:15:14] Covetousness. The actual word for covetous here in the Greek is planexia, and it simply means the insatiable appetite for more. In Jesus day. This word.
[00:15:27] This is a Greek word. This is not the Hebrew word in the Ten Commandments, but it's the same meaning. This word was hijacked by the culture and used by philosophers. There's a lot of philosophers right before Jesus time. Plato, Aristotle, you know, Aristotle, all these guys. These guys were popular in this day. And they would use this term to describe how a heart gets sick.
[00:15:54] They would use this term covetousness for the way that a heart turns bad. It was considered when they used this in their philosophy, it was considered a moral disease.
[00:16:06] A heart that is guided by covetousness.
[00:16:10] Paul later uses the same sin to talk about in his book to the Colossian Church and he puts it in the same category as idolatry. Listen to this. In Colossians 3:5, put to death. Therefore, what is earthly in you? Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire. And what else? Church covetousness, which is idolatry.
[00:16:35] This is not a pop.
[00:16:37] This is not a complementary word that was used in Jesus Day or Paul's day or by any philosophers because greed quietly replaced trust in God. And it replaces it with trust in what I can accumulate for myself.
[00:16:56] Jesus said, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. Your things can support life, but they should never define it.
[00:17:04] There's nothing wrong with investing. Investing is something good.
[00:17:07] Jesus actually commends investing because something will grow in value. Remember Larry, Curley and Moe? Remember those guys? He gave them money. He said, now take this money and invest it. There's nothing wrong with investing.
[00:17:22] The problem is your thing should support life and not define it. Greed is when we start believing our possessions will grow into a life all on their own.
[00:17:35] So when people understand this, they begin investing for God.
[00:17:38] So Jesus breaks into a parable.
[00:17:43] Verse 16.
[00:17:45] Jesus told them a parable saying, the land of a rich man produced plentifully.
[00:17:50] All right, who owns the land?
[00:17:55] The rich man. All right, he owns the land. Who really owns the land?
[00:18:00] God does. Remember our first saying, right? God owns all things. Who made.
[00:18:05] I know this seems very elementary, but walk with me on this. Who made the land grow the produce?
[00:18:15] God did. All right, the man worked the land, but God brought the land into a prosperity level. God made this man rich.
[00:18:26] Jesus never denounced the richness of this man.
[00:18:33] He never denounces it. In fact, you remember the master that gave Larry, Curley and Moe those talents.
[00:18:40] He distributed 10 and he distributed five, and he distributed one. That's a lot of money.
[00:18:45] And God never denounces the amount of money that we have, only what that money does to our hearts.
[00:18:53] The problem with stuff is that it begins with the heart.
[00:18:56] The Bible does not say money is the root of all evil. Did you know that? A lot of people will say, the Bible says money is the root of all evil. What does it actually say? Do you know the verse in the New Testament?
[00:19:07] The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.
[00:19:12] You see, there's nothing wrong with money. It's just paper with a picture on it.
[00:19:16] What does it do to your heart?
[00:19:19] Verse 17.
[00:19:21] So this guy, he's rich.
[00:19:24] God makes him rich. And he thought to himself in verse 17, what shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?
[00:19:34] And he said this. I will do this. I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years. Relax.
[00:19:50] Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.
[00:19:56] Let's just play a little game, all right? Could you leave that verse back up there real quick?
[00:20:01] All right, here's the game.
[00:20:03] Which word?
[00:20:06] Or I'll give you a little hint. Which pronouns do you see mostly in these three verses?
[00:20:16] I.
[00:20:17] He was a pirate.
[00:20:19] So his heart is revealed in his pronouns.
[00:20:25] My crops, my barns, my my grains, my goods. And then the kicker, my soul.
[00:20:34] Isn't that interesting.
[00:20:36] No gratitude to God, no mention of others, no generosity, no stewardship, no kingdom, purpose, just accumulation and self gratification. Look at what da da da da I have done.
[00:20:50] In just two verses, the rich man refers to himself, his own goods, possessions, 10 times.
[00:21:01] God has never, never mentioned. The problem is not wealth. The problem is how you view your wealth. Remember the first principle of wise managers. Everything I have is God's, not mine. So greed turns God's resources into my possessions.
[00:21:17] Wisdom turns my possessions into back into God's resources.
[00:21:23] Now that is maybe the most brilliant slide I have made up this year alone. So if you want to take a picture of it, you can do that.
[00:21:31] That is a great slide. Greed turns God's resources into my possessions.
[00:21:37] But wisdom turns my possessions back into God's resources.
[00:21:44] This guy's solution actually sounds practical. It sounds reasonable. I got a lot of stuff, I got to store it. I don't want it to go bad.
[00:21:50] I want to take care of my family. I want to have a future. Nothing wrong with any of that.
[00:21:56] But that's part of the danger.
[00:21:58] Greed often walks in wearing the clothes of good management.
[00:22:05] Relax, eat, drink and be merry. This guy turns blessings into self indulgence.
[00:22:12] So guess what happens in verse 20.
[00:22:15] We find out who the real leader life is.
[00:22:19] But God said to him, fool, this night your soul is required of you. And the things that you have prepared, whose will they be?
[00:22:28] So is the one who lays up for treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.
[00:22:35] The rich fool is not condemned for planning.
[00:22:39] He's not condemned for thinking. I need more barns so my stuff doesn't go to waste.
[00:22:45] He's condemned for planning without God, without eternity, and without others in mind.
[00:22:55] So I have two questions. If you're here this morning, you're thinking to yourself, well, I got stuff.
[00:23:01] I don't have a lot of stuff, but I got stuff.
[00:23:03] How do I know that my stuff isn't making my heart a greedy heart?
[00:23:10] Here's two questions to help wise managers gauge the nature of their investments. Number one, if you have temporary vision, your questions will always start and end with you.
[00:23:27] Temporary vision means it is primarily for me.
[00:23:32] What can it bring me? What can it bring my kids?
[00:23:36] What can it make out of my life?
[00:23:39] That is a temporary vision.
[00:23:42] The second way you can go is you can have an eternal vision.
[00:23:46] So the temporary vision is, how do I get bigger barns to store my stuff? How do I find more comfort? How do I guarantee a bigger margin?
[00:23:55] How can I leverage with more ease? How can I bring storage?
[00:24:03] How can I use my stuff to make a stronger image for me? Everything is around temporary issues. But if you have an eternal vision, your question is, what can I use this for? Primarily for God.
[00:24:16] Your questions will be like this.
[00:24:19] How can I use this resource to serve God's kingdom?
[00:24:24] How can I use this opportunity to bless God's people?
[00:24:29] How can I use this season to better my fruit and to bear more fruit for Jesus Christ?
[00:24:38] How can I use this abundance to get an eternal treasure?
[00:24:45] I love that God starts off with this by saying, fool.
[00:24:49] Here's how I'm going to talk to you. I'm going to start with one word, fool.
[00:24:53] Fool is such a great word because not because he lacked intelligence, he got rich. I mean, he knew what he was doing.
[00:25:01] He didn't lack intelligence. Fool is the way that God talks to him. Because a fool says in his heart, there is no God, there's no eternity.
[00:25:12] There's no reason to plan for anything beyond this life.
[00:25:17] The fool thinks, life starts here, life ends here. Get as much as you can so you can use it yourself and pass it on to certain people that you love.
[00:25:29] That's why he was talked to as a fool.
[00:25:32] This is living your life as though God doesn't matter.
[00:25:36] This is what a fool thinks and the things you had prepared. Jesus says, whose will they be?
[00:25:41] It's such a great story because everything he built gets left behind. Have you ever thought like, if you passed away today, basically you're done. Everything you've worked for up to this point, you don't get to add to that anymore. Like people you love and don't love are gonna now infiltrate your life and start divvying up your stuff and you don't get a say about it.
[00:26:04] Your stuff could end up in places you don't want your stuff to end up in. You get nothing. And you have devoted your life to this stuff and now you don't take any of it with you.
[00:26:19] You can fill as many barns as you want and still have an empty soul.
[00:26:25] This is why Jesus says so is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. This is the interpretation, not that the man had treasure. God gave the treasure to him.
[00:26:37] It is that he laid up that treasure for Himself, and he's not using it for God's benefits.
[00:26:47] When Jesus comes to us, he says, I want to give you a life and life more abundant. What he means by that is simply. Simply this.
[00:26:55] Everybody around us is like getting as much as they can for themselves, so that they can maybe even make the world a better place, but something that lasts beyond them, something that goes beyond their death.
[00:27:10] And I want to tell you that if you're serving Jesus Christ, it doesn't matter how much you have. It doesn't matter how much stuff you have in the bank account. It doesn't. We all have equal amounts of time in our day.
[00:27:22] We all have, like, feet and hands and eyes and hearts. And God has given you things invested in you.
[00:27:29] Not just money, but everything. And we are meant as good managers to invest those things for an eternal purpose. We are not the fools. We believe that there is a God. We believe that he rewards those who serve him.
[00:27:44] Jesus gives us the ability to discover a way where we can work life here that will give us eternal values in eternity. Think about that.
[00:27:59] Get a paycheck, it goes into the bank, and then the government takes most of it away, right?
[00:28:05] There are other things that you invest in the run of a day that you are investing into eternity, more than just a bank account.
[00:28:15] And the one who figures out how to use temporary things for eternal investments is the one who lives the abundant life.
[00:28:25] Matthew 6:19. Jesus says it this way.
[00:28:28] Don't lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy, where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in where? Church.
[00:28:38] Treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroy, where thieves don't break in and steal. For where your heart is, is where your treasure will be also. True or false?
[00:28:49] False.
[00:28:50] Where your treasure is, is where your heart will be also. You can say there's a party you don't want to go to. You'll say, well, I'll be with you in spirit, right? It doesn't really. It doesn't work that way. Nobody thinks you're there in spirit and you can say that about it, but it doesn't work.
[00:29:12] There needs to be some concrete investment here. And when Jesus says this, listen to what he says. He's not saying if your hearts in the right place, that's all that counts. He doesn't start that way. He says, where you're putting your treasure indicates where your heart actually is.
[00:29:33] It doesn't begin with good intentions, it begins with good actions.
[00:29:38] Where your treasure is, is where your heart will be also.
[00:29:42] When you invest in something for the Lord, your heart follows, but it begins with an investment.
[00:29:50] Layup here in this passage of scripture is the same word as investments. It literally means to make a deposit of treasure into a secure account. When you do something here for God, you lay up for yourselves treasures there.
[00:30:06] So I want to just take a few minutes here before we get to the sowats, and I want to tell you a little bit about some of the ways you will see investments in eternity.
[00:30:17] Because if you think to yourself, like, what are treasures in heaven? What is that exactly? Does that mean you get, like, thicker gold plates that you can walk on out of your house?
[00:30:28] Does that mean you get a bigger mansion than me? Does it mean that you can teleport to Mars and I can only get to Jupiter? You know, what does it mean to actually have a treasure heaven?
[00:30:42] I have three ways that I think we make an eternal investment and we see an eternal payback, an eternal realization of our seeds that we're planting. Number one, collected things stay here. But kingdom investments go ahead of you. What lasts, what kind of investments go with us, people who are changed by the gospel.
[00:31:08] I can't wait to see how. Because, you know, you plant the seed, you plant the seed, you plant the seed, but then life goes on. And you don't know what happens with these people that you planted seeds in.
[00:31:19] I can't wait to see on that glorious day when we stand before the Lord, maybe there will be a life or two there, children there that my life helped invest seeds into.
[00:31:37] Children raised to love and serve Jesus, they go with you.
[00:31:41] Acts of mercy done in Jesus name, that goes with you. Secret faithfulness, serving the Father that goes with you. Service that advances the kingdom goes with you. These are all treasures that are laid up in heaven. We did Alpha last year. It was a lot of fun. We had tables out here and we had a great time. If you're interested in doing Alpha, we're doing it again this fall.
[00:32:08] But it's basically, Alpha is a safe space where you can ask questions. And we did a great, great ministry. It was a lot of fun, had a lot of different people in that helped make this ministry happen. And we just invested and invested. We planted seeds, planted seeds. And our prayer was that we. We didn't just do this as a thing to kill time, but we actually would invest in something for eternity.
[00:32:32] And if you were with us a couple of months ago, you know that we baptized this one family and they're here today. I think they're in the back. Yeah. They're there. Tim. Tim and Melissa, are you back there? Tim and Melissa? All right, yeah. So Tim and Melissa, they came to Alpha, and through Alpha, God really solidified their faith. And yeah, they had a great story that they shared at their baptism. And I just think to myself, like, we did Alpha, we spent a lot of money on it. We spent a lot of time on it.
[00:33:04] We did a lot of setup and a lot of tear down people cooked food. I mean, it was a big deal.
[00:33:10] And we saw several families, including Tim and Melissa, who gave their lives to Jesus Christ and got baptized after that. And it's like on that day, those of you who did Alpha will stand before God and you'll get to see this family and their beautiful little boys standing up there, and you'll get to see them and you'll go.
[00:33:29] That little effort from September to November in 2025 changed a family's life.
[00:33:37] And it's not just Alpha, but we have people on the other side of this wall that are investing in children every single, every single Sunday, just planting the seeds, asking God to bring the growth. And the men's ministry that Darren does and the women's ministry that Diane helps with, and the Village Kids ministry, and the youth the Edge ministry that Jessica and John and others help with, that these are opportunities for us. These are investments and they will have a payoff. And we may not actually see it here, but we will see it there.
[00:34:20] These are investments that go with us into eternity.
[00:34:23] There's another thing, management skills.
[00:34:27] Management skills don't just stay here, they go with you, too. This is going to rock your world a little bit.
[00:34:33] You may be under the impression that when you die, you go to heaven.
[00:34:37] That's a good impression.
[00:34:39] That's the truth. All right. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. But there will come a day when you will be raised to life again.
[00:34:48] Your body will be reunited with your soul in heaven and you will be raised to life again. And you will live life just like this.
[00:34:57] Just like this. I mean, you'll have a much better speaker than me, but you will live life.
[00:35:03] You'll have dinners together, the earth will be redeemed, and you will get your body back. This is why we talk about the resurrection from the dead. We have a tendency to leave it in heaven, but it goes beyond that. And when that happens, when the resurrection happens, and it's spoken of all the way through scripture, by the way, but when the resurrection happens, all of us will be given jobs to do. Now, if you're not a fan of work, you're going to tune out at this part. But all of us will have some sort of responsibilities.
[00:35:34] We will take the gifts that God has given to us and we will make more of them. There will be different areas of the world for us to live in. There will be kings, there will be governors. There will be people that rulers over different areas. There will be work, there will be creativity. There will be like activity like buying and selling. There will be responsibility in this new world where we live. It'll be.
[00:35:57] It'll be all the stuff that you enjoy in this life without a chance of sin getting in the way.
[00:36:02] Wouldn't that be great?
[00:36:04] You couldn't sin. You couldn't offend somebody if you tried. That's how it's going to be.
[00:36:10] This is what I'm looking forward to. In Revelation 21:24. It says it this way. By its light will the nations walk. And the kings of the earth talking about the new kingdom now. The kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. The gates will never be shut. There's going to be gates that will never be shut.
[00:36:28] And there will be no night there.
[00:36:30] They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. There's no competition, there's no greed.
[00:36:37] But there will be purpose and responsibility in this new world.
[00:36:41] And how we live here may determine how we live there. Heaven is enough.
[00:36:47] But followers of Jesus can anticipate even more. 2nd Corinthians 5:10. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one receives what is due to him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. This is the Bema seat. Judgment. There's two judgments, all right? There's a Great White Throne judgment. You don't want to be there.
[00:37:08] Great White Throne judgment. If you're at the Great White Throne Judgment, it is a bad.
[00:37:14] That's not good, because that's where. Do you believe in Jesus or are you trying to get on your own?
[00:37:21] Gray white throne. Everybody loses. All right, but there's another judgment seat that the Bible talks about. It's called the Bema seat.
[00:37:29] The Bema seat is where God hands out, or Jesus, to be specific, hands out rewards.
[00:37:37] I don't know what those rewards will be.
[00:37:39] The Bible's not real clear on it.
[00:37:42] But it says we're going to cast our crowns at Jesus feet. I don't know exactly what that means. All I know is that the Bema seat you do want to be at because that's where, like, when you finish the race, you're rewarded silver, gold, bronze, whatever it is, we get our rewards. And I believe at that time we get our placement for what we will do in the New Kingdom.
[00:38:07] This is not. The Bema seat is not judgment for sin. The Bema seat is a judgment where we are given responsibilities and rewards based on what we did here in this temporary life.
[00:38:25] Remember how the master addressed Larry, Curly and Moe? Remember, with the talents, he said, you have been faithful. In a little, I will set you over much.
[00:38:37] The principle is simple. Faithfulness now leads to greater stewardship later.
[00:38:43] And Scripture says, and if you love to lead, or maybe you don't love to lead, but whatever it is that God has gifted you here with is probably what you're going to use your gifts there doing.
[00:38:55] God has said if you desire to lead, you desire a good thing.
[00:38:59] And I don't know what God will put us in place, what he will give us as our jobs, but I do know this. A lot of it has to do with how we live faithfully. Now, number three, rewards are a matter of perspective here, but a matter of eternal reality later.
[00:39:21] Rewards require faith for us to believe, but one day they will be a visible reality. In fact, Jesus says, what God sees you do in secret now, he will reward you later.
[00:39:36] So anything that you're doing, anything that you're doing for the Lord, God sees and God will reward.
[00:39:44] As I was. As I was doing this message, I got into a conversation with somebody that shared a story, and I asked them if I could share the story. And so I'm going to share the story with you.
[00:39:56] They were talking to me about the busy week that they had just had. They moved to town, they didn't know anyone, and they went to the same school with this other person, and this person didn't know anyone in town.
[00:40:11] And so they asked this person that I was talking to, they said, hey, I don't know anybody in town, and I got to move my stuff.
[00:40:19] I got to move all my stuff out of this one apartment and I got to put it into another apartment, and I don't have anyone to help, and I don't have a car, and I don't know how I'm going to do it.
[00:40:28] And so this friend that I was talking to, they said to them, hey, listen, don't worry about it. I can help you. Now, I know this friend had a busy week.
[00:40:38] In fact, they were swamped beyond measure, a little stressed out.
[00:40:43] But they saw this person come into their sphere, and the Lord spoke to them, and they said, okay, I'm going to help you move. Now, have you ever helped somebody move from one apartment to another apartment?
[00:40:54] On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being this isn't a really big deal, and 10 being I wish I hadn't talked to you today.
[00:41:02] This is like an eight or a nine, wouldn't you say?
[00:41:05] So now this person is saying, I don't have the time to do this, but I'm being asked by this person I hardly know who needs a little bit of help.
[00:41:16] And so this person that I was talking to, they said. So I told them that I would help them. By the way, the person I was talking to doesn't have a car.
[00:41:25] So they took it upon themselves to go ask somebody for a car, and they found out that they needed a bigger car, so they asked somebody else for a bigger car. And as they're going around and they're trying to make this work, like, I got to save this person. They're new to town. They just asked me to move. I've got a stressful week, but I know I should help them, so I'm going to help them. So they went to this friend and they said, listen, I need a minivan. I got to get a bigger car. And the response from the person when they asked for the minivan was, God gave me this minivan so that I could use it to help others. So, of course, you take the minivan.
[00:41:59] So this person that I was talking to gets a minivan that's not theirs. They show up on this day, and not only do they show up, but all the people now that are in the circle of the guy that loaned them the minivan, they show up. They have a crew of people. They emptied this apartment, put it all in the car, made several trips, moved them into the the new apartment, and the job is done.
[00:42:20] And you think to yourself, there's a lot that was imposition.
[00:42:24] I was going out of the way.
[00:42:27] But at the end of the day, the person that moved into the new house went to my friend that I was talking to on the phone, and they said, hey, listen, why did you help me?
[00:42:39] And this person said, well, I helped you because I wanted to.
[00:42:44] I know you don't know anybody in town, and you're up a creek, and you know. And they said, well, how'd you get all these other people? They said, they're in my community group. And now that person that moved into the new house is attending the community group where all those people showed up and helped them.
[00:43:01] These are not strange stories, because they happen all the time. But what's strange about it is when you start looking at it in light of eternity.
[00:43:11] You think to yourself, you're just doing a job. You're just helping a person out. You're just helping them move.
[00:43:16] You're just taking time that you may or may not have and sacrificing it for somebody else. And you're borrowing cars that don't belong to you. And you're just doing a friendly thing. But when you do it in the name of Jesus Christ, what we don't understand is that we are investing something that may pay off big time in eternity.
[00:43:37] Jesus literally calls this an investment because we don't know what it's going to look like. We just trust God for whatever the outcome is.
[00:43:47] Do you know what that's called in Scripture? That's called living by faith.
[00:43:54] We all get 24 hours in a day, right?
[00:43:59] You all get seven days in a week.
[00:44:02] You all have limited resources. We all do this. The question is, how do you use all of those things that God has loaned to you to make investments for eternity?
[00:44:15] 2nd Corinthians 9 is a passage we're parking on as a part of our series, and here's what it says in verse 10.
[00:44:23] He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.
[00:44:35] Just let that sit on your heart for a second.
[00:44:39] In light of everything we've said today, think of that last phrase.
[00:44:45] God gives you the seed. God gives you the time. God gives you the strength. God gives you the resources.
[00:44:52] He does so so that you will make more of it, so that he can increase the harvest of your righteousness of the way you live.
[00:45:06] This whole passage, there's no I pronoun in here. There's no me in this passage.
[00:45:14] This is all about what God can do with the stuff that he has loaned to me.
[00:45:20] It's not for my future, but it's for the future of God's reputation on this planet.
[00:45:25] And when seeds are planted for him, they can produce eternal dividends. I call this redeeming my stuff.
[00:45:34] Like Larry Curley and Moe, my goal is to take whatever God lends me and make it better. Think about the Garden of Eden.
[00:45:41] When God created everything in the Garden of Eden, at the end of Genesis 1, it says he looked at everything that he made and he saw that it was good.
[00:45:52] Right? In fact, if you look at the Hebrew, it uses the best good. That good can be for us, we have words, we have good, we have great, and we have greater. You know, we have venti and we have.
[00:46:08] What are the other cup sizes? We have the venti. Venti is all I can remember anyway.
[00:46:14] Good, better, best.
[00:46:17] In the Hebrew, it just says good, gooder and goodest.
[00:46:21] And the goodest good that is used in Hebrew is used in that passage.
[00:46:27] God saw all that he made, and it was the goodest good that he could goodly do. All right?
[00:46:33] And then he gives it to Adam and Eve and he says this.
[00:46:38] Make it better.
[00:46:43] Think about that.
[00:46:44] It was the goodest good that he could do.
[00:46:47] Then he gives it to Adam and Eve and he says, take what I have made the best that I could do, and you make it better.
[00:46:56] This is the call of every good manager.
[00:47:00] You have all of the things at your fingertips that God has given to you. The question is, are you making your spheres better?
[00:47:11] You get a wife.
[00:47:14] Is she going to be better in 10 years than she is now?
[00:47:18] She should be. You're the husband. It's your job.
[00:47:22] You get a house.
[00:47:24] Is it better in 10 years than it was when you got it? Well, no, Craig, houses break down as soon as you build them. Yeah, that's right, they do. All right, but your neighbors should not complain about your lawn.
[00:47:37] You represent Christ in that sphere of influence.
[00:47:41] You get a job.
[00:47:43] Is it better after 10 years of you being there or not? Well, Craig, you don't know where I work. The people are just. They're crazy. Like, it's a crazy place. Okay, that's fine. Yeah, welcome to life.
[00:47:56] Is your job better? In fact, you might get the short end of the stick. Somebody doesn't like you. Like happened with my dad when he was little younger than I am right now. Somebody got in, got a job, that was over him. And the first thing they did because they didn't like my dad was fired him. He didn't do anything to be fired, just got fired.
[00:48:14] The question is not do we live in a fallen world? Bad things are going to happen. The question is, is that job better? Since you've been there, what have you done? You go to school.
[00:48:24] Is your classroom better with you in it?
[00:48:29] Sin will try and affect all of these things and destroy your impact for eternity.
[00:48:34] Your children. You cannot guarantee that your kids are going to get saved, but you sure can remove a lot of obstacles that are in their way, Right?
[00:48:43] Are you using your time, your resources, your talents, your management skills? Are you using them as a good manager so that wherever God has placed you is best? Better for his reputation when you're there.
[00:48:59] You're not going to hit it out of the park every time. In your interactions with your spouse.
[00:49:05] Can you redeem those broken moments?
[00:49:08] There's more at stake than just getting along with somebody else. You are making an investment for eternity.
[00:49:17] So whatever it takes, we have to be willing to do it so that we invest as wise stewards of God.
[00:49:25] We live in a broken world, but are we living in such a way to redeem those broken moments, to make eternal investments for the glory of God? Well, Craig, what if my motivation is in question?
[00:49:38] Motivations can be in question. There can be a lot of motives as to why we do what we do. Some people are motivated just because they want to make others happy. Wonderful people create unity or bring hope. Others are motivated because they want to just do more for God. Super duper bear fruit for his kingdom. Some are motivated just because they don't want to be miserable at home. And so they're motivated to do whatever it takes to not be miserable or have an empty life. Some people are motivated by the promise of a reward. None of those things are bad.
[00:50:04] But the starting point should never be, is this going to pay off for me? The starting point is for every good manager. How can I redeem this situation as an investment for God?
[00:50:19] Faith is the true owner that kills the focus on me and promotes the glory of God. Hebrews 11:6.
[00:50:25] You probably know this verse. Let me read it to you in a way maybe you've never read it before.
[00:50:30] Without faith, it is impossible to please God.
[00:50:34] For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he. What church?
[00:50:40] There you go.
[00:50:42] And that he rewards those who seek Him.
[00:50:47] I'm not saying that we do whatever we do so that we can get a reward when we get there. I'm saying what we don't realize is that what we do here and the way that we kill ourself and our pride and our greed here helps invest in ways that we have no idea will pay off there.
[00:51:10] And you may actually bring somebody with you on that day. Wouldn't that be cool?
[00:51:18] So if you want to please God, you must live by faith.
[00:51:22] Faith trusts that God, nothing ever done for God, is wasted.
[00:51:28] Here's some. So what's number one? Re evaluate what you're really investing your life in.
[00:51:35] What are you really investing in?
[00:51:38] What is it that occupies most of your time?
[00:51:42] What is it that fills your heart?
[00:51:46] Alfred Noble. Have you heard of this guy?
[00:51:50] Nobel Peace Prize. Have you heard of that?
[00:51:52] Alfred Noble. There's a story about his obituary. Apparently this is a true story. Listen to this.
[00:51:58] He invented dynamite.
[00:52:00] Did you know that Alfred Noble invented dynamite? So he invented dynamite. And once he opened the newspaper and saw his own obituary, somebody had printed it by mistake.
[00:52:09] The paper had printed his obituary.
[00:52:12] And the title was for his obituary, the merchant of death is dead.
[00:52:20] Alfred Noble read that after inventing dynamite, and he felt extremely burden because he realized his life would be known as the guy who invented dynamite, this killer.
[00:52:34] He was shaken.
[00:52:35] So he decided at that moment he would invest his wealth differently. And so he used his fortune to invent what we now know as the Nobel Peace Prize, rewarding people for how they treat humanity.
[00:52:51] And this is how Alfred Nobel is remembered to this day. Most people don't know that he invented dynamite, but a lot of people have heard of the Nobel Peace Prize.
[00:53:03] Jesus says, when you choose the same illustration about storing up treasures in heaven, when you realize at some point in life your investments are not good, your soul is going to be called into account of God and you, your investments may not have eternal value.
[00:53:20] You should stop, take note, and do a different thing.
[00:53:26] The question is not how much we had. The question is, what have we invested our stuff in?
[00:53:32] So let me remind you where we started today. You know, oh, should have invested in Bitcoin. Oh, should have invested in Nvidia. Oh, should have bought Manhattan.
[00:53:44] It doesn't matter what you've missed out on. The question is, what will you do now?
[00:53:50] Now that this has come to light, where will you invest your time, energy, relationships and resources? The question is not, are you investing? The question is, what kind of a return are you looking for in your investments? And my hope is that as a child of God, we want to make a return not for ourselves, but but for Jesus Christ.
[00:54:10] Is it building barns, saving my reputation so I can build a bigger barn later?
[00:54:15] Or is it building eternal treasure?
[00:54:18] Number two. Start redeeming what God has already given to you. You don't need more resources.
[00:54:25] You have what God has given to you. Now you simply need to redeem what God has already entrusted to you. Your home, your job, your car, your relationships, your time.
[00:54:37] All these can become kingdom investments when they are used for God's purposes.
[00:54:44] So ask this. How can what God has already given to me be turned into an eternal investment for his reputation?
[00:54:55] Number three, last one. Trust that nothing ever done for God is wasted.
[00:55:00] Nothing ever done for him is wasted.
[00:55:03] What the Father Jesus tells us, the Father sees everything, even what we do in secret.
[00:55:10] And what is done in Secret will be rewarded.
[00:55:13] Listen, you may feel like, well, Craig, I've invested some things, but they're just not great. I mean, I had a conversation with somebody once, or I prayed with somebody once, or I helped somebody move once, or I shared Christ with somebody once, or I served a child in a ministry at church, or I shared the gospel. Listen, whatever you have done as an investment, God can multiply.
[00:55:38] You don't need to figure out what's going to happen. You just have to be faithful now with what God has given to you now and use it for his glory. And he will bring the growth.
[00:55:52] That means every act of faithfulness carries eternal significance.
[00:55:57] Every act of faithfulness carries eternal significance.
[00:56:02] And as Jesus says in Matthew 6:20, when we lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven, it becomes a secure investment that can never be lost.
[00:56:12] So church, keep sowing, keep throwing out the seed.
[00:56:18] Keep doing whatever it is with what you have now.
[00:56:22] Leave the growth up to God.
[00:56:26] You just remain faithful.
[00:56:28] Because the smallest act of faithfulness done today may give you the greatest return you never even expected in eternity.
[00:56:38] You can't send your possessions with you into eternity, but you can send them ahead of you when you use them for God's investments first.
[00:56:51] This is a tough one to do because it's talking about the reward that we can expect when we see Christ.
[00:56:59] But the bottom line, church is simply whatever you do for Christ will last.
[00:57:06] You can trust him.
[00:57:09] Simple act of faith, stretching, serving in a ministry. You may not be comfortable in sharing a word of encouragement with somebody that just needs a boost, praying with somebody that could just use a prayer.
[00:57:28] Every act we do now has the potential of becoming something great.
[00:57:34] We just never know what it is.
[00:57:36] So church, our job is not to make the growth.
[00:57:39] Our job is to remain faithful with the things that God has loaned to us so that we can increase his reputation and invest in eternity.
[00:57:51] That'll be a good day, don't you think?
[00:57:55] I think that'll be a good day.
[00:57:57] Let's pray. Father, I'm grateful for the truth of your word and that we in this temporary life can make investments that last into eternity.
[00:58:11] It's going to be an amazing day on that day for us to see the people that we love that we get to spend eternity with.
[00:58:23] Maybe because of something we said, maybe because of something we did, maybe because of an effort to help them move or just an offer to pray with them.
[00:58:35] You don't require much from us, which is unbelievable, really.
[00:58:40] All you require is faithful service.
[00:58:44] And whatever happens when we do those acts of service.
[00:58:49] Well, that's up to you.
[00:58:51] So my prayer for this church is that whatever we do, small as it may be, or large as it may be, whatever we do for Father, that you would take those efforts and grow them into something we can't even expect.
[00:59:06] Redeem the circles around us by helping us to be more faithful and remembering that we are managers, not owners, and what we do reflects on you.
[00:59:20] I pray in Jesus name, amen.
