The Investment Strategy of Jesus

Lord, we want to just praise you this morning. You are um an awesome god you are amazing to have the power to To revive your own self lord, and we want to follow you and be your disciples We praise you and give you the glory and we're here this morning meeting in your name We ask you lord that you would lead us by your holy spirit. You would guide us you would teach us Lord show us in our our own lives where we're not like you Lord, thank you that you have conquered the devil.

You have bound the strong man You were the victor and we can today, um we can Walk with you and be like you because of your strength Lord help us to grow more like you in that image. I pray for my brother as he Um Speaks your words. I pray you'd anoint him with your spirit And um fill him lord help us to be listeners and to be honest and sincere Lord lead us in the paths of righteousness.

We ask in jesus name. Amen. Thank you.

Thank you All right, well good morning and yes, happy resurrection sunday this is uh, this is uh, the I think as benjamin said the most important day of the year for a christian When we remember the resurrection of jesus, I got a call from a man just this last wednesday. His name was levi He was an ex-mormon and I saw the utah Area code come up and so it crossed my mind. Maybe he was a mormon But he told me well, he saw our billboard either in arizona or on the way to arizona Well, maybe he moved whatever and uh, but he he was really questioning You know why we even believe in god at all And uh, so I I took him through the normal things we talk about and uh, you know, one of them was creation You know go outside levi look at creation.

It's amazing who made it Uh, somebody made it the creation proves a creator just like a building proves a builder a painting proves a painter And so forth, but then I also took him to the resurrection and just like bob was mentioning in the children's lesson you know the the evidence the there's so many pieces of this evidence that that uh, That come together that say there's really no reasonable alternative other than jesus rose from the dead He said i'm the son of god. In fact in mark, uh, 14 he was there before the the authorities and they said are you the christ the son of the blessed he said I am He said in the future you're going to see me seated at the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven That was a prediction he made Now they just mocked as well as blasphemy There's no way this guy can do this and they said let's put him to death because he's making these predictions, you know Once the resurrection happened Those words i'm sure came back to haunt them, you know if he can rise from the dead Maybe we will see him coming in the clouds of heaven someday and we believe he will We believe we're going to see him and then I I saw a podcast on an apologetics. Uh, uh channel, uh that Talked about this gary habermas He's kind of an apologist for the resurrection And I usually have like four points when I talk to atheists on the billboard line that prove the resurrection Well, he had he said if he were asked he would give seven of them He said the first six of these seven are agreed on by Pretty much a hundred percent of of scholars, you know, whether they're religious or not They have to agree.

There's so much evidence for these six number one christ died number two That the disciples believed they saw him after his death number three they immediately started preaching They didn't wait 100 years or 30 years or 10 years. They started immediately preaching everywhere number four Their lives were transformed. Everything was turned upside down because of this number five James who was a brother to jesus and formerly a skeptic.

He became a follower of jesus Why did that happen ever I don't know why I mean they don't know why but they agree it did happen Number six paul who was a murder or a you know, uh an enemy of the gospel. He became a christian. He became converted Again, they could debate about why but there's no question that it did happen That's six and then it's number seven He says he puts a little bit to the side because it's not quite unanimous But still like 80 of scholars agree that this happened as well and that was the empty tomb He says if you take all of those things together You really have a compelling case that the resurrection really happened And if the resurrection really happened, I told levi I said therefore jesus must be who he claimed to be And that's the son of god.

And if he's the son of god, well, he uh Then god does exist and um Levi at one point in the conversation He admitted he used to be a mormon and it's amazing how and he brought up Well, you know what you say all these witnesses of the resurrection Well, what if I could tell you, you know, joseph smith? He had all these witnesses too and they had these golden plates that the angel gave him and and yeah We don't have the golden plates anymore But there was 15 witnesses that signed affidavits saying we saw the golden plates too. Is that good enough? So we had a conversation about that interesting, but uh, thank you bob for that that introduction because My sermon this morning is not about the resurrection But what bob said is absolutely right everything we say when we quote the words of jesus Only have meaning because of the resurrection they only Can we we can only speak with authority about anything regarding christianity? Because of the resurrection paul even said if the resurrection didn't happen your religion is vain. It's it's futile It's it's a it's a it's a myth If the resurrection didn't happen you might christianity shouldn't even exist But if the resurrection did happen now, we have a reason to believe everything about christianity.

So um I was asked to share a bible school This past week. Well, not not this past week, but the week before actually Um, they asked me if i'd come back and speak on the subject of a godly view of finances and they asked me to give Five messages on that and I told him I says well i've never done that before I've never given five messages on this one subject. I've given one message here and there i've given two messages I'm, not sure if I ever gave three or not, but that's possible, but certainly never five But as I told the students that I stood before them that first day I said i'm excited to talk about this subject a godly view of finances because Of this fact that there are promises in the bible Regarding finances and I want those promises to come and apply to you and I want to tell you here At valley christian fellowship this morning.

I want you to experience these promises Listen to some of these promises that that the bible gives that god gives He that is faithful in that which is least Is faithful also in much? if you're faithful in Finances in handling your money god's going to entrust to you true riches something more important than money Here's another one my father which seeth in secret shall reward you openly. I want you to receive those rewards My god shall supply all your need that's again tied to this this this this thing of of of god of finances And finally god is able to make all grace abound towards you That ye having all sufficiency and all things may abound to every good work. Do you want grace in your life? Do you feel like you need grace in your life? Do you maybe sometimes feel a lack of grace in your life power in your life maybe God is waiting for you to say.

I want to open the door through a godly. Uh, uh, Through a godly practice a godly, you know obeying god's principles on this issue of finances of economics And so, uh as we go through these five messages um And I as far as the order what we're going to do i'm going to give one this morning number one I think probably two weeks from today. I'm going to give number two.

We'll see how that works out Unless plans change and then there's number three four and five and i'm not sure but i'm debating about maybe giving those At some time over the next several months number three four and five those same ones that I shared back at At the shippensburg bible school, so we'll see how things go The the very first one is going to be primarily my own testimony my own journey in this subject and so Before we do that. I know we prayed once but could we just bow for prayer and uh Before we get started here father. We come to you in the name of jesus.

We just ask you once more for your Hand to be upon us and that you would guide us and lord We want these promises to come into our lives and all grace abound toward us and I want All grace to abound toward whoever we are young or old rich or poor We want your grace and so help us to Rightly divide your word and help this message this uh, this session that we have here help it to Be for your glory to build your kingdom in jesus name amen All right, i'm going to start out with giving out a handout I don't know if two of you guys here. Why don't you two closest to the aisle jonah and joshua. Could you hand out a Little thing to everyone here.

This is a well, you'll see what it is Grab a stack and if you don't mind taking the box back to the back pick up You know if there's any if there's any extras put them back in the box And I think there should be enough for everybody who's old enough to read. So, um Yeah, just give make sure everybody has one if you can read you're welcome to have one Take it with you. You can keep it and don't look at it Yeah, if you get those little bit it's a business card, but once you get it, just don't look at it Yeah, i'd like to tell you a story.

First of all The story i'd like to tell you has happened back in the late 1980s a man named dave ramsey. He was age 28. He was uh, He had a desire to be successful financially and dave ramsey had a uh a row of uh, well a list I guess you could say of investment properties that he had and it was it was Getting up there.

He kept adding to them you see back during that time the land prices were going up So he'd buy a piece of land and it would go up in price And uh, he was able to then refinance it and and buy another piece and and keep on going And and just this it was this growing list of properties that he had now So by the time he was age 28, he had over four million dollars worth of these investment properties But as you can imagine he also had quite a bit of debt But as they kept going up in price, he thought that this is going to it's going to Um, it's going to result as the way things were going He says i'm flying high. I'm well on my way to lasting wealth, but then something happened his Debts became a problem because the banking rules changed and the bank started calling him and said hey We want you to pay up. We're changing our policies.

We need that money back that we you that you borrowed from us So he started to scramble to sell off these properties. Well, he couldn't sell them fast enough He couldn't raise the cash fast enough. Eventually.

He had to file bankruptcy well, these Lenders were calling him during this time and harassing him one day. They called he said this was the last straw This was a tremendously difficult time in my life says dave ramsey When I got I started getting calls from these lenders One of them was american express and american express called him Or called home called his home when he wasn't there. They talked to his wife And they said are you are you married to dave ramsey? Yeah, he's my husband.

Well, why would you stay with a man? Who doesn't pay his bills? And he said that made me upset He said I He said that was the last straw. He made a decision right then and there that things were going to change in the future He decided he'll never go into debt again in his life and he began to Do something different he began to build wealth Using something anything other than debt. He wasn't going to go into debt again But he was going to teach people how to build wealth, especially using this thing called compound interest and so Not only did he do it himself.

He began to teach other people to do it Now let's fast forward from the late 80s up until about the mid 90s. That's where I come on the scene I begin became a student of some of these ways of thinking there was larry briquette. There was dave ramsey and uh others that were teaching these some of these principles and I became fascinating fascinated with this thing of Accumulating wealth using compound interest now if you're not familiar with compound interest I think most of you are a little bit, but i'm going to teach you some things about it here today So pick up these cards that I gave you And you'll see on one side up at the top.

It has the word monthly underlined on the other side It has the word one time. So I want you to look at the the the side that says one time so we're talking about Retirement savings here now you say well, um What about retirement savings are we you know, how are we going to approach this? Well one thing we need to do just to be consistent We don't have enough time to you know, get a poll of everybody's age here So just for this morning, I want everybody here to be age 20. All right, so age 20 That's what you all are now if let's do some math if you are age 20 How many years do you have until you turn 70? 50 years pretty easy math, right? You have 50 years to do it So what I want you to look at on this this little this little card if you look at that side That says one time go down to the bottom where it says years until Retirement over in that yellow or the purple column And you'll find the line that says 50.

So you got 50 years till retirement and for every $100,000 you want to have to retire how much you're gonna have to put into an account today Well, obviously if you're making zero percent interest, that's the first column You're gonna have to put a hundred thousand in today and it will only still be worth a hundred thousand But go over to the next column What if you're making three percent interest? Now you can put in only twenty two thousand and some dollars And it's going to turn into a hundred thousand dollars over a period of 50 years Well, hey, that's pretty good. What if you couldn't what if you're going to make five percent interest? We'll keep going go over another column. Now.

You only need to have eighty two hundred dollars today Leave it in that account five percent interest. It'll be worth a hundred thousand dollars in 50 years What if you can make eight percent interest? Well now you only need less than two thousand dollars today And it'll turn into a hundred thousand dollars in 50 years That's pretty amazing, isn't it? But some of you are saying well, hey, I don't know where in the world I'm gonna ever make eight percent interest. Actually, it's not that hard You know the the s&p500 which is an index of the stock market the biggest companies in the stock market Over the last 60 years if you just simply track the overall stock market It has made Somewhere between eight and ten percent interest And that's consistently now It doesn't mean it's going to do that every year It's going to be some years it's going to be higher than that some years going to be lower but on average It would have made eight percent interest over the last 60 years So we don't know what the future holds, but we can tell you what the past has done And it's eight percent is not that unreasonable Okay.

Well some of you others are saying well, I don't have eighteen hundred dollars to put into a retirement account today Okay, no problem. Turn the card over to the side that says monthly So here on the side that says monthly Uh go to that same column years until retirement all the way down the bottom 50 years and go over to the eight percent column For every one hundred thousand dollars. How much do you need to put into put in every month? To get it up to a hundred thousand Well, it's uh thirteen dollars That's it You say well, what if I decide a hundred thousand isn't enough.

I can't retire on a hundred thousand. I need a million dollars That's very simple. You just add another zero to that thirteen dollars.

So now you're up to A hundred and thirty dollars. So here's what we have At if you want to be a millionaire and you're 20 years old It's very simple a hundred and thirty dollars every month from today until you Turn 70 if you're 20 years old a hundred and thirty dollars. Well now how much where am I going to get a hundred and thirty dollars? well, I guess uh How many of you know what starbucks is you all know what starbucks coffee is? Okay.

Now if some people have a habit of stopping at starbucks every morning on their way to work now I don't know what you spend at starbucks, but just assume it's uh, Let's say six and a half dollars six dollars and fifty cents times 20 Trips to work every day. That's a hundred and thirty dollars. So all you have to do is drive past starbucks Instead of turning into starbucks and you'll have 130 extra dollars to put in there that will turn into a 1 million dollars over the course of 50 years If you put it into uh, you know the s&p 500 some index stock fund All right So this got me excited when I started to see some of these numbers.

I developed these little business cards I said let's pass these out and let's uh Let's let's share them with others However, I didn't want to just tell other people how to do I want to do it myself And you know the hundred and thirty dollars I thought you know I could probably beat that if i'm careful if I drive an old car instead of the fanciest cars if I live in You know a small house if I maybe work a little bit extra if I Cut corners here and there I could bump this up above 130. I could probably do Maybe I could add another zero maybe $1,300 Well, if I do 1300 instead of 130, what am I up to now 10 million dollars by the time I retire? And it's not that hard. It's math We're not talking about some pie in the sky get rich quick scheme that it's going to pop You know, the bubble's going to pop here soon.

We're talking about pure mathematics All right, and so it's it's not that terribly difficult. So I thought I could do that I can take that money and just think of the possibility just think of what a good steward I will have been if I could do this and My my goal was to go and teach other people this and I had this dream of of taking these business cards you hold your hand and sharing them with people and going around and teaching them and teaching them, you know the power of Let me just ask you how many of you know the power of just saying no To one purchase one $50 purchase you just say learn to say no. Okay.

Yeah, there's a $50 item whatever No, I don't want it. All right. I'm gonna I'd want it but i'm gonna pass on it or what about 10 five dollar purchases And just simply denying yourself Or what about just working one extra hour of overtime and said i'm gonna take that money And i'm going to put it away for the future And and so that was my my heart to teach people, you know, I was a christian So teach people live simply to tithe their money you give 10 but then everything else you have extra Um work hard open a retirement account young age and be diligent about investing in this thing So that was my dream the dream of convincing my entire generation to be good stewards and end up with millions of dollars In their retirement account, but then something happened to that dream You say what happened to your dream? Well, I could describe it this way I could describe it like this Suppose you have a mountain and you have this dream standing there like a statue But on this mountain is a heart large rock that comes tumbling down a rock that's not cut with hands But it smashes into that dream And crushes it Into thousands of pieces You say what was this stone that came tumbling down the mountain? Well, it's a little bit like they said about conrad grebel the beginning of anabaptism.

It says when they opened the scriptures Things changed and when I opened the scripture when somebody pointed out scriptures to me it was this book It was the bible It was verses in here verses that I had never seen before it was the teachings Some of the teachings of jesus that I had never looked at but somebody began to point out point them out to me There were warnings in here in this book that I didn't know were there Versus I didn't know that was were in the bible Somebody pointed out to me that jesus had described and i've used this this acronym before i'll put it up here on the board again jesus described an action called laying up for yourselves treasures on earth and He as he described that action laying up for yourselves treasures on earth or simply you could just simply say accumulating for yourselves Wealth on this earth as I looked at that action that jesus described and I looked at the thing that I was promoting with these Little cards it seemed like the same thing. It seemed like jesus was saying I got some warnings about that action and so jesus Started giving these warnings. He said first of all When you do this, um You will own those treasures and treasure is simply another word for wealth so you will own This wealth it will be yours and he says Where your wealth is your heart will be there.

So If if you have wealth your heart's going to be in it now, I would have felt so much better If jesus would have simply said Your heart might be in your wealth Or if he would have said something like this Be careful that your heart doesn't get wrapped up in your wealth But he didn't say that he said your heart will be in your wealth And that caught me way off guard I I couldn't handle that once that was pointed out to me that jesus said You know, basically it's an you know, it's an unbendable truth that your heart will be in your wealth wherever that is And I had to ask the question. Do I really want my heart to be in my wealth? here on this earth secondly mathematics proves i've just proved to you mathematically that If you do this You are you are almost certain if you're careful and if you're do things the way that Avoid all risk you will almost certainly become rich. So jesus said about those particular people that become rich he says Some things about them.

He says first of all woe to you Who are rich luke 6 verse 24. You've already received your comfort He so he says basically a curse be upon you woe to you Secondly, he said it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man To go in to enter into heaven and finally he tells the story of the rich man lazarus Of how the rich man lazarus had all these comforts and all this wealth Meanwhile, there was somebody sitting in his gate who needed it, but didn't get it And one ends up in hell one ends up in heaven Wow, these are quite the warnings. Well, here's some more warnings.

Jesus said in revelation chapter 3 Jesus said about this one church. He said you're lukewarm and i'm gonna vomit you out of my mouth on judgment day Why because you've said i'm rich and increased with goods and of need of nothing You know if there's ever a warning that should cause us to tremble in america That's a serious warning the church at laodicea and what jesus said to that church Now I could ask a question I could ask you Regarding these warnings. How many of us agree that warnings are serious.

I suppose all hands would go up Are warnings serious? Yeah warnings are serious But is there anything in the bible that is more serious Than a warning Think about that for just a little bit What about this what about a command Um Well, you say what's the difference between a warning and a command? well, here's the difference, you know if a mom has a little five-year-old boy and they live by a busy highway and She tells her boy son I want you to be really careful if you go out and play in the middle of the road You watch out for trucks. Okay, because trucks will squish you and um, so If you do play in the middle of the road, I want you to be careful That's a warning. Okay But what would a command be a command would simply say just don't go on the road You're not allowed no matter what no matter how careful you I don't want you to go on the road You're forbidden to go on the road.

Okay That's the difference between a warning and a command well So jesus gave these warnings about this action laying up for yourselves treasures on earth but then he didn't stop with just a warning he gave a command And this also caught me off guard because his command was Just don't do it I forbid you to do it Uh, and as he gives his command he also gives other things that Establish his commands. He says you if you love me keep my commands You are my friends if you do what I command go teach and baptize them and then teach them to obey my commands Why do you call me lord lord and don't obey my commands if you hear my commands, but don't obey them You're building your life on the sand not on the rock So in the face of these statements about his commands he then says Just don't do not practice this particular action. He already gave the reasons He gave the warnings.

He says I want to protect you from those warnings And then he goes on to give other warnings as well He says it's just simply not a good investment treasures on earth are subject to moth and rust and thieves He says furthermore. You don't need to really fear because god will take care of you. He says my god will supply all your needs Um, but you know some more and more reasons he jesus just piles on the reasons why he says don't do this But Whatever this action is.

He says don't do it And he gives the reasons not to and so we have to ask the question then Are these do these orders really apply to us or not? Is jesus really our king or not like we heard in the children's lesson the very fact of the resurrection gives jesus the right to Give orders from headquarters In I guess if you're thinking like we're in a military, you know Hey when the orders come down you just do it if you're a good a good soldier And does he have the right to give us those is it really a command, you know, and i'll be honest in my own journey I wish many times it wasn't I wish somebody could come along and explain why these commands weren't in the bible But it just didn't work because every bible had picked up the commands were still there. Um, and by the way There's not just that command. There's another one.

I'll write these up here if you want to if you want to This is in matthew chapter 6 verse 19 And the other one that really caught me off guard was uh, luke 6 or luke 12 verse 33 and uh And that's basically, you know jesus saying to his disciples sell and give now I knew that words Command sell and give was in the bible when I thought it was written to the rich young ruler But here in luke 12 33 he's given to all christians and so that caught me off guard. I didn't know it was there And so, you know, are these commands really there? I I wished they weren't I wish somebody could come along and explain why these commands were not in the bible But they were so next thing maybe you can explain why they um Aren't really meant to be taken literally That would be another thing that I wished somebody could come along because you know These were standing these commands were staying right smack in the way of the dreams. I had all these dreams.

I was hey, I mean What a waste of time making up all these little business cards now you can what's going to happen to these things And so I wish somebody could explain why these commands don't apply to me Or are they why they shouldn't be taken literally and then finally why they don't apply to me And it was just it was causing me a lot of grief but I wasn't able to rationalize them away I wasn't able to find any reasonable way to take them and and and get them out of my way Come on, clear the path. I got I got a life to live I've got a i've got a mission to accomplish and these verses these commands are standing in the way but then In the midst of all that bad news I got some good news I started to think about why would jesus say these things if he really meant them and if he really meant them to be taken literally Was it because he doesn't like us? Or was it because he loves us? And I started to realize it's because he loves us. He has our best in mind.

He gave these commands to bless us Not to curse us And then he starts talking about another thing and this was Treasures in heaven instead of treasures on earth and he says do lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven He starts to talk about all the benefits you can keep it forever moth and rust and thieves aren't going to affect treasures in heaven and he he he tells even um He tells us even how he says you can keep it forever and he says there's an incredible return on investment He says whoever lays up treasure in heaven you give up treasures on earth for treasure in heaven. You'll receive a hundred fold That's an amazing return on investment and he even tells us how to lay up treasures in heaven He says to lay up treasure in heaven is by giving Giving to the needy giving to the giving to the poor giving so the gospel can be preached It's by our giving maybe there's other ways to lay up treasure in heaven, but that's the only one jesus mentioned laying up treasure in heaven by giving and um, so You know who should we give to well the in galatians 6 10 it says to all people but especially those in the household of faith and um the I suppose if you were to describe the two most I would I would just if I were to look at the two on my journey the two most Um shocking commands that jesus gave they would be right here But if I were to ask another question, what were the two most shocking truths? truths that jesus gave They would probably be these two truths right here truth number one Where your treasure is or or your or let's just put it this way your heart Will be I'll just put up your will Your heart will be in your in your wealth You know that it wasn't it wasn't a maybe it wasn't a try not to keep let it get in your wealth It was jesus said will that was truth number one that really shook me during this journey truth number two Is this? giving Is an investment not an expense Now in accounting terms, we know the difference between an investment and expense an expense is something it's gone Once you pay the money It's not yours anymore Like your electric bill it belongs now to the electric company investment on the other hand is when you take money And you put it into a savings account you put it into a retirement account you put it into a property that you can later Sell that's an investment Well jesus, this was the the shocking truth number two Is that jesus said giving? Equals an investment. It's not an expense if you do it with the right motive if you do it for jesus if you do it for Him for for what he's you know for if you do it in the motives that jesus said to do it in Giving is an investment not an expense.

So those two truths Were huge in my own journey So to sum up what jesus said how would you sum up everything jesus said I would sum it up this way that jesus told his Followers he's calling his fathers to a life of radical generosity a life of giving or you could say it this way He commands us to distribute rather than accumulate earthly wealth Giving our possessions to help the poor and needy of the world Especially other believers and nobody has more opportunity than we do right here in america. We have more money We're the richest country that has ever that exists today Not only that we're the richest country that has ever existed at any time at any place in the whole world We have more money at our fingertips than other people do meanwhile There's other parts of the body of christ that are poor. They're persecuted.

They're needing food they're needing raymond and they're needing clothes and We can supply those if we will in corinthians It says that your abundance at this time would be a supply for their need So that someday when roles are reversed and the communists take over america Maybe it's going to be the nigerians that are going to be sending money here so that we can eat. I don't know I'm, not sure what's going to happen. But right now our but we're the ones with the abundance.

They're the ones with the need And he says so there may be equality or fairness as another one says So, you know when god looks at a bird's eye view of the all the wealth of this world and sees one big pile here And another you know people walking over there. What is he wondering? And and you know, meanwhile, what do we do? We have extra money, you know, and and you know when we And I say this to myself as well, you know, we blow out on things, you know expensive coffee or you know pile it up in a retirement account or you know invest in You know guns or sewing machines or whatever we do with, you know extra things Um, and by the way, if you're using a sewing machine to feed to close, you know do blankets for people That's probably a pretty good investment or using a gun to hunt to feed the hungry I suppose that could be a good one too But if we just keep on piling up things and stuff and whatever, you know Is it any wonder that we don't have the grace in our lives that god wants to give us? He says god's able to pour out grace into your life In fact turn if you would in your bible 2nd corinthians chapter 9. I'd like to look at these Some of these verses god is using he wants these things to be true He wants somehow he has chosen to put a disparity In wealth in the world. He's chosen to allow there to be poor people in the world and rich people and He doesn't force us to give to them it's free it's ours It's our money.

We can do it or we cannot do it, but he does motivate us He gives tremendous even you could say selfish motivation Motives to motivate us to do these things. He says it's heavenly treasure for yourselves No moth, no rust nor thieves will destroy it. You can keep it forever You'll have an outstanding rate of return if you do it in secret.

Your father will reward you openly He doesn't say only in the next life, although that's certainly true, but he says god's going to reward you now, let's read um for 2nd corinthians starting Those who have king james, let's go ahead and read this together 2nd corinthians 9 starting with verse 6 and we'll go through verse 9 All right, let's read this all together But this I say he which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly And he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully Every man according as he purposeth in his heart So let him give not grudgingly or of necessity For god loveth a cheerful giver and god is able to make all grace abound towards you that ye Having all sufficiency in all things may abound to every good work as it is written He hath dispersed abroad. He hath given to the poor his righteousness remaineth forever Now I know questions that were going through my mind During this journey. Does it really make sense? Is it really logical to live this way this idea of distributing rather than accumulating? And I had to answer the question.

No, it certainly doesn't seem logical But I also had to say, you know non-resistance doesn't seem logical either the idea that you're going to get rid of your gun when you're living in a land where there's burglars and they're bad people maybe when you're Uh, you're you're not going to join the military when the nazis are taking over the world That doesn't seem very logical and neither does this idea what jesus is saying about our money it doesn't seem logical, but there's I think there is a sense in which it is logical. Let me share this with you It's logical if you have all the facts How many of you know who elon musk is raise your hand most of us? Okay, imagine there's somebody that here that doesn't know who elon musk is or at least they don't know what he looks like All right, so you and your buddy are down in a park and say whatever new york city and um You're just enjoying the weather and the birds and the trees and everything flowers and up walks Elon musk and you recognize him And your friend is with you and you you and your buddy and and here comes elon musk He comes walking up to you guys and says hey guys Uh, you look like you need something to do I'd like to take you on a cruise around the entire world if you just take uh Take a couple months and we'll just take this summer and we're going to go see the world We'll be stopping at least 50 different countries And your buddy says yeah, let's go He says but there's just one stipulation he says You can go you have to do a few chores every day for me on this cruise ship that we're going on but he says um I want you to leave all your own money at home You got all your cash leave it behind you can bring your passport. That's it No credit cards.

No cash app Leave it all behind. Come on. Let's go And your buddy looks at him and says you're crazy i'm not no that's there's no way that would work And elon says Okay.

See you guys and he walks away Now you're sitting there and you elbow your friend. He said do you know who that was? That was elon musk. He's the richest man in the world No, really? That's elon musk Hey, buddy, come back wait, we changed our mind we're going with you You see how it makes a difference who's talking? You know if it's me talking or some preacher from back east is talking it doesn't matter all that much but if it's The richest man in the world that's talking suddenly it changes everything and if it's jesus christ this Carpenter from nazareth who can rise from the dead when he's talking suddenly when he says something Don't lay up for yourselves treasures on earth do lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven Where your wealth is your heart will be in it Giving is an investment not an expense when he starts talking like that It changes everything because now he has the authority to say to do it He was the one who created this universe like we heard about last night with the children's program god created everything You know if he can create everything Do you think he's got the ability to take care of us I think he does so.

Um In my journey as I was going through these things and looking at these verses there were several fascinating individuals to me in As I read the bible one of them was this young man called the rich young ruler You know how he met jesus and jesus. He said jesus what I need to do to have eternal life Jesus said, you know keep the commandments. Yep.

I've done that. Okay. Well, here's what I want you I want you to sell your stuff and give to the poor and you'll have treasure in heaven And the rich young ruler looks back at jesus and said No, thanks.

He walks away sad now. There's a legend in church history And it's probably not true But I like to think it is true It's a legend that says this is not the last time we read of the rich young ruler luke chapter 18 The legend says we actually read of him again in acts chapter 4 And it even tells us his name then his name was barnabas so the rich young ruler If that's true He told jesus no when jesus said sell give get treasures in heaven And he walks away and somebody must have elbowed him and says hey richard You know who that was that's the creator of the universe. You just said no to Really are you sure? And so he keeps watching he starts reading the newspaper and he heards that Hears that he's on trial and he's going to be put to death and wow But he's made a prediction before he gets put to death.

He's going to rise again And then barnabas the rich young ruler Hears that he is dead and he's in the grave and then he hears that he actually rose from the dead. Wow Maybe maybe I made a mistake When I told him no And then 50 days after the resurrection pentecost came the holy spirit fell and believers were coming by the thousands And barnabas is watching all this and by acts chapter 4 he says i'm on board and when all those believers were together and they were taking care of each other's needs and And selling and giving and barnabas says i'm in he has land barnabas sells it He brings the money and he said he lays at the apostles feet and You know, is that a true story is that I don't know I like to think it is there's there's some little details They look at you know, the the rich young ruler, you know Where he was in society versus barnabas and where he was and they they have a little few clues They think that maybe it was but either way And let's just assume that that that that is true and I like to think that it's true But there's another character I want to look at all we know for sure about the rich young ruler in luke chapter 8 is he? Said no to jesus, but one chapter later comes along another man And this one is true. His name was Zacchaeus and Zacchaeus Probably well, he was from jericho.

He was rich. He probably was buddies with the rich young ruler with barnabas They were friends. I suppose they could have been anyway um But Zacchaeus starts hearing things Things are happening in the world First of all, there's this fellow named john hairy guy kind of dirty eating bugs Preaching What's he preaching? Well, he says if you have two coats give one of them away gives to somebody who doesn't have any wow This is something and that's in that's in luke chapter 3 Well along comes luke chapter 6 and now it's jesus doing the preaching and and uh, jesus says Blessed are you who are poor but woe to you who are rich? Wow, this is that chaos.

What else does jesus say? Well, he keeps his eyes on the newspaper and pretty soon he hears that luke 11 has arrived and jesus says this Give alms of such things as you have and all things are clean unto you Well, as I guess new things weren't clean for him. He had he had dirt all over his money. He had cheated so many people Luke 12 comes along and jesus says beware of covetousness.

He says a man's life doesn't Consisteth not in the abundance of things that he possesses He basically defines in luke chapter 12 defines laying up treasure on earth as saving for retirement Luke, uh rich fool, uh rich farmer tear down barns build greater. He jesus also said don't worry He says your father wants to give you the kingdom therefore sell and give This is all in luke chapter 12 and by doing so you're going to be providing yourself a treasure in heaven. That'll never wear out And Zacchaeus keeps his eyes on the newspaper And then luke 16 comes along and jesus tells the parable the unjust steward And he says basically at the end of that he says if you have worldly wealth use it to make friends To of yourself in other words, give it away and he says if you If you do this that's going to be faithful He says if you're faithful not which is least you're faithful also in much and if you're if you're faithful with your money God will give you true riches Jesus said another statement.

He says you can't serve two masters. You cannot serve god and money He says jesus said that which is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of god And zacchaeus cannot believe the kinds of things that this preacher from galilee is preaching But he's fascinated with it. He's somewhat intrigued by it He's not sure what to do with these sermons that he's reading in the as a newspaper arrives in his mailbox every day one day He gets a knock on the door Zacchaeus, did you hear? Our friend barnabas the rich young ruler met jesus really My friend barnabas met jesus the rich young ruler.

He met jesus. What did jesus tell him? Well, jesus told him to sell his stuff and give it away He told barnabas that What did barnabas tell him Zacchaeus is on pins and needles waiting to find out and well He walked away sad He wasn't willing to do that. Really zacchaeus says I uh, wow Barnabas met jesus.

Jesus told him to sell and give And he said no And he goes to bed that night he can't sleep he's thinking about jesus he's thinking about his sermons He's thinking about barnabas and his rejection of what jesus said And the next morning he gets another knock on the door Zacchaeus, did you hear jesus is coming to jericho? Really jesus is coming here by that time. He hasn't slept for a while he says I I gotta see jesus and he's not sure how to do this, but He decides he's going to go take some lessons climbing trees And so he talks to his tree trimmer friends and says can you teach me how to climb these things? I've never done in my life And so they give him some lessons and he takes lessons all that day and by the next day He's ready and along come jesus with a crowd of people and zacchaeus is perched up there in the tree when jesus comes passing underneath and You know jesus stops under that tree I don't know if that was zacchaeus's intention or not, but he stops under that tree and says zacchaeus i'm coming to your house You know zacchaeus has been thinking And he's already made decisions. He doesn't wait for any for for jesus to start giving him commands.

He says jesus i'm doing it I'm on board. He says right now right now i'm giving half of my stuff To the poor and then furthermore i'm going to go make things right that i've stolen from other people and Zacchaeus did this not sadly not walking away with his head bowed like the rich young ruler He did this with joy, but he wasn't the only one with joy Guess who else was joyful here comes a man running into the homeless camp down at jerusalem and says hey guys Guess what zacchaeus has given away his stuff And everybody comes rushing out of their tents and rolling out of their sleeping bags and you know Long beards and stuff. Wow.

He's giving it. Whoa. Everybody's so excited.

They're jumping up and down They can get a new tent now. They can get a hamburger hot dog something. This is exciting Zacchaeus is giving away his stuff And you know the refugee camp over across the jordan river They've been having some kind of conflict there and and they get excited because now these mothers They don't have food for their children these fathers.

They've been provide haven't been able to provide for their family Suddenly they're going to be able to you know feed, you know give clothes to their children they're going to maybe even be able to get a little job themselves start a business they can provide for themselves all because Zacchaeus made a decision And they're starting to ask questions what in the world got into zacchaeus And the answer keeps coming back He met a man named jesus And he's never been the same so Merle burkholder made this statement. He was at cam. He was he was saying some statements some things he learned in life He says you can't make yourself happy with your own money.

That was one of his principles I don't remember what the others were but that was one of them He says you can't make up yourself happy with your own money He says now you can make other people happy With your money and that's what zacchaeus was doing But you know in a one way he did get happy he became happy as he began to pour out his wealth to others He became extremely Joyful he became exuberant you see zacchaeus Was an investor he knew how to make money And up until this point he had been putting every dime he could into the eight percent column And maybe after you're halfway through this sermon you thought We're just gonna have to throw these things away if you handed out these cards and now I really can't enjoy them I can't do it. But no, there's another column. Look at the cards again.

Go ahead and pick them up And turn instead of looking at the eight percent column slide on over to the twenty percent column And look at the rate of return you can make there. You see jesus said When you invest in heaven You're going to receive back a hundred fold Now i'm not sure exactly how that translates to this card, but I think it's way over there to the right Somewhere probably the i'd say it's probably at least the twenty percent column And the amazing and so zacchaeus He's been spending his life investing in the eight percent column and now he discovers the twenty percent column and he says i'm going for it He says this is this is now what I want to do This is how I want to live and he gets excited and he's he's he jumps in with both feet and he's he's you know He's probably excited not only to you know, what happened that weekend He's he probably is looking forward to going to work the next monday when you know The weekend's finally over all the excitement wears off He says i'm going to go to work and i'm going to make more money and i'm going to do this all over again Because there's still people that are needy and I can do something to to um to help them and so The uh, the question is well, how do we put this into practice? Well, let me just give real one quick little principle get newsletters of people that are helping the the poor the hungry And start reading these newsletters and start, you know The ones that are clothing the naked and spreading the gospel and is sending out bibles Get the newsletters and read them pray over them and then give to them now You have to decide what you're you know What your scale is how much can you afford if you can't afford to give a thousand dollars like uh, you know Zacchaeus or a million dollars like Zacchaeus you might have to cut it back to a thousand or a hundred maybe ten dollars But start giving start opening that spigot and and start allowing god to make you a channel So one little practical thing start putting money into the 20 column and do it quickly because we don't know how long We have this opportunity to lay up treasure in heaven. You know, I just heard of a guy oh, I don't know two days ago who you know, he's talking about investments and You know, it was kind of in the contest what an amazingly smart investor this guy was he says because I thought About buying bitcoin back when it was nine cents each He thought about it now You see the problem is thinking about it and doing it are two different things And so if he decided he's going to go buy it now No, by the way, if you don't know what bitcoin is now worth about eighty thousand eighty five thousand dollars a piece Okay So if you buy it at nine cents and sell it, you know now you have it and it's eighty nine eighty five thousand dollars Pretty good investment in worldly sense.

All right. Well, he didn't do it And if he'd want to go back and do it now and say well I thought about it It would be too late he couldn't do it. You see that's how investments are they have a window of time It's open and then it closes And once it closes you can never go back and do it.

It's just not it's not possible Today the window is open for you and I to lay up to invest in heaven where moth and rust and thieves They don't they don't affect it. It's a good investment It's way better than anything you can have here on this earth. You can keep it forever So don't pass it up.

Don't wait till the windows close and then say I thought about it That'll be too late say i'm gonna do it today. So start doing it and god bless you as you do it, you know, um This morning has been kind of a brief overview of my own journey two weeks lord willing we're going to If that's the next time I preach we're gonna get back into the word of god we're gonna kind of go back a little maybe maybe uh, uh I don't know if I should say go back through a little bit more slowly But go back through the entire bible old and new testament and look at what the bible really says if this five Session five sessions does anything? I want it to make us all familiar with what god says in his word the bible what the bible says About finances what the bible says about a godly view of finances if we can become familiar with scripture through this journey It'll be worth it. So god bless you all maybe we could uh, why don't we stand for prayer?