This evening I'd like for us to consider the idea of being invested in the kingdom and being invested in the kingdom as I was driving down I435, when I was going back and forth to, my previous employment, Elite Roofing Supply. There was a billboard that I passed just across the state line. And on the billboard was [Patrick] Mahomes and his daughter.
“Invest in What you Believe in, with who you Believe in.”
These aren't the exact words of his that were on the billboard. But on the billboard, it carried the idea of investing in the kingdom. The statement that he made was that he was investing in the kingdom. Of course, I drive by that sign every single day. He was investing. Of course, the idea is; in Kansas City. Of course, [he] being the quarterback for the Super Bowl champions last season. I would look at that and I was like, well, we're investing in a kingdom, aren't we? At least we're supposed to be.
And so, I thought this would be a good opportunity to speak on that particular idea of investing in the kingdom. So this evening, that's what we're going to do. So I set out to investigate some basic principles involved in investing.
Basic Investing Model
There are several that will most likely correct me if I get any of these wrong, based on the work that they do, however, they're so basic, I don't think I will get them mixed up. The four basic principles when it comes to investing that we're going to then carry over to our spiritual side of things goes like this.
Four Basic Principles of Investing
- Start early, invest early.
- Stay diversified
- Keep a long-term time horizon,
- Keep it simple
We're going to transfer these four principles of basic investment principles from the financial world into our spiritual world this evening. So the question then remains for us, and you'll have to answer this for yourself, as I will have to answer it for myself.
Are We Investing in the Kingdom?
Are we investing in the kingdom? First of all, let's consider the idea of starting early.
Invest Early in the Kingdom
You know, the wise man Solomon had a few things to say along these lines.
- Ecclesiastes 11:9-12:2
Solomon would have us recognize that we should come to God in our youth, or the idea being as early as possible. One of the things that we need to remember is that there's no specific age given to us in scripture when one is to be right with God. We normally refer to this as the age of accountability.
Who is responsible for coming to God? Someone who has the mental ability to understand what it is that they're doing. We recognize that believing in Jesus is one of the steps related to salvation, which requires a certain level of cognitive ability, which is why children, for the most part, have no need to be baptized. They have no sins to repent of. They're in the developmental stages of their life. But there will come a time when their brain will be to a certain level and it will become necessary. But that's not necessarily based on physical age. So there's no physical age requirement.
- Matthew 6:33
You back up to the previous verses; you'll find out exactly what those needs are that are being discussed there by Jesus in Matthew chapter six. But how exactly is this helpful to someone who has never started their walk with Jesus?
I want you to recognize something at this particular moment. If you've never started following Jesus, or in other words, committing yourself to be his disciple, now's the best time. Because you cannot invest in something that you're not already a part of.
Here we're talking about being invested in the kingdom. But if we're not in the kingdom where Jesus is, you can't be investing in it because you only invest in things that you're already a part of. Paul would write specifically concerning this particular point.
- Ephesians 2:11-12
Notice some of the things that Paul says are identifying factors of those that are outside of the body of Christ.
- They are without hope.
- They are aliens from the commonwealth of Israel.
- Strangers from the covenants of promise.
In other words, these are individuals who are not able to invest in the kingdom because they're not in the kingdom to begin with.
The relationship between God and mankind is completely different for those who are outside the body of Christ. Making it even more important for us to be a part of that kingdom. So we should start early, as early as possible. If that is today for you, then by all means, make it today.
Stay Diversified While Investing
But we should also stay diversified, as we looked at earlier.
If we were to define the word diversified, it would go something like this.
Diversified: “Enlarge or vary its range of products or field of operations.”
You say, well, that sounds very financial of you. Can we put that in spiritual terms?
The idea is that we need to grow and not be satisfied with the knowledge that we have or our understanding of God's word.
- 2 Peter 3:18
Growth, as it appears in 2nd Peter, chapter three is not a suggestion. It's not an if you feel like a statement, Peter is saying to Christians, "Grow."
"Grow in the grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."
It's not something that we should do, it's something that we must do. If we're going to be investing and diversifying our investments in the kingdom.
- Matthew 15:14-30
Commonly, we refer to this particular parable of Jesus, where he's talking about the coming of the kingdom, and we talk about our responsibilities within the body of Christ, using our talents for good. And that's the right thing to do.
We're talking about growing. We're talking about being diversified in the kingdom of God. We're talking about doing things, yes, that we already know that we're supposed to be doing, but we should be branching out and growing and doing the things that the five-talent man did in order to gain five more talents. Doing the things that the two-talent man did in order to gain two more talents so that when the master comes back and he looks at his servants to what they have accomplished, they'll say, "Here's what you gave me, here's what I was able to add to it."
But what we don't want to do, is the same thing that the one-talent man did. Now, what I have encouraged people to understand concerning the one-talent man is it's not wrong to be a one-talent man. He wasn't condemned for being a one-talent servant. The master gave him the responsibility that he knew the servant could accomplish.
What was the problem? That man was afraid. That man didn't have the same level of confidence in himself that the Master had in him. So he refused to use the talent that the Master had given him for anything. Thinking that if he just gave it right back, the Master would be satisfied.
He didn't grow. He didn't step up to the challenge. He didn't step up to the plate, if you will, for that matter. A sports reference that we often have. He didn't step up to the plate. He just handed it right back to him. He wasn't willing to diversify his spiritual nature, to put it in the terms that we're looking at.
We cannot remain satisfied with a basic understanding of God's Word. We can see this clearly laid out for us in the account that we read about in Hebrews chapter five. We'll look at that in just a moment. In Acts chapter twenty and verse twenty-seven, Paul notes to the Ephesian elders there in that chapter. He leaves, he's on his way back to Jerusalem, and he is in such a rush to get back to Jerusalem that he doesn't have the time to go to Ephesus. Ephesus was farther inland than where Paul was needing to be, so he called the Ephesian elders down to the coastal area where he was in Miletus, and he had a long discussion with them.
- Acts 20:27
Now, why is this important when it comes to our idea of being diversified spiritually and investing in the kingdom? It can happen. And I've seen it happen, with friends of mine and others that I've been acquainted with.
That, that they just look at the same thing in their Bibles over and over and over again, and that's it. There have been preachers that I've known, and I will try not to do this, who have gotten stuck discussing certain things, it seemed like, in every single lesson. There was no variation. There was no apparent growth in the process of those individuals.
Why? I don't know. But Paul says, "I have not failed to declare unto you the entire counsel of God", which means we need to have the ability as much as possible to declare as much of the counsel of God as we possibly can.
Now, we might not be able to, as some individuals that I know, can rattle off one passage from memory after another, after another, after another.
On occasion, I'm able to recite some passages even in public, it's easier in private, one on one. But that's not what my focus is. If I spend enough time in the Word of God, I'm going to become more familiar with passages and where they are. I may not remember exactly how to recite it word for word, but I can get there.
You know, our electronic devices that we carry around with us all the time are real good at searching things out for us and getting us to where we need them to be. And we should use them for those purposes. So that we can say to the best of our ability, I've not failed to declare unto you all the counsel of God.
- Hebrews 5:11-14
The reason why we cannot settle for just an introductory knowledge of the word of God and say that's the best that we can do. That's the one talent man talking.
There the writer of Hebrews says there are many other things to say about this Melchizedek and how Jesus is a priest after the order of Melchizedek. But notice why he's not going to be able to move on and discuss those things.
Here the writer says, you've turned your ears off to the gospel. You're not wanting to hear anymore. It's a lack of desire on your part.
- Hebrews 4:12
The Word of God is a living organism. Our brains are living organisms, but if we stop feeding them, they're going to stop growing. That's what the Hebrews writer is saying is happening to these individuals who are considering leaving Christianity and going back to Judaism. They've stopped growing because they're dull of hearing.
They're just not interested in it anymore. They're not willing to diversify.
Keep a Long-Term Time Horizon for Investing!
But thirdly, we need to keep a long-term time horizon. In other words, we need to have a goal set out way in the future that we look at from time to time and kind of keep our eyes on because if we do that we're going to make the appropriate moves in the short term to get us there in the long run.
As long as we keep our focus. And this takes place for us in two ways.
- A Place Called Heaven
First of all, there's a place and we call it Heaven. We read about it in the New Testament, but also it's the knowledge and understanding that we're going to be with the Lord forever. Our long-term time horizon should be focusing on those two things.
And when we speak concerning heaven, what are we referring to?
- A place of peace
- A place of no suffering
- A place of no night
- A place of no tears
- A place of no pain
- A place of no sin = No ADVERSARY!
Just like we have the assurance that if we're faithful to him in this life Romans chapter 8, "There is nothing that is going to separate us from the love of God," nothing at all.
- With the Lord
But when we consider this idea of knowledge and understanding with the Lord.
- 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17, 18
We are supposed to use this information to comfort one another. Notice verse 18, with these words. There was a misunderstanding among the Christians in Thessalonica at the time when Paul was writing this, that if they were looking forward so much to the Lord coming in their lifetime that they were afraid if they died before Jesus returned, they wouldn't inherit because they would be dead. Paul is saying, no, no, no, that's not the case. Your death or you're falling asleep is not going to prevent you from being raised when Jesus comes again, "and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
Jesus would put it this way in John chapter 14 when he's speaking there with his apostles in the upper room right after he tells Peter that he is going to deny him three times.
- John 14:1-3
You see, Jesus recognizes that it's a place, but we're also going to be with him. And he tries to comfort his apostles with that particular understanding.
- Matthew 25:21, 23
And when we enter into the joy of the Lord, we don't ever have to leave. We won't ever have to leave.
Keep a long-term time horizon while you're investing in the kingdom.
When Investing, Keep it Simple.
Keep it simple. You know, God's plan for the salvation of mankind is simple enough that anyone can follow it. Notice the word can is underlined. Anyone can follow it. It's that simple.
Many have tried to use the excuse, Well, then, the Bible is so old, it's, you know, written so many thousands of years ago, That, you know, it's hard to understand. Not so. Some have tried to say that it was written so long ago, that it doesn't currently apply to our situations and way of living in our society today, again, not so.
If that were the case, then God is not an all-knowing God. God is not an all-powerful God because He created something that could not transcend generations. He's trying to communicate to His own creation and He's not capable of doing it in a clear and concise way.
That's not the God that I serve. That's not the God that I read about in the pages of the New Testament. Three things are needed in order for God's plan to come about.
- There needs a place for the saved people to be. We have that in the church.
- There's a sacrifice and a Savior that is needed in order to get people into that place. We have that. That's Jesus, the Son of God.
- There needs to be there has to be a Doctrine to follow, something that we can take and that we can share with somebody else so they can do exactly the same thing that we did to get to the place where we want to be. We have that, in the New Testament.
- Ephesians 1:4-13
When you look at that particular passage, you will see all three, a place, a sacrifice of a Savior, and a doctrine.
The plan of God is that simple. We simply have to be looking for it in order to be obedient to it. We do not need to come up with something new to get people into the church and to keep people in the kingdom. We simply need to invest in the kingdom and let God's plan work in our lives.
Maybe you're one here this evening, not a member of the body of Christ.
As we mentioned earlier, toward the beginning of the lesson, investing in the kingdom is for those who are in the kingdom already.
And if you're not, we would love to help you become a part of the kingdom. Having heard the word, are you willing to believe it? [Are you} willing to repent of your sins, confess the name of Jesus as Lord, and be baptized in order to have your sins washed away in the blood that Jesus shed on the cross?
Maybe you're one who is like the Christians of the first century that the Hebrews writer was referring to, and maybe you're not able to grow at this point because you've become dull of hearing. It's time to invest in the kingdom, and it's time to be growing once again like you once did.
If we can help you in any way, please contact us, and we can assist you in coming to understand God's plan for salvation.
