How many verses of hymn are we going to have? We had five, whatever.
Lord, we thank You for a time to be together. We thank You for the mutual encouragement of remembering You at Your table.
Lord, we pray now, as we share here this morning, that we might have a time of remembering You, seeing You afresh, and putting You first. In Jesus’ name.
As I begin, let us look at two passages. The first is 2 Peter 3:10-12.
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar,
and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat,
and the earth and all its works will be burned up.
Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way,
what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness,
looking for and hastening the coming day of God,
because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning,
and the elements will melt with intense heat.
Verse 11b: “What sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness?”
The second passage we want to look at is Psalm 90:10-12.
As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years,
or, if due to strength, eighty years;
yet their pride is but labor and sorrow,
for soon it is gone and we fly away.
Who understands the power of Your anger
and Your fury according to the fear that is due You?
So teach us to number our days,
that we may present to You a heart of wisdom.
Verse 12, first line: “So teach us to number our days.”
So today I wanted to share with you something of a personal testimony, something I feel like the Lord has been speaking to me for forty years. Maybe one day I will get it straight. But anyway, it is a personal testimony; maybe you can find some encouragement from it.
What I want to share with you today, I will call a foolproof investment strategy.
A foolproof investment strategy. How many times have you heard financial people say, “I give you a foolproof investment strategy”? This is a foolproof investment strategy.
What do I mean by investment strategy? I wrote down a definition I want to give you:
The best investment that a born-again Christian can make is to invest, or spend, the time that he or she has been given to come to know the Lord. It is from the knowledge of the Lord, and a passion to gain such knowledge, that everything in this Christian faith will spring.
Come to know the Lord. The best investment that a born-again Christian can make is to invest the time that he or she has been given to come to know the Lord. It is from the knowledge of the Lord, and a passion to gain such knowledge, that everything in this Christian faith will spring.
You know, we think that Christianity is a bunch of “do this, do that,” and there are a lot of symptoms, a lot of manifestations, of being a Christian. But they come from the Lord’s life in us and from knowing the Lord.
Maybe a simple definition would be a little equation. Kenny knows about equations:
Invest time = gain Christ.
Invest time to gain Christ.
Let me give you a little short outline:
What is investing? You know, I think you have often heard that this country has a terrible reputation for poor savings and investment. We save little to nothing for rainy days and for old age.
Some time ago, when I was working—before I became unemployed; well, I am unemployed—we were able to pay nice bonuses with the company I worked for. One of the men I worked with for years had a mother-in-law who knew we were about to get bonuses.
She looked at him and said, “I know you. You are just going to save that money.”
So, not only do we not invest and save what we have in this country, we have a great deal of disdain for it. Why is that? Honestly, because we are hedonistic. We would rather have things now and later eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you die.
Just as believers, we need to make sure that attitude does not spill over into our lives.
I just thought for a minute: Why do people not invest? Why do we not invest?
Well, number one: “I tried it. I tried investing, and remember 2008? I lost half of everything. It is not worth it. I am not going to invest. It does not work.”
I think sometimes we get that attitude toward our faith. I have heard people say, “It doesn’t work.” So let us not get that attitude.
Number two: “I cannot really consider investing because, well, I do not have enough. I am real busy. We have a young family at home, and we are just spending everything we have to make ends meet. I want to keep Mom at home so she can homeschool and take care of our kids. Invest? No, thank You.”
Number three: Here is one I think we have heard. A lot of employers have matches for their 401(k)s. It is just a great gift.
Young people—not just here, but generally—say, “I cannot afford to invest. I just got out of school. I am a young person. I need to get a car. I need to get an iPad. I have to have a smartphone. When I get my feet on the ground and get established, then I will invest.”
Obviously, the comparison and analogies to the Christian life can be seen from these things. We need to be careful that we do not let these attitudes spill over into our Christian lives.
Where our treasure is, there will our heart be.
We are thankful that we are born again and can invest on a totally different plane. As Christians, we can invest in something that will not burn and will not disappoint. We can invest in knowing the Lord.
We are the richest people on earth. Not only have we been saved, born again, and rescued from hell—we remember this at the table—but we have been given a new life, the life of Christ. We have the opportunity to come to the fullness of that life, to express ourselves unto Him.
So, do we have this in perspective? Are we investing in the Lord? Are we coming to know Him progressively? Are we too busy with other things? Where is our treasure, and where are we investing our lives?
You know, it is the Lord’s calling, His will, that we become mature men in Christ. We become mature Christians. We become solid, saved Christians.
As Paul said in Philippians, “That I might gain Christ.” The world sets its heart on investing in things that rot; it will be burned up. Where are we investing our days and our time?
We have a choice, just as the world has a choice to invest. We have a choice whether we are going to invest in Christ and gain Him.
Brother Kong shared that series of messages on spiritual exercise, and the text he used was 1 Timothy 4:8-10.
For bodily discipline is only of little profit,
but godliness is profitable for all things,
since it holds promise for the present time
and also for the life to come.
It is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance.
For it is for this we labor and strive,
because we have fixed our hope on the living God,
who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers.
The strategy we are talking about today is something productive and successful for this present life and the life to come. What a great investment we can make.
What about time? Do you ever think about time?
Besides knowing the Lord Himself, I believe that time is maybe the most valuable thing we have been given. It is a scarce resource, and the Lord is interested in how we use that resource.
The two verses we opened with had a sense of time. Let us look at 2 Peter 3:10-12. The key thought there was, “What sort of people ought you to be?”
To me, what sort of people we are has a great connotation of time. What are we doing with our time? Are we spending it on that which benefits the present life and the life to come? How are we spending our time?
Then Psalm 90:11-12: “Teach us to number our days.” He says we have seventy years; if we have a strong constitution, maybe eighty years. So, number our days. What are we doing with our days, with those years?
He says, “Teach us.” We must not know how to number our days. We must not know how to regard and count our days.
What do we mean by numbering our days? I just had a thought in numbering. It has to do with looking at, considering, counting—looking at that day.
We can look at our days from a couple of perspectives. Do we look at our day before it starts? When we start the day, do we think, “How are we going to spend this day?”
If we do not consider how we are going to spend our day, what happens to it? It is gone. It is absolutely gone.
Even if we are busy, busy, busy in the prime of our life, we need to consider how we are going to spend our days.
Another way we consider how we spend our days is at the end of the day: “How have I spent my day? Have I considered the Lord? Have I drawn near to Him? Seen His face?”
If we do not number our days, they are gone in a flash. Number our days. Consider our days.
What is our motivation in investing? Our Bibles, if we study them, give us a lot of things that we could bring up here.
A lot of times in a message like this, we talk about how we are spending our days: early rising, Bible reading, meditation, prayer. There is nothing wrong with those things. They are right.
But as I was thinking about it, if those are the end, if that is the motivation, it is not going to get us there. What is the motivation for these things?
I think there is a deep-seated motivation for these things. That motivation is an absolute emptiness, an absolute need for the living God. That is why we look in our Bibles. We look for the Lord in the Bible.
Before we are born again, I think most of us come to the point where we say, “I need the Lord. I am really empty. I really need the Lord.” Then He saves us.
Is that the last time we need the Lord? We as believers need the Lord more than ever. There is a deep, deep place within us that can only be satisfied by the Lord Himself. That is not just for unbelievers; that is for all Christians too.
I think what happens is that we get busy, and our busyness masks that need. We avoid that need. We do not know that we have that need for Jesus.
Let us be careful how busy we are, and do not let that busyness mask the deep need we have. We never outgrow that need.
This possession of Christ, I think, will lead us to the other things—the Bible study and so forth. But let us not forget how much we need the Lord, and that we need to spend time with Him.
“That I might know Him” should be the deepest desire in our hearts.
Let us look at a few men in the Bible who had a successful investment strategy and see what they found about investing. The first one I want to look at is Solomon.
Solomon was probably one of the greatest men of his day on the face of the earth—none greater. What did he find from all his greatness?
We understand that Solomon wrote Song of Songs in his youth, Proverbs in his middle age, and Ecclesiastes in his old age.
I am not sure how long Solomon lived. I looked it up online, so it must be right, but the scholars thought he probably lived to eighty.
This message he has for us was later in his life. I wonder if he was about sixty-five, sixty-six, or sixty-seven, because he had been through enough, but he knew his days were short. What was he going to do with the days he had left?
Solomon had the position and the wealth to acquire and experience anything he wanted to on the earth. He had the means to pursue happiness through any avenue.
He tried wisdom, pleasure, alcohol, human achievement, the fruits of great riches, and sex, but concluded that all of this was emptiness.
Ecclesiastes 2:11 says:
Thus I considered all my activities which my hands had done,
and the labor which I had exerted,
and behold, all was vanity and striving after wind,
and there was no profit under the sun.
Pretty depressing, huh? Pretty depressing, reading that book. But praise the Lord, he did not give up. There was a conclusion that Solomon had at the end.
Look at Ecclesiastes 12:13:
The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person.
All the worldly stuff—done with everything in the world—fear God. This fear is not cowering fear; it is respect, honor, and reverence for God. Keep His commandments. Remember the Lord at His table.
His conclusion was: invest in God, and not in himself. That is what made him a successful investor.
The next one we want to look at is Job. Job came to a successful investment strategy.
Job, we understand, is probably one of the first books written chronologically in the Bible. If this was written very early—if it was the first thing—God must have an important message in this book.
Like Solomon, Job was a very successful man in the world’s eyes. He had great riches. But he lost everything in one day.
He had ten children. He lost his children, all his possessions, and soon thereafter even his health.
The common understanding of this book is often that it teaches us how to endure suffering successfully, how to be a trooper. But I think we need to look beyond that.
Maybe there is help in enduring suffering here, but there is a deep, deep message in the book of Job. Let us read Job 42:1-6.
You know, Job wrestled with his friends and wrestled with the Lord. He said, “I cannot be wrong. Why has all this come upon me? I am innocent.”
He was obviously self-righteous, but he said, “It is not fair. It is not right. I have not done anything.”
Then, for a couple of chapters, the Lord questioned Job: “I am God. And who are you?”
Job’s conclusion was this:
I know that You can do all things,
and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.
Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?
Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
Hear, now, and I will speak;
I will ask You, and You instruct me.
I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear,
but now my eye sees You.
Therefore I retract,
and I repent in dust and ashes.
Job had seen the Lord by his ear. He had heard what other people said about Him. He had heard secondhand. But he said, “My eye sees You.”
The eyes of his heart, his spiritual eyes, saw the Lord. Brothers and sisters, how we need to see the Lord and know Him personally.
He found out that the true value was God Himself, not things.
In the book God Has Spoken, Brother Kong did messages on the different books of the Bible. He says concerning Job, “Life’s problems are not solved by why, but by Who; not by what we hear, but by Who we see. When we finally see God, all of our problems are solved.”
Press on to know the Lord.
Just a little aside: there is a book by Brother Kong called The Splendor of His Ways that discusses Job, if you want to get into Job. It is a wonderful book. If you cannot find one out there, I will see that you get one.
The third man I want to look at is Hosea. Hosea, a minor prophet, lived at a time of great declension and great discouragement among Israel.
In fact, he was so discouraged that he could have easily given up. He could have thrown in the towel, turned off the lights, shut the door, and gone home. But he did not do that.
Let us look at what Hosea did in Hosea 6.
Remember, this was in the midst of frustration and spiritual decline—not just in the world, but among God’s people.
Come, let us return to the Lord.
For He has torn us, but He will heal us;
He has wounded us, but He will bandage us.
He will revive us after two days;
He will raise us up on the third day,
that we may live before Him.
So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord.
His going forth is as certain as the dawn;
and He will come to us like the rain,
like the spring rain watering the earth.
Praise the Lord. So let us press on to know the Lord.
We might find ourselves living in discouraging times. What is our response? We are responsible for our response.
Hosea had a word for us: “Let us press on to know the Lord.” Only He will satisfy, and He has given us that capacity to press on.
If I can quote from God Has Spoken, Brother Kong says concerning Hosea, “There were still a few who desired to follow after God, and in these few, the testimony of God continued.” Let us press on to know the Lord.
Let us look at what the Lord Himself had to say in Matthew 6:19-24.
Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth,
where moth and rust destroy,
and where thieves break in and steal.
But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven,
where neither moth nor rust destroys,
and where thieves do not break in or steal;
for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
The eye is the lamp of the body;
so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light.
But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.
If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
No one can serve two masters;
for either he will hate the one and love the other,
or he will be devoted to one and despise the other.
You cannot serve God and wealth.
We say, “But, Lord, the kids need groceries. I need to work. I do not get it. The boss wants everything. I need to work. What am I going to do?”
Verse 33 tells us the Lord’s counsel and His advice:
But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
God, have mercy on us. Seek first His kingdom. Trust the Lord, abide in Him, wait on Him, put Him first.
What is our priority in life? Quite practically, if we put Him first, everything else will come into line. It is a promise. We can test Him on it. Seek first the kingdom of God.
The last man I want to look at is Paul, in the book of Philippians.
The book of Philippians is really a little different from some of Paul’s other books. It is very personal—intensely personal.
In his other books, I think Paul was teaching at a high level. He was exercising his apostolic authority. But this letter is much more personal.
Hey, Jack. Sit down. Okay. I thought there was a bug behind my ear.
Think about the situation with Philippians. Paul was where? He was in jail. He probably was not sure he was going to live much longer.
He was very close to the Philippians, very close to that church and those saints there, and so he was sharing his heart with them.
It was kind of like having a family member who is not going to be with you long. What would he want to share with you? The most important thing.
I cannot tell you how many things I wish I had asked my father. But anyway, Paul was sharing the most important thing on a personal level with people he was really close to.
What did he have to say?
For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.
Philippians 3:8:
More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord,
for whom I have suffered the loss of all things,
and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ.
Here was a man—great, great, the greatest on earth at that time, I think. He had done a lot of teaching, a lot of good teaching, and given us a lot of very important principles.
But what did he have to say to those he was closest to? Press on to know the Lord. “I count them rubbish that I may gain Christ.”
Even at the end of his life, he was investing the time and energy he had in gaining Christ.
Further on in that book, in Philippians 3:10, he says:
That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.
This knowing is epignosis: personal experience, not head knowledge—internal, heart knowledge.
As we sense that this age is drawing to a close, thank the Lord, we have the same message: that we might know Him. Top of the list: seek first the kingdom of God, that I might know Him.
This pressing on to know the Lord is not without resistance. We need to understand that there is great, great resistance to pressing on.
The first and biggest resistance is our self-life.
I have this great deal of energy that just gets stirred up and wants to get moving. I have a hard time sitting still. I guess maybe you know that. But anyway, that is a problem. That is a problem.
How many of us have energy, other things, distractions? I think the only way we are going to come through is to come to the end of ourselves and be thoroughly done with our self-life.
We need to know that we need to know the Lord. Galatians 2:20—Paul’s teaching there was, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.”
We need to take up the cross and deny our self-life. We have to do it. It is not mean. It is not ugly. It is not a hard gospel. It is the truth.
If we do not do it, we do not get it. We are cooked.
Our busyness will mask our emptiness and deep need. We need to deny our busyness and deny our self-life.
The second thing that I think can really keep us from going on with the Lord and coming to know Him is the devil.
I do not think we want to talk about demons on doorknobs, as we talked about a few decades ago, but the enemy has got it in for us. He has got to play our weaknesses and use our circumstances.
Do not be naive, and do not be unaware that the enemy would take our natural weakness, build on it, and cause real problems with going on with the Lord.
Of course, Paul again in Ephesians 6 says, “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.”
Be aware of the late hour we live in. The Lord wants to return. He wants to return for a bride who has made herself ready, who expresses the fullness of Jesus Christ in time and space.
The enemy has every need to stop that from happening. He does not want any overcomers. He does not want anybody to go on to the end. So just be aware of that.
Another thing I thought about as an increasing, increasing, strong problem is the world.
Another translation for the world is the cosmos system—the world system.
The world demands our souls. It demands our souls through the demands of our employers. Pardon me, but it demands our souls through technology.
I hope I do not step on any toes here. How many people I see, even my age, are just stuck on texting and having that device with them all the time, being on the internet. Oh, what we get exposed to on the internet.
The world and this system—the enemy uses that.
The main thing I had in mind here was our jobs: more bricks, no straw. We are beyond less straw. We are very much no straw.
The enemy wants, the world wants, our souls. I have no doubt about it. I am very clear on that.
I can give you some counsel. Years ago, a brother we were close to worked for IBM, and that was the job. When I came out of school, you worked for IBM. That was it: starched white shirt, made a lot of money, opened the doors to a lot of jobs all through the town.
He was becoming very frustrated because he wanted to serve the Lord. He said, “Brother Karm, they want 110 percent. What am I to do? What should I do?”
Our brother said, “Give them 50 percent.”
Give them 50 percent.
And you know what? It will be okay. If the Lord has got you in His hands and you are determined not to be sold out, undone, and possessed by the world, give them 50 percent.
It is okay. He will make the ends meet. He will hide you and keep you in Him. Do not give them 110 percent.
Anyway, that is the world. Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added unto you.
I cannot tell you the number of days I walked out at 5:30 with my boss watching me, wondering why I was leaving so early.
I can also tell you that I worked until the day I decided to leave, under my terms. He did not like it. And that company is history. It is gone. Gone.
Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and He will provide. The whole goal of dealing with jobs is to be in the world, but not of the world.
We work for our provision, so that we will have what is needed to take care of ourselves and our family.
What is the summary? What have we been saying?
What is investment? In a natural sense, when we invest, we take something of value and set it aside, anticipating that we will have more in the future.
Why would you set it aside if you were not going to have some gain out of it? We set something aside so that we might gain more.
The same thing is true in a spiritual sense. We take what we have been given that is of value and use it to gain more value.
What we have said we have been given is time. Then we ask the question: How are we investing this limited resource?
The foolproof way of investing that time is to use it to come to a personal, living relationship with the Lord.
Solomon said: He gained the whole world—fear God and keep His commandments.
Job said: “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You.”
Hosea said: “So let us know; let us press on to know the Lord.”
Our Lord Jesus said: “Seek first the kingdom of God.”
Paul said: “That I might gain Christ.”
So the only question we can ask is: How are we investing that limited resource called time?
Lord, we thank You. Lord, I just want to thank You for being with us today, for not giving up on us, for persevering with us.
We just come to You today and say we understand that in these last days, nothing will matter but knowing You.
We pray that we might come to put You first, to invest our days, number our days, and spend them in gaining You. Have mercy on us, we pray, in Jesus’ name.