Invest and Invite
Part 1 “Investing in Something Worth While”
Brian A. Moon
Story – It was my first year at Palm Beach Atlantic College and I was a nobody, I had transferred in from another college so I was much older than most of the people I saw prancing around in their beach garb. But one day I was in the back of a class and I noticed that this girl sitting next to me was older too, so I asked how she was doing and so on… As the days went by we talked more and more and would hang out during our breaks. I did not think much about it, I was just being a friend to someone that had made a few mistakes along the way and now just needed someone to help her along. I did not look down on her, but was just a friend. One day she comes up to me and tells me that she quite smoking because of me, and was trying to live a better life and leave behind the bad stuff. The funny part was that she started baking me cookies and buying me gifts to show her appreciation, but it was amazing how simply being nice to someone could mean so much to them.
This week we are beginning a new two part series called “Invest and Invite.” All of us that came here tonight have different ideas about why people meet together every week and do this thing called church.
Some of us may think a church is place for old people that are stuck on doing tradition. Others of you may think it is just something that you go to once a week and then live your life like normal Monday through Saturday. But tonight and then next week I want to challenge you with part of what church is really all about. This week we are going to look at “Investing in something worth while.” This is a timely topic to me because of all that has been happening with the stock market. For those of you who do not keep up with this kind of thing; the stock market is down right now from where it was a few years ago. To make it real simple it means that people who invested thousands of dollars one year ago, now have less money than when they started. Their investments have not been worth while for the time being. So what does the stock market and church have to do with each other? They both have to do with investing… In the stock market the game is to find a stock that you think will pay off in the future,
So you invest your money into it now in hopes that when it reaches its potential you will have made money on the deal. In the church we are also called to make investments, except this time we are called to make investments in something that is guaranteed a return.
Matthew 6:19-21 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” NRSV
What Jesus is saying here is that you can do one of three things with your life.
You can:
Waste it
Spend it
Invest it
Those are your three options for life; you can waste it on living for the moment, and wild partying, and wasting it on drugs and alcohol and sexually abusive behavior. You can waste it on being lazy and procrastinating and throwing opportunities down the drain. Or, you can spend your life. You can spend it trying to be the best and reach the top of whatever it is your trying to reach. You can spend it on doing whatever it takes to reach your goals and running over whoever it takes to get there. You can spend it on being self-focused and looking out for only number one,
Or, finally, you can invest your life. You can give back out of the things you have been blessed with,
You can use your time and talents to make a difference in the lives of others and you can invest in people by being a true friend and someone that they can count on no matter what. A man in the Bible by the name of Paul had something to say on this when he was talking to a church in Galatia, And this will kind of be our theme verse for this message series. This verse also answers one of my first questions and that is what is this church thing all about.
Galatians 5:13 “For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another.” NRSV
What Paul was saying is this: “You guys have been blessed so much, you have freedom because of what Jesus Christ did on the cross, you are free, but do not get this freedom confused for anytime God grants us a blessing, including freedom from sin, we are to use these blessings to serve others out of love.”
That last part is what I want to focus in on, serve others out of love. You see when God blesses us, it is not for our own indulgence, but it is for the chance to make an investment in the life of someone else.
One of the blessings we as the church have been blessed with is the good news about Jesus Christ. We have the good news that he came to earth to die for our sins and set us free with a life to the extreme,
But this message is not just for us to keep hidden from a world that is so desperate for God’s love.
This is one of the purposes of the church, to go out and share with people about Jesus Christ love. But here is the problem. If a strange man came up to you and shared the fact that the water you drink is poisoned and he wants to give you this magic solution that will protect you for only 299.95 you would think he was nuts. Well can you imagine the feeling people get when we share with them about God? This is why we need to invest our lives in others, or invest in heavenly treasures as it says in the book of Matthew.
So how do we do that? How do we invest our lives in others? Here are three ways that I believe will help you earn the right to make the invite so to speak.
If you invest in people’s lives with these three things you will have earned the right to invite them here one Sunday night to come and find out about God.
Investing through words
I have heard these statements all my life that words are cheap, and sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me. The person that came up with these obviously never went through Middle School or High School… Words are one of the most powerful things in the world. They have the ability to build people up or tear them apart. The Bible takes words very seriously as well as the power they have to do good or evil.
Hebrews 3:13 “But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.” NIV
Imagine that simply encouraging each other can have an effect on keeping each other from sinning!
So it is obvious that words do mean something and that they carry a responsibility on our part to make sure that they are positive. This is the first way you can invest in the life of someone else, by investing encouraging words into them.
One man who was ousted from his profession for an indiscretion took work as a hod carrier simply to put bread on the table. He was suddenly plunged into a drastically different world; instead of going to an office each day, he was hauling loads of concrete block up to the fifth level of a construction site. Gone was the piped-in music in the corridors; now he had to endure blaring transistors. Any girl who walked by was subject to rude remarks and whistles. Profanity shot through the air, especially from the foreman, whose primary tactics were whining and intimidation; "For---sake, you---, can’t you do anything right? I never worked with such a bunch of --- in all my life..."
Near the end of the third week, the new employee felt he could take no more. "I’ll work till break time this morning," he told himself, "and then that’s it. I’m going home." He’d already been the butt of more than one joke when his lack of experience caused him to do something foolish. The stories were retold constantly thereafter. "I just can’t handle any more of this." A while later, he decided to finish out the morning and then leave at lunchtime.
Shortly before noon, the foreman came around with paychecks. As he handed the man his envelope, he made his first civil comment to him in three weeks. "Hey, there’s a woman working in the front office who knows you. Says she takes care of your kids sometimes." "Who?" He named the woman, who sometimes helped in the nursery of the church where the man and his family worshiped. The foreman then went on with his rounds. When the hod carrier opened his envelope, he found, along with his check, a handwritten note from the payroll clerk: "When one part of the body of Christ suffers, we all suffer with it. Just wanted you to know that I’m praying for you these days." He stared at the note, astonished at God’s timing. He hadn’t even known the woman worked for this company.
Here at his lowest hour, she had given him the courage to go on, to push another wheelbarrow of mortar up that ramp. How many people do you know that could use a word like this one? How many of us know a friend who is maybe going through a tough time and needs to experience the love of God through you speaking some kind words to them. How many of us have people all around us that do not know God in a personal way that could be awakened by our words. The fact is that all of us have friends that could use a kind word to help them make it through one more day.
Proverbs 25:11 “Like apples of gold in settings of silver is a word spoken in right circumstances.” NASB
People are literally dying for love today, and our words can pay huge dividends when we invest them with love into someone else’s life. They can go along way in earning the right to make the invite. The second way that we can invest in others lives is,
Investing through actions
While words are powerful, actions do speak louder than words, as we all know. As Christians we are under the microscope, people are going to watch the things that we do closely to see if we are walking the walk, and not just talking the talk.
1 Peter 2:12 “Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, so that, though they malign you as evildoers, they may see your honorable deeds and glorify God when he comes to judge.” NRSV
What Peter is saying here is that live a life of love even when people are mean to you so that they will see your acts of kindness done in love which will point them to God. Any group of people who consider themselves followers of Christ, cannot overlook the importance of investing into people’s lives by actions. When someone needs a helping hand, we should be the first to lend ours, When one of our friends needs us we should be there for them, When a person is hurting we should be there to comfort them and show them the love of God. When they need a person to listen to their problems we should be there not to judge them, but to offer compassion and Godly advice.
We are to be God’s hands to lost and hurting people so that they ask themselves the source of this kindness.
Matthew 5:16 “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven." NRSV
To many times we use the excuse of I am just to busy to help people, or I am scared of what they will think of me, but the truth is, When we invest in people’s lives by our actions of love we point them to God and his love for them, we witness without saying a word.
People will remember a helping hand, or a shoulder to cry on long after our words have faded away into the past. The final way we can pour our lives into other people is by,
Investing through prayer
Prayer really does work. When we pray for someone we are asking for a divine investment to be made in that persons life. I have had many times in my life when I knew a person was going through some tough times, and that they were not saved, and I would pray for them.
Later I would go up to them and tell them that I had been praying for them that everything would work out for good, And the amazing thing is that they do not get angry or upset, but instead their faces light up and they say thank you. You see whether someone has faith or not, they know that your faith is something that is important to you, and for you to include them in it is very humbling. Your prayer for that person’s salvation through a situation is heard by God, And even more important is that should this be their time to walk into saving faith then God takes the scales from their eyes and they can see their need for him.
James 5:15 “The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven.” NRSV
Before we ever invite someone to come here we should make investments of prayer for that person. There is nothing that can make us love someone more than a prayer for them, and nothing that can impact someone more than a heart felt prayer for God to come and work in their life. Investing is risky business no doubt, but as that is what God has called the church to do, this is what God has called us to do, He has called us to invest in our friends lives with words, and actions, and prayer. When we do these we will earn the right to make the invite to come here and find out about the good news of Jesus Christ, and God’s amazing grace. But we do not earn this right by wasting or spending our lives. My challenge to you tonight is think of three people that you can invest in, in the next 2 weeks and then after hearing next weeks sermon called “This is your invitation”, invite them to come and hang out with us.
Invest your life in others and I can promise you that when you stand before God one day he will say to you, “Well done my good and faithful servant.”
Prayer Time --------------------
Lord, we come before you tonight realizing that we are here to be investing in others, and that we have not done as good as we could have. Help us as only you can to give our lives away just like you Son Jesus gave his for us. Thank you for the blessings you have given us and may we use them to invest wiser our words, actions, and prayers. Amen.
