Investments

Did you know that if an average work week for an adult human is 40 hours and the average human works only from age 20 to 65.

Which we all know is bogus. Even if you could wait till 20 to work most people are working longer and longer. Freedom 65 sound too much like a pipe dream that will never come true.

But for math sake let’s say you work 40 hours a week for 45 years that you would work for a total of anyone really good at math.

lets see 45 yeas at 52 weeks a year thats 2,340 weeks

times 40 hours a week is.....

93,600 hours of work

in that same 45 year span that same person will sleep something like 8 hours a night. to which some of you would say I wish and others would say I can’t live on that.

But for math sake That works out to

131,400 hours of sleep

plus one extra hour a week if you sleep through church.

now i know you must be wondering how many hours does that leave.

Well in 45 years there would be 394,200h

minus 225,000

169,200 remaining hours

give 65,700 hours for eating and cooking thats 4h/d

say 16,425 that 1h/d for driving

8212.5 for bathrooming that’s a .5h/d

Now over 45 years you only have 78,862.5 hours left. That is about 5.5h/d

My question today is...

How will you invest your time?

The truth is the average life span is greater than 45 years but I took this larger chunk to get a general since of time.

We all know our most precious commodity that which we spend is time.

We sell our time for money, we spend our time on entertainment. We leverage our time to influence others, but not all investments of time have the same yield do they?

I want to read you a passage from

Luke 12:13–21 NLT

Then someone called from the crowd, “Teacher, please tell my brother to divide our father’s estate with me.” Jesus replied, “Friend, who made me a judge over you to decide such things as that?” Then he said, “Beware! Guard against every kind of greed. Life is not measured by how much you own.” Then he told them a story: “A rich man had a fertile farm that produced fine crops. He said to himself, ‘What should I do? I don’t have room for all my crops.’ Then he said, ‘I know! I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones. Then I’ll have room enough to store all my wheat and other goods. And I’ll sit back and say to myself, “My friend, you have enough stored away for years to come. Now take it easy! Eat, drink, and be merry!” ’ “But God said to him, ‘You fool! You will die this very night. Then who will get everything you worked for?’ “Yes, a person is a fool to store up earthly wealth but not have a rich relationship with God.”

In this passage Jesus teaches us the dangers of greed and also that He didn’t come to settle our petty squabbles. But in this parable the most important thing Jesus taught us is about the investment that produces the largest yield.

What investment will produce the largest yield?

Before you have me arrested for insider trading remember we are talking about time investments here.

Investing into your relationship with God!

Me: When I became a pastor I was asked where I wanted my pension funds invested… It was a lot of information thrown my way and in the end I still don’t know what I did.

All I know is I was told My options were high risk investments

medium risk investments and

any guesses. Low risk.

Low risk sounds good but it also has the lowest yield.

High risk produces the highest yield but also potentially the highest losses. thus the risk.

We: Likewise In life we are given opportunities to invest our time. some are low risk like going to work. This is a steady investment and unless you have a bad job you can calculate your return on that investment.

However large the yield might be the quality of that yield is never as high as we expect it to be.

Let me explain. We live in a world that tells us money is power and the more money you have the happier you will be, but in reality the more money we make the less satisfied we seem to become.

Money in reality is a real low value commodity we make it we spend it and far too often we don’t even know on what. Before we know it, it is gone and we have very little to show for it.

So although investing our time in making money it low risk because it does produce every time, what it produces isn’t of great value.

Then there are earthly relationships. I want to say these are medium risk, but they are high risk.

What is produced by a time investment into an earthy relationship is of great value and quality, however the risk of being hurt is extraordinary. If you have ever been hurt by someone you love you know what I mean.

But what if I told you there was an investment you could make that produced the highest quality of yield with absolutely no risk of getting hurt?

Well that is the dream isn’t it?

God: In this passage we are told about just this type of investment. Jesus is addressed by a man who is overly concerned with the division of his fathers estate. One can assume the man probably did seek legal action against his brother but hoped that Jesus would use his influence to persuade his brother.

This man had made an investment of time seeking after something of little value or quality.

Jesus communicates this by telling the story of a man who made his whole life about storing up low value goods only to die and have someone else take the treasure he had stored.

It is this temporal nature of earthly stuff that makes it such low value after all.

Jesus than says in verse 21

Luke 12:21 NLT

“Yes, a person is a fool to store up earthly wealth but not have a rich relationship with God.”

And here we see the greatest investment a person could ever make.

It is an investment into their relationship with God. A relationship that is eternal with God who will never leave nor forsake you.

This is the highest quality yield because it lasts

You: Where will you invest your 5.5 hours a day. trying to make more money, watching tv, or investing into the relationships with the people around you and most importantly into your relationship with God?

We: It is our time and how we choose to spend it is up to us. Let us not squander it but let us invest it into high yield, high quality opportunities.

By that we mean relationships with friends and family and most importantly into our relationships with God.

Next Step: Invest by praying, reading your bible, going for a walk with the Lord, Going to church, and bible study, and taking communion.