Investing For Eternity
Matthew 25:14-30
 
In January 1997 a mystery was solved that had baffled many people across this country for a long time. It seems that money was coming in to hospitals, charities, and service groups in the form of cashier's checks in the amount of large sums of money. And nobody knew who the donor was because the giver wished to remain anonymous. 
 
As it turned out the giver was Charles Finney, a 66 year old businessman from New Jersey, who was in the duty free shop conglomerate business. He was one of the 400 richest Americans according to Forbes Magazine. By then, they discovered that Finney's wealth was only 1% of what they thought it was. How could they be so far off in their calculations? 
 
Well, they found out that Finney had been quietly been giving all of his riches away, over 4 billion dollars in anonymous gifts. Now the rich Mr. Finney was known as a shabby dresser who didn't own a car, who wore a $5 watch, and who didn't even own a house. And yet he was a wealthy man who managed to give 99% of his money away.
 
In contrast to that, we are told the richest 1% of Americans give only 2% of their annual gross income to charity and yet here is a man who gave 99% of his total assets away. Why would he do it? We don't know the answer. Maybe he had learned about God's investment program. You see God has an investment program that Jesus talks about in Matthew 25. 
 
By the time this story is told, Jesus had already delivered the Sermon on the Mount. In it, He had said, "lay not up for your selves treasures on earth where moth and rust do corrupt and thieves break through and steal but rather lay up for your selves treasures in heaven where moth nor rust can corrupt neither can thieves break through nor steal."
 
So on the negative side, He says, “Don’t be earthly minded”, but instead seek first the kingdom of Heaven. Don’t get sidetracked with the physical, earthly stuff, but instead “Lay up treasures in heaven.” Question: How do we lay up treasures in heaven?
 
He answers that question in Matthew 25 by illustrating God’s investment program with a story about Himself beginning in verse 14. 
 
TEXT (verses 14-30)
 
Now this was at the end of Jesus' ministry and indeed Jesus was about to go on a journey. He was about to go to the cross, die for our sins, rise again from the dead, and ascend back to the Father. He was about to see their faces no longer. So Jesus goes on a journey. He ascended back to the Father.
 
He gave His disciples marching orders and the bible says He called His servants and entrusted His property to them. Now Jesus has gone back to heaven but He has entrusted His property to us. Notice that it is His property not ours. You’ll remember when we looked at this story a couple of weeks ago we learned that God owns all the wealth in the earth, we are just the managers. 
 
He has all the rights; we have the responsibilities. We are just temporary managers of the resources God has entrusted into our hands.
 
Furthermore, He is using the stuff He entrusts to us to prepare us for future responsibilities. 
 
We also see the amount is not the main thing. Everyone got different amounts, But their potential to gain God’s approval is not about the amount we have, but rather our faithfulness with it. 
 
That means we’ve got to do something. Stewardship requires action. 
 
So what is it that God requires or expects? 
What are the lessons here? Now there are four of them I want to share with you:
 
First of all,
 
I. GOD EXPECTS US TO MULTIPLY
 
Everything God made He expects to multiply. When God put Adam and Eve on the earth, He said to man, multiply and replenish the earth. That is what God said to man. God made every animal to multiply. God made every plant to multiply. Everything that God made has a means of reproducing itself, over and over and over again. That is the economy of God. God is a God who expects you and I to multiply.
 
He expects us to multiply with our talents, with our time and with our treasure. God expects us to increase not through addition but through multiplication. God expects our churches to grow. He expects our Sunday School to grow.  He expects our classes to grow. He expects our work to grow. He expects our abilities to grow. He expects our influence to grow. He expects our witness to grow. He expects our faith to grow; our knowledge; our wisdom. God expects us to multiply. You were saved to multiply. And if you are not multiplying yourself, then you are not fulfilling that for which you were saved.
 
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, and temperance. But the fruit of a believer is another believer. And a believer is to multiply himself by investing in that which will reproduce believers. And so you are to invest your life in that which is going to go to heaven. 
 
When Jesus said lay up treasures in heaven, the only thing going to heaven is the souls of saved men and women, boys and girls. So if you are to lay up treasure in heaven, you must invest in that which is reaching lost men, women, boys, and girls with the gospel of Jesus Christ. 
 
We are to multiply. That is the reason for our existence. Now in order to multiply,
 
II. GOD EXPECTS US TO INVEST
 
You can put your retirement money in the backyard in a hole if you want to. If you don't believe in banks, in annuities, stocks, bonds, or any kind of financial investment, you can bury your money somewhere if you want to. But it is not going to multiply. In fact, it is going to shrink because of inflation. Inflation is going to shrink it every year. The wisest thing to do is to put it someplace where it will earn compound interest. And when it earns compound interest, then when you need it, it is going to be money that has earned that money because you have invested it.
 
Now, if you expect your eternal investment to grow then you have to invest. The only way you can multiply is to invest in the eternal kingdom of God. And the only way to do that is to lay up treasure in heaven, to invest in the souls of men. And to do that you have to get your values right.
 
I heard about a group of friends who went off deer hunting and they paired off in twos that day. They all went off in different directions. The afternoon came and it was drawing dark, time for them to come in to camp. And one of the hunters returned alone, without his partner. Instead he was carrying an 8-point buck over his shoulder. The other fellows said, where is your partner? Where is Harry? He said, oh Harry had a stroke; he is back there on the trail somewhere. They said, you mean you brought this deer in and you left Harry back there on the trail? He said, well I knew nobody was going to steal Harry!
 
He had his values a little bit mixed up. Some of us don't want to invest because we think giving is taking away from our family. We don't want to give to the church because we think whatever we give to the church takes away from our family or it takes away from our pleasure, or it takes away from our retirement, or it takes away from benefiting our selves. And you have to change your mindset. 
 
 
You have to understand that giving to God's work is not taking away; it is multiplying for your benefit by investing in eternity.
 
Now this is a revolutionary thought for a lot of God’s people. They never view their giving as investing in the future. It is short-sighted giving. It pays the preacher, and buys the literature and keeps the lights on. Therefore, when they are mad at the preacher or unhappy with the church they will quit giving because as far as they are concerned that’s where the buck stops. 
 
But when you see giving as investing you are going to have a new take on what it means to give to the kingdom of God. 
 
You are going to begin with the tithe, the 10% but you are going to want to give far beyond on the tithe as soon as you can because you are going to understand that when you give God is going to multiply what you give. He is going to multiply your investment. And you are going to be laying up treasure in heaven.
 
That is a consistent, Biblical principle. It is the Law of the Harvest. "Whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap." If a man sows wheat, he will reap wheat. If a man sows corn, he will reap corn. If he sows financial resources, what will he reap? He will reap what he sows. Not only will he reap what he sows, he will reap greater than he sows. And he will reap more than he sows. And he will reap later than he sows. 
 
 
 
Paul said the man who sows sparingly will reap sparingly, the man who sows abundantly will reap abundantly. It is just like your savings account or your investment account. Whatever is going to multiply is that which you put in. And when you see giving as an investment in the kingdom of God and understand that God is going to multiply it back to you, you are going to be more excited about giving. That is God's investment program, because God wants you to multiply. But you cannot multiply unless you invest. 
 
So Jesus said, you have to multiply. When I come back I expect you to have multiplied on the things that I have given to you. But to have multiplied you can't have put it in a hole and covered it up, you have to invest it. Therefore,  
 
III. TO FAIL TO INVEST IS A SIN
 
I didn't say it was a mistake or a tragedy, it is a sin. It is a serious offense against God to fail to invest in the kingdom. God says the man who did not invest but dug a hole and put it in the ground, the master rebuked this man. And he said, you knew you had something of value, you knew you would give an account, you knew the day would come when you would stand before me and yet still you did not invest. And he said, take this man and cast him into outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
 
Now outer darkness is an interesting picture. Many read “outer darkness” and assume the reference is to hell, but that is not always the case. The context determines the meaning. 
 
Here “outer darkness” references a place outside of close fellowship with God. On the one hand, we have those who were faithful and welcomed into the joy of the Lord with the master’s commendations, and over against that we have this one who was unfaithful, and when he sees what could have been and should have been, and what has resulted he is distraught to the point of weeping and grinding his teetht in despair. 
 
He could have been faithful; he could have been rewarded’ He could have been blessed’ But instead He chose to be short-sighted and fearful and he missed God’s blessing. 
 
Listen: giving is an act of laying away treasure. It is not an act of losing value for you or your family. This man lost because he would not give. There is a principle in the Bible. If you hoard what God has given you, you are going to lose. But if you give away what God has given you, you are going to have more. Jesus said, take from this man who hoarded what he had and give it to the man who had five talents. He took from the man who had little and gave it to the man who had much because he knew the man who had much was going to invest it for the kingdom.
 
Paul said of the Ephesian Christians in I Timothy 6:17-19, "by sharing their earthly treasures with others they are storing up for themselves the treasure of the good foundation for the future". The Bible says, "hoard your possessions and you will suffer loss; give them away and you will receive an incorruptible inheritance." Another way of saying this is, what you invest today determines your destiny tomorrow.
You can determine your destiny by what you invest. Your destiny is in your hands. After you have been saved, after you have accepted God's gift of grace, then your destiny is in your hands. The Bible says the tithe is the Lord's. He will open the windows of heaven and pour out blessings so that there will not be room enough to receive it, even just for the minimum of the tithe. Think about what God will do when you give over and above the tithe.   And He multiplies that investment.
 
But what does God say of those who don't give even  the tithe? In Malachi 3 he says, "You are cursed with a curse." Now you just think about this, say there is a big cloud of blessing over here and there is a big dark cloud of cursing over here, which cloud do you want to be under? You can put yourself under the cloud of blessing or you can put you self under the cloud of cursing. 
 
You can hoard up what God has given you for yourself and be under the curse of God. What does the curse of God mean? Well, I don't know all it means, I don't know if it means everything will break in your house and you will have to fix it with your tithe. I don't know if it means you will get sick and you will have to pay for it with your tithe. 
 
It is like Pastor Jones; one Sunday they asked him where Deacon Smith was. He said oh Deacon Smith is at the hospital having his tithe taken out! I don't know if it is like that or not. I just know that Jesus was plenty angry with the man who buried his investment, who did not invest it in the kingdom, who did not follow the principle of God. To fail to invest is a sin.
 
Here’s you final thing:
 
IV. YOU CANNOT OUT GIVE GOD
 
Jesus dealt with the rich young ruler in Mark 10 and here is what He said, after the man said, well I kept all the commandments, Jesus said, all right then sell all that you have, give it to the poor and follow Me and you will have treasures in heaven. And the Bible says the man turned from Jesus and he went away with sorrow for he had great possessions. He forsook his heavenly reward because he wanted his earthly reward.
 
Later, in regard to that, Peter said, Lord we have left all to follow you. What will we have therefore? And Jesus said this to him, "there is no man who has followed me and left houses and land and brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers for my sake and the sake of the gospel who will not receive a hundred fold in this life and eternal life and the life to come." 
 
A hundred fold in this life, not just in heaven but in this life he will receive a hundred fold on his investment. Now if you invested $20,000 over a whole lifetime, a hundredfold return would grow to two million dollars. You can't get interest like that in the bank. 
 
God says I am going to give you a hundred-fold return. That is a 10,000% return that God says He will give back. What is it worth to have Jesus say, "well done good and faithful servant?" What is it worth to have your prayers answered? What is worth to have the comfort of the Holy Spirit? What is it worth to have the peace of God in your heart? 
 
What is it worth to have the joy of the Lord in your soul and in your being? What is it worth to see your children grow up to serve God and know Him and love Him? What is it worth?   There are some people today who can tell you what it is worth.
 
There are a lot of people around this world who would say if my child would only get off drugs I would give everything I have, if I could only have my health I would give everything I have, if I only could have one night of peace I would give everything I own, but you see, money cannot buy some things that God can give and will give to those who invest in His kingdom.
 
And one of the great joys of giving to a local church is there is no organization you can give to where you know where your money goes, how it is used, and you are assured that it is used to win souls to Jesus and to grow people to being disciples of following Jesus fully and whole-heartedly than like your local church. 
 
In your local church you can know how God's money is spent I should say. And you can see the results. And you can see people saved and you can see people grow and you can see people's lives changed. And you can see young people surrender to ministry and you can see people go off to the mission field. Or if you get in the prayer room, you can see what the prayer ministry means. Or if you get sick and you are in the hospital and you need ministry, you can see what the pastoral ministry means or what a Sunday School class can mean. Because you cannot out give God.
 
       
So the Bible says, God expects us to multiply. The only way to multiply is to invest. It is a serious thing not to invest, but if you do, you cannot out give God.
 
A letter came to the post office bearing a child's signature and handwriting. It was addressed to God. A postal worker not knowing what to do opened the letter which was addressed to God and it read, Dear God my name is Jimmy. I am sick. My father is dead; my mother is having a hard time raising my sister and me.   Would you please send $500? Well the employee was touched so he just took up an impromptu offering and mailed an offering of $300 to the home. Well after a while, they got a second letter addressed to God thanking God for the money. But the boy ended with this request. He said, next time please deliver the money directly to our home; if you send it through the post office, they deduct $200!
 
Folks, you cannot out give God. And when you lay up treasures in heaven, they are going to earn at least 10,000%. And they will be waiting for you where they can never be touched. And those of you, who understand compound interest, can understand God's investment program and how it works. He blesses here but His eternal blessings are so far greater than any blessing we could ever know here. We can't imagine. You know the blessings in heaven are going to be given out, in the Bible they are called kingdoms, they are called crowns, they are called rewards. We don't know all that will involve but it involves our capacity to enjoy heaven and all of its fullness.
 
So the person who makes the least amount of money here today, can get the same reward as the person who makes millions if they will be faithful to invest what they have, the gifts and the talents that God has given them for His glory.
 
Now the first thing that you can invest is you. You can invest your life. If you have never given Jesus your heart that is what He wants first. He wants more than anything you because He died on the cross and He shed His blood on Calvary, the Bible says to redeem us from our sins, to purchase us from the bondage of sin and Satan and buy for us the gift of eternal life. And if you have never received Him as your Lord and Savior and you have never accepted His offer of forgiveness, the first thing that you need to do is invest in that plan by receiving Jesus as your personal Savior and Lord and inviting Him to come into your heart and in to your life. 
 
Let's bow in prayer.