Some of Tim's Sermons

Ethical investment has been quite a big thing for the Church of England. The church’s financial managers do quite a lot of work to ensure that the investments made by the church are in line with the moral and ethical values of the Bible, and occasionally are embarrassed by press reports that they’ve missed one. One fund I suspect that they would avoid is a US investment fund called the Vice Fund.

According to its prospectus, the Vice Fund favoured “products or Services often considered socially irresponsible.” These include companies linked to alcohol, tobacco, gambling, and military contracts. This fund exploits the dark side of human nature, which is a great investment during times of economic downturns. Dan Ahrens, former manager of the Vice Fund, believes that bad habits don’t change, even in bad economic times. People still indulge in vices, regardless of what happens in the stock market; they continue to smoke, drink, and gamble. Investors in vice have profited; the Vice Fund has returned positive monetary gains, it regularly our performs the benchmark Standard and Poors 500 index.

I suspect that many of us would be horrified at the thought of investing in such a fund. However, I wonder whether how good we are at making positive decisions about what we do invest in. Over the next month or so we’re going to have opportunities to do that as we think about our time and our talents, and how God is calling us to invest them.

Let’s start off by thinking about this word investment. Sometimes it is used with quite a narrow meaning. We invest some money in something, with the hope of gaining a financial return. With this meaning in mind, the focus of our thinking about our investments is the return that we receive.

The risk is that if we hold to this narrow meaning we can end up treating our relationship with God as a merely transactional relationship. We find ourselves in a place where we put our time and energy and resources into Kingdom things because we expect a return, it’s almost as we believe we are earning it with our investment. That is not the kind of relationship we can have with God.

A wider meaning focuses not on the potential returns, but on the value of the enterprise. So, for instance, we invest in our marriages, in our children, in our friendships, not because we expect something in return but because those things are intrinsically valuable and we want to see them succeed, and so we invest in them. Actually, I think that this attitude to financial investment would also make our markets healthier. If there were more people interested in investing their money, long term, in companies whose values and way of business they wanted to support and fewer speculators wanting to make money on market fluctuations then our economy would be in much better shape.

So, we invest in the Kingdom, because it is intrinsically worthwhile. If we happen to receive a return, that is great, but actually we do it because we want to see God’s Kingdom break through, because we are grateful for all the good that we have received as citizens of that Kingdom, and we want others to share in the blessing.

The reading we had from Malachi reinforces this understanding of investing in the Kingdom. First of all, we read that the people of God are robbing God. They are ungrateful, and not recognising the King of the Kingdom, are not recognising the value of the rule and reign of God, and so are not investing in it. Secondly, because they are not investing in the Kingdom, the poor are going hungry – there is no food in God’s house. The values of the Kingdom are not being lived out in the lives of the people of God. Thirdly, if the people change and begin to bring in the tithe then there will be blessing for the people and the land.

So, if this were an investment advert it would go something like this. You should invest because the CEO has already done so much for you, you owe your loyalty and commitment. You should invest because your lack of investment means that the brilliant things this company was founded to do are not being done because of lack of investment. Lastly, you should invest because you will find that there will be a great return.

But what about the parable of the bags of gold? Does that fit with this idea? I think it does. You see the servants who had been entrusted with the money did not invest it for themselves. They invested it for their master. There is no suggestion that they expected anything for themselves. All three knew their master, they knew their master’s values, and they knew that he would expect the money back. One of them was so paralysed by fear that he buried the money, rather than invest it, but he knew that the money wasn’t his.

When the master returned, the two who had put the money to work gave it back to their master, along with the returns. They didn’t invest in hope of a return for themselves, but because they knew they were only stewards and that their master would demand an accounting for their stewardship on his return. Now, it so happened that they did receive a reward themselves, not directly from the investments that they made, but from the generosity of their master. On the other hand, there were painful consequences for the servant who did not put the resources he had been given to work.

Just as a slight detour, I wonder if you’ve ever noticed that there is someone missing from this parable. We have the servants who put the money to work and are successful in their endeavours and the one who didn’t put the money to work. But what about the servant who did put the money to work and lost it all in a stock market crash? I wonder if that servant doesn’t appear because in God’s economy it isn’t a possible outcome.

My guess is that most of us have parts of our lives that we look back on and are disappointed by. People and ministries that we invested in, good Kingdom stuff that we believe God called us into, but which just didn’t work. Projects we thought would be fruitful that withered on the vine. It is my conviction that nothing invested in the Kingdom is ever wasted. We might not be able to see the outcome or the fruitfulness now, but I do believe that God works all things for the good of those who love God. God is looking for those who are willing to invest, to take the risk, to try stuff, and to trust God for the outcome, which in eternity will become completely apparent. Failure in the Kingdom is not failure of outcome, but failure to begin.

Anyway, back to the main track. We invest in the Kingdom because of our regard for the King, our Lord and Saviour, Jesus. We invest because we’ve experienced the values and value of the Kingdom, and want to see others drawn into it. And we invest in the Kingdom, because God promises to bless that obedience. Which is all fine in theory, but what does it actually mean? What does it mean to invest in the Kingdom here in Wellington in 2017?

We believe that we are called to be closer to Christ and sent to be closer to others.

Called to closer to Christ means investing in our relationship with Jesus. This can mean a lot of different things. It may be choosing to spend time and energy in regular, frequent time with God in prayer and Bible reading. It might be about making home group a priority so that we can be encouraged and encourage others in developing our relationship with God. It might mean taking a part in one of the many ministries that come together to make our times together with God happen. The question we ask ourselves, as individuals and as a church is, “What am I investing in getting closer to Jesus”

Sent to be closer to others means investing in our relationships with other people. These might be friends, family, work colleagues, people at school or college. It might be people you get on with or people you struggle with. It might be people like you or it might be people completely different to you. It will often be people at the edge of society, because that is where Jesus spent much of his time on earth. It will mean investing time and energy in being with people, serving people, loving people, praying for people, and inviting them to meet Jesus. Again, the question is, “What am I investing in getting closer to others.”

To help us think and pray through some of these things, I’ve put together a booklet to go alongside this month’s sermon series. I’d like to encourage you to read and pray through it over the coming month, perhaps with a friend or partner. You might want to give a home group session to reflecting on it together. It covers five areas of life: family, work, church, community, and money. In each area we are invited us to consider how and what we’re already investing and what changes God might be calling us to make.

Normally advice about financial investments has to include the warning that markets can go up and down and that your capital may be at risk. Investing in the kingdom of God is not like that. Yes, in the short term it can feel like some things that we invest in don’t work out as we hoped, or we can lose money and energy and time. But, that’s OK because it is not the primary reason we invest in the Kingdom. We invest in the Kingdom because we love the King, because we want to be obedient and because we believe the Kingdom is worth investing in. Because of God’s grace, in the long term, everything that we invest in the Kingdom will turn out to be fruitful. Test me in this, says the Lord, bring the whole tithe into the storehouse and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.