I shall see him.
He's boring.
Good morning, everybody, and welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church.
I put two together.
It's great to see everybody here this morning.
If we can go ahead and find our seats, we will get started.
Once we've all found a seat, let's grab a hymnal.
And this morning, we'll be singing for our first song,
song number 84.
Song number 84
Song number 84 Jesus is coming again song number
Great singing everybody. Let's open up the service now with a word of prayer.
Lord we love you and we just want to thank you again for this awesome church.
Thank you for an awesome Sunday morning to come and gather and sing unto you.
We just ask now that you fill this room with your spirit and bless this church and everything
that it does and it's in Jesus' name we pray amen. All right for our next song let's go to song number
He hideeth my soul song number 102
So I'll sing that out together
Good morning, thank you so much for coming to St.Fast Baptist Church.
If you hadn't already got a bulletin and you would like one, you can lift up your hand nice and high.
And on the front we have our Bible memory passage, Jude 18 is working through the week.
On, on the inside is our service and soul winning times. Also church stats down below.
We have several ladies who are expecting, if you'd please be in prayer for them.
Down below that we have an announcement for the wedding of Rashid Jones and Linda.
And it's going to be August 23rd at 3pm. The address is listed there below.
If you're planning on visiting or coming to the wedding,
There is an RSVP on their website,
and we had listed the website URL there.
So if you'd like to attend,
and they wanted to invite people
to come out to their wedding.
Down below that, FBBF conference that we're going to be having, we're going to try and set up a little bit of a welcome center in our fellowship area.
So everyone that attends, we're going to just try to guide them into that area and give them, they'll have our goodies and we'll have our t-shirts and just a way to kind of check in and get a registry of like all the people that are attending.
And so if you'd just like to help out
and just be part of the welcome crew,
Sea Brother, Tana Fur, we'd still like to have
some extra volunteers just help do that.
Just to say hi, pass out some goodies,
help them get their shirts,
and it's gonna be just kind of right before services,
starting maybe around 5, 5.30 and then till about 6.15
until the services get started.
We're really looking forward to our conference and to our event, just to help us with some
of the things that we're planning.
We're planning on doing valet service for the conference and just to get used to it
a tad.
Next Sunday morning, we're offering it.
So if you'd like to try it out or see how it goes, park at your own risk.
But hey, we're going to just try it out.
And if you want to give us opportunity, we'll try to help you with that.
We have the Mexico missions trip September 8th through the 12th, and that's going to be a Mexico city past
Our brother Diego is going to be helping us down there
Tyler, Texas soul winning marathon September 27th
soul winning seminar is going to be at the church October 4th brother Marcel is going to be helping us with some
instructions on how to improve your soul-winning, make it a little more efficient, especially,
you know, this is a great opportunity to sharpen up right before our Bahamas missions trip. And so
If you've never been to the Bahamas, if you've never been out to a foreign country and you're
planning on going to the Bahamas, I'd really encourage you to participate at least in this
particular event. Brother Marcel has gone to the Bahamas. He's also gone to other places,
some of our cruise missions trips. And one of the visions that we're doing is,
And it's just different crews, missions, trips, or missions, trips that our church has specifically organized and done.
I know members of our church have done other missions, trips, and visited other countries with other churches,
and we didn't have that, but just kind of like the ones we've been to, Mexico, Philippines, Bahamas.
I believe it's St. Thomas is one of those, and then it's an Antigua is the other one. Yeah, so...
That's what we have so far.
We were looking at maybe getting a Fiji map because we've been there.
And I'm not map, but a flag, I apologize.
And so we're looking for evangelists to Israel, so we can put one up there.
And I was thinking about Jacob, I don't know if, if, I'm just kidding.
I mean, Jacob Israel, I mean, it's a really good connection, so.
Yeah, someone might rip that down and spit on it too, I don't know, but you never know.
It's spicy around here, but yeah, we're just putting up flags, and it's not to promote
one country over the other, it's just to emphasize, hey, we're trying to reach the world with
the gospel and trying to remind ourselves of some of the works that we're doing.
So that's just something that we were decorating with and hopefully we'll keep adding to that
Mission strip to the Bahamas is going to be October 6th through the 11th if you are planning on attending
I'm just kind of curious and I don't know if I asked already, but is there anybody that's
Like serious and really wants to try to attend that is not already emailed us their itineraries
They're like anybody that's pretty serious and
Okay, so just
Just to get an idea of who's going to be participating,
we have a contact in the Bahamas,
and we are trying to organize doing some schools
visitations Tuesday through Friday.
And so hopefully in the mornings of that week,
we should have opportunities to go and preach
in some of the schools.
Even if you're not able to participate,
please just pray that our trip will be successful,
that we'll be safe, that.
Be able to maximize our opportunities while we're down there last time we went we had
I know I think about 60 people that had come out to participate with us about 60 soul winners and
It was a really successful trip. We had a lot of not only was a success
We had a lot of fun and so hopefully you can just pray that things will
Be very similar to the last trip and we can get a lot of people saved again and and do some great works down there
On the back is our prayer list and just another update. It's not in our bulletin specifically, but
This last few days we had the mighty men's retreat and it was a lot of fun
We really enjoyed it pastor Enrique Reyes came out and preached for us
And he showed us that he's a pretty mighty man because during our competition phase
He he had fallen and he broke his clavicle
But then he still preached that same day and so he really stuck in there with us, but just pray for him that
I think he might even have to have surgery, but just pray that he would have a successful
surgery and that he would heal and that his church would continue to thrive in this time
while he might have to make that transition.
And so just pray for him.
He's actually having some guest preachers Pastor Steven Anderson is actually preaching for their church this Friday
So in Spree Crest Baptist Church in Houston, Texas
Pastor Steven Anderson is preaching Friday night at 7 p.m.
And then the following week he'll be preaching for us for the FBBF conference on Saturday night August 30th at 5 p.m.
And so he's going to be here along with all of our other guests that we're going to have preaching for us
Pastor Bruce Mejia would have loved to have him come out for the FBBF conference, but
His wife is expecting during this time and so it just wasn't a good
Mesh for a schedule, but he's gonna plan on coming out October for us
And we're gonna have a great opportunity to fellowship with him and hang out with him
and he's really looking forward to coming out here and
He's got a big fan base here. I told him I said there's lots of people that always come up to me and
Are always asking like hey his past from he are gonna come preach for us and I told him that he's like are you just flattering me?
And I said, no, I said, you know, people really, you know.
They like the ghetto people in LA and so no, I'm just kidding. I said, no
They really like Pastor Mejia and they we really enjoy their church and their fellowship and he has a great church
his church has actually been growing a lot too they've been knocking down walls and expanding and
They've been having a lot of success and thriving out there in the Orange County area of California
So if you ever out that area
Fellowship with Pastor Mejia and his family. They're a great family as well. So
One other thing though I was going to mention, the Mighty Men's Conference, we have a competition
every year, and I wanted to give out some prizes for that.
So this year, in third place, we had Jameson Underwood, and he did a really good job.
Come on down.
Get him a gift card.
In second place this year, we had Brandon DeHass.
And we have a two-time champion.
He won it the second time, and it was Brother Sonny.
He came in first this year.
Sonny's a legit athlete, so he's really well-rounded and he did a really good job
And so our competition is pretty fierce and we had a lot of fun this year really enjoyed it
I don't know exactly what we're gonna do next year, but we will have a mighty men's event again
We may do it here. We may do it there. I'm not sure, but we'll try to
Accommodate I know this year with a schedule is really tight with our conference and stuff
So some people weren't able to attend both
And so hopefully maybe next year we can plan it a little bit more spread out and have a little bit better participation.
But really looking forward to that. Thanks to all the guys who came to the Mighty Men's Conference.
I put the sermons out there if you want to listen to them.
But thanks for everybody participating in that.
We'll go ahead and go to our third song. It's Psalm 146. It's our Psalm of the Week.
It's in our special Psalm Hymns and Binders.
I just thought of one more announcement.
OK.
Just to help with our welcome center for the conference.
This upcoming Wednesday night if you come to church on Wednesday night
We're gonna pass out the shirts and everything like that to those who show up for the Wednesday night service
So you get the you get the early bird special
So if you want to you want to get the shirt a week early you can come this Wednesday and we'll register you for the conference
So I just wanted to put that back out there
But that was just the other announcement. I thought of it's not in the bulletin. I almost always forget. So there you go
So I'm 146
All right, Psalm 146, let's all sing it out.
Psalm 146.
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, oh my soul.
While I live, will I praise the Lord.
I will sing praises unto my God.
While I have any being, could nod your trust in praise.
The Son of Man
Praise to the Lord.
the offering plates are being passed out. Go ahead and open your Bibles to Proverbs
chapter 11. That's the book of Proverbs chapter 9.
11 the Bible reads, A false balance is abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight.
When pride cometh, then cometh shame, but with the lowliest wisdom. The integrity of the upright
shall guide them, but the perverseness of transgressors shall destroy them.
Rich is profit not in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivereth from death.
The righteousness of the perfect shall direct his way, but the wicked shall fall by his own wickedness.
The righteousness of the upright shall deliver them, but transgressors shall be taken in their own naughtiness.
When a wicked man dyeth, his expectations shall perish, and the hope of unjust men perisheth.
The righteous is delivered out of trouble, and the wicked cometh in his stead.
and hypocrite with his mouth destroyeth his neighbor,
but through knowledge shall the just be delivered.
When it goeth well with the righteous, the city rejoiceth,
and when the wicked perish, there is shouting.
By the blessing of the upright, the city is exalted,
but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked.
He that is void of wisdom despiseseth his neighbor,
but a man of understanding holdeth his peace.
A talebearer revealeth secrets, but he that is of a faithful spirit can seal it the matter.
Where no counsel is, the people fall.
But in the multitude of counselors there is safety.
He that is surety for a stranger shall smart for it, and he that hath suretship is sure.
A gracious woman retaineth honor, and strong men retain riches.
The merciful man doeth good to his own soul, but he that is cruel troubleeth his own flesh.
The wicked worketh a deceitful work, but to him that soeth righteousness shall be a sure
reward.
As righteousness tended to life, so he that pursueth evil pursueth it to his own death.
They that are of a fro-ward heart are abomination to the Lord, but such as are upright in their way are his delight.
Though hand joined in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished, but the seed of the righteous shall be delivered.
As a jewel of gold and a swine's snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion.
The desire of the righteous is only good, but the expectation of the wicked is wrath.
There is that scattereth, and yet increaseeth, and there is that withholdeth more than is
meat, but it tended to poverty.
The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth shall be watered also himself.
He that with holdeth corn the people shall curse him, but blessing shall be upon the
head of him that selleth it.
He that diligently seeketh good procureth favor, but he that seeketh mischief it shall
come unto him."
He that trusteth in his riches shall fall, but the righteous shall flourish as a branch.
He that troubleeth his own house shall inherit the wind, and the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart.
The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life,
and he that winneth souls is wise.
Behold, the righteous shall be recompensed in the earth,
much more the wicked in the sinner.
Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer.
Father in heaven, we thank you for this day and for our church.
I pray that you give Pastor Shelley the fullness and power
of the Holy Spirit now as he preaches his sermon to us.
And I pray that you bless all aspects of it,
help us to pay attention and apply it to our lives
so that we can serve you better.
We love you, and in Jesus' name I pray.
And then, I want to look back at verse 16,
the Bible says a gracious woman will retain
with honor and strong men retain riches.
The Bible brings up this idea of retaining riches.
And what I wanted to talk about this morning
is just ways to make money or how to make money.
And it's just a really practical sermon.
The Bible brings up
money and riches and poverty and all these different concepts and
lots of different mentions of the Bible, lots of different concepts, lots of
different angles.
The Bible makes it abundantly clear that the main goal of our life is not to
make money. That is not what we're supposed to pursue is the main
goal of our life, that we're not supposed to love money,
that we're not supposed to desire becoming rich, but at the same time the
Bible also positively talks about
how to make money and that it's necessary to make money. The Bible says
a man provide not for his own and especially those of his own household, he had denied the faith
and is worse than an infidel. And so there's a little bit of a tug of war when it comes to
laboring. The Bible says labor not to be rich and there's a lot of warnings against
the idea of striving for riches.
But then the Bible also describes that if you serve God and you work really hard that he can build wealth and you can build a
You know reasonable amount of income and so I want to just talk about what the Bible says about how to make money and
There's not always good ways to make money
But I just want to talk about the ways to make money or how to make money according to the Bible
And we're supposed to be good stewards
This is a principle taught in the Bible often as we should be good stewards of what God has given us and every dollar that we earn
All the money that we make,
I believe we should try to use that in a wise way.
We should be good stewards of what we've been given.
What is the principle here is that you would retain
the money that has been given unto you.
If God gives you money, then you're gonna use it wisely.
Look at chapter 13, verse 22.
Chapter 13, verse 22.
Now, this morning's sermon,
I'm not really gonna focus on
the dangers of money, the dangers of the love of riches,
or any of that stuff,
I really just want to explain how to make money.
This evening sermon, I'm going to probably go into more
just talking about the dangers of the love of money
or trusting in your riches, how that's wrong.
I want to talk about just how you like lose money
and just people that are wasteful with money.
But really, I just want to kind of just focus this morning
on just how do you just make money?
What does that look like?
And I wish these were lessons that I learned
when I was 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21.
I mean, there's just a lot of things
that I wish I had learned when I was younger.
And there's a lot of biblical principles
that are important for young men, single men,
and even those of us in our careers
to understand just how money works.
And some of what I'm gonna teach
is also a little bit specific to the American economy,
to a capitalistic type of society.
But, you know, we live there.
We live in Texas.
We live in America.
So again, I'm going to talk about that.
But a lot of these principles are just general principles.
Now, the Bible says in Proverbs 13 verse 22,
a good man leaveeth an inheritance to his children's children.
And the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just.
So even if you make a bunch of money, if you're wicked.
God's basically saying, well, he'll just take all that money you laid up and just give it to someone else.
And if you're a good man, if you're a righteous man and you lay up a lot of wealth,
then it can go not only to your children, but even to their children.
So obviously being righteous and being godly is the most important thing.
We need to be godly, we need to be righteous and we need to be right with the Lord.
But notice, if you're right with the Lord, what wealth you have can be transferred down
onto your children and your children's children.
And notice what the Bible says, a good man.
It's not saying this is a bad guy, it's not saying this guy was carnal or an unrighteous
person.
It says this is a good person.
A good person would leave an inheritance unto his children and not only his children,
a sizable amount of inheritance to be passed down.
Whereas the wicked, you know, they just hand it to Hunter Biden
and he blows it all on crack and horrors and whatever.
And so, you know, it just laid up for the just
and somehow it'll be funneled to good people eventually.
So you never know how God is going to work things,
but I want to go to a couple more verses
before I start the sermon.
Go to 1 Samuel 2, go to 1 Samuel 2.
Let's get some guiding principles in the Bible and then we're going to talk about how to make money and I have five points of
how to make money
First Samuel chapter number two. I want to look at verse number seven and
We have the first, you know, I want to first lay a couple caveats to all of this understanding
Number one is that our main goal in life is not to make money
Number two is that even if you make a lot of money and you're wicked,
God's not going to bless you and it's just going to be given unto people that God wants the money to funnel to eventually.
Number three, we have to realize that whether you make money or not,
it's really God's decision whether you're going to actually make money or not.
So that's why it's so important to still be righteous and godly and focus on that.
Bible says in 1 Samuel chapter 2 verse 7,
the Lord maketh poor and maketh rich,
he bringeth low and lifteth up.
So I'm going to teach you several principles this morning on how to make money,
but at the end of the day, if God doesn't want you to make money, you won't.
And if you're not even necessarily employing the principles I bring up very well,
and God just wants you to have money, He'll somehow make it happen.
So, there's always exceptions.
There's always things that are going to not necessarily fall into an exact pattern.
But the Bible brings up principles on how to make money,
and that's also God blessing you and giving you the wealth
by following His principles and by following His system.
Go to first Chronicles chapter 29, go to first Chronicles chapter 29, but you can see Joseph
Hey, he's thrown into prison and he has no money to his name and then just overnight God elevates him to be the second in the land and he has great money.
We see Job has tons and tons of money and just overnight he loses everything.
And then towards the end of his captivity when he's finally delivered from his sickness and illness he ends up getting a bunch of wealth back again.
So the Lord just made Job wealthy over time then he took it all away virtually overnight.
and then he gave it all the way back to him again later in the future.
We see Abraham pretty much leaves with nothing, doesn't have much goods to his name,
but over time God adds into his wealth, gives him great riches, and he has a lot of money.
Lot also is sharing in the wealth of Abraham, but travels unto Sodom,
and then when he has to leave, he's destitute, lives in a cave with his two daughters.
And so, you know, God can cause you to have riches or wealth and to take it away,
at his desire. The Apostle Paul talked about how he at points in his life
had abundance and then later had want. So you can ebb and flow
between these things. It's all up to God. But at the end of the day
if God wants me to work hard and be diligent
Then I need to do that and if he adds wealth to me because I do that then blessed be the Lord
If he takes it away blessed be the name of the Lord Lord give it the Lord take it away
But at the end of the day being right with God is the most important point. Okay first Chronicles 29 look at verse 10
Wherefore, David blessed the Lord before all the congregation, and David said,
Blessed be thou, Lord God of Israel, our Father, for ever and ever.
Thine, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty
for all that is in the heaven and the earth is thine. Thine is the kingdom, O Lord,
and thou art exalted as head above all. Both riches and honor come of thee.
So notice, where does riches and honor come from? It comes from God. And of course,
the youngest of his family ends up becoming the king of Israel and having great riches,
and God is the one that gave that to him. David did not pursue wealth,
David did not pursue riches, David pursued serving God and fighting the Lord's battles,
and then the Lord added unto David as he saw fit.
But we should not necessarily pursue riches or wealth.
We should just pursue to be hard workers and serving God righteously and faithfully,
and then God will add unto us what He deems necessary.
But many people that strive to be rich, strive to make money,
they end up taking shortcuts, becoming wicked, ungodly, and forsaking God in that path,
and it ends up...
running their lives, turning into a disaster.
So it's often, the Bible is not warning about being rich,
it's warning about the pursuit of becoming rich.
And you can have a lot of people that are poor,
that are pursuing riches, and they're not right with God.
Because at the end of the day,
it's not really about the money you have,
it's about where your heart is,
and where your desires are,
and what your motivations are in life.
But one of the motivations we should have in life
is to simply work hard.
Go to Proverbs chapter 22 now, so I'm going to give you the first way to make money.
What is the, and the order of these that I'm going to give you, I believe are the best
ways to make money or the ways to make the most money.
What is the best way to make money, the easiest way to make money, the way to make the most
money?
And you may not like this answer, but this is the reality of how the world works and
to have money and that's a sad reality but that's just how it works. The number
one way to make money is to simply have money. Now Proverbs 22 verse 7 says
this, the rich rule over the poor and the borrower is servant to the lender.
At the end of the day, the guy lending the money is going to be in charge and the guy borrowing the money is going to be kind of his servant, is going to be subject unto the guy.
Now, most people that are making money in this world today, most wealth is coming from people that just already have money and they're just putting their money out either for interest or an investment or...
It's really just investment, but that investment can look like a couple of different things.
It could be like real estate, the stock market, but ultimately he's using his money and putting
it into something.
And at the end of the day, because of a capitalistic society that we live in,
because of fiat currency, and because of inflation, because they print money,
really the worst thing you can do with cash or with money is nothing.
That's the worst thing you can do.
You pretty much want to transfer actual cash into something else
to protect your money.
That's how strong men retain riches,
is they move their money and they invest it into something.
And the Bible brings up investments.
I've preached sermons on this before and I preach a little sermon about like the two best investments.
This is a sermon I preached a long time ago, okay?
And the two greatest investments were real estate and gold.
Now, I would say because of America and the way the system works,
You know, the stock market is also going to be a reasonable way to make money.
But the problem with the stock market is it doesn't really make money, this is just my
opinion of how it works, but it doesn't really make money because of the stock market doing
anything special or actually generating revenue.
It's just simply inflation itself causes the stock market to rise in value year after year.
You're constantly getting destroyed through inflation.
You're constantly, your money's constantly having a hole in it and it's leaking out every
single year due to inflation specifically.
So while the stock market and investing in companies isn't necessarily going to generate
revenue in and of itself, it's just you're protecting your money from moth and rust and
decay of inflation specifically.
Now, obviously, you could invest, if you're just going to invest in a specific company,
like one particular company, well, then your risk and reward is going to be a lot higher.
Most people, they're just investing their money in a general mutual fund or the stock
market at large, and that's really just to protect you from inflation.
But I want to look at Matthew chapter 25, and I want to look at a parable here.
kind of the end of the parable says thou oughtst therefore to have put my money to the exchangers and
Then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury now the word usury is just a word for interest
Okay?
Interest is something that the Bible forbids and prohibits in the Old Testament law
that the nation of Israel was not to charge interest to each other.
There was only an exception that they could charge interest to
foreigners or strangers or to another nation or something like this.
So ideally we would live in a society
where interest doesn't exist and where we're not borrowing money from our neighbor and borrowing money from companies.
But we don't.
So, unfortunately, that's the system that we're in.
We're not in a system that's like that.
We're in a system where interest is a reality.
And so, I believe when you look at this parable,
you have to look at this parable through the lens of,
just sometimes, reality,
not necessarily ideal situations.
He's saying in this parable,
hey, I'm gonna give you a few talents.
This guy, a few talents.
And instead of going out and working
and investing that money in yourself
and in your own trading capabilities and your own business,
you could have at least just given it to the bank
and the bank would have at least...
use that money for something and you would've gotten a little bit of usury,
a little bit of interest, a little bit of return on your particular
money. And at the end of the day, while you're not technically going to be making
money on interest
when it comes to investing in like a stock market or something like that.
It's the same principle, and compounding returns make a world of difference over time.
It's just a very interesting mathematical equation.
But I kind of just wanted to print out a few scenarios on a board for you to kind of understand
what I'm talking about here.
You know, I would say this, if your company offers you some kind of a matching program
for a 401K, you should for sure 100% take that option.
You should exercise that option because it's just free money that you're getting.
But let alone by investing in a 401K or some kind of a stock market option, by putting
money into this, you're going to get a return on investment because of inflation specifically.
And just to give you some just sample numbers, okay?
And I wrote a couple different scenarios, these are really basic scenarios.
We're going to talk about a rate of return or return on investment.
So we're learning a little bit economics return on investment
But this is the principle that Jesus Christ just explained and is parable that you put the money to the bankers
And then you return usury. That's what you call a return on investment
Just means the amount of money you got back on top of what you actually gave them
Okay, five percent would mean that whatever money you give them you're getting five percent back as a return investment
It's typically understood as an annual basis what you would receive in a 12-month period
for the money you gave. So you give a thousand dollars, how much money would you get back
at a 5% return on investment? $50. Yep, exactly. So let's just say you had a 5% return on investment
for 30 years, okay? We're just looking at this from a 30-year perspective and you put
So let's just say you put in $500 a month for 30 years at a 5% return on investment,
then at that 30 years you would have $398,000.
Now the amount of money that you would have contributed though to that particular fund
would be $180,000.
So if you think about it, over that 30 years you're more than doubling the money that you
And, you literally are doing nothing.
All you're doing is just putting the money into, let's say, a mutual fund or a big stock
traded investment.
Now, again, some people just invest in a specific company, but that's going to wildly change
your risk-reward scenario.
For the most part, when you just invest in just a mutual fund that has 500 companies
or the biggest companies and whatever, you're pretty much just protecting against inflation
and this is what kind of numbers you'd have.
If you did it for 40 years, so the exact same thing, you just wait 10 years longer or you
Whereas you put in 240
So again, this is a this isn't triple
But it's almost triple what you had put in just because you did it for 10 years longer.
So if at 20 years old you started putting away $500 a month and some kind of a 401k,
you do literally nothing else, then just through the power of inflation, you would have this
kind of revenue at the end of that year.
Let's say it was a 10% return on investment, which honestly, a lot of stocks, stock market
funds and mutual funds and stuff like that have had these kind of numbers at 30 years.
So you're doing nothing different.
You're just putting 500 in, but you put in a mutual fund and just happened to have an
average of 10% for that 30 years.
Well, then you would have basically, and it's a little bit less than this, you'd have $1
million.
And I'm gonna put this number over here
so it's a little bit more organized, sorry.
You would have one million.
If you did it for 40 years,
I'm just writing weird numbers here, I'm sorry.
40 years, you would have 2.65 million.
And again, you're doing nothing
but just putting the money away.
You're not touching it, you're not thinking about it.
You're literally just living your life.
You're just moving it over.
And some companies literally,
You might have a 3% or 6% matching program that means you can put up to 3% or 6% of your
money that you make into an account and they'll literally match it.
So they'll match your 3% or 6%.
So you could potentially be putting in $250 yourself and your company's putting another
$250 in and so you're really not even putting in $180, you put in $90,000.
But here's the thing, if I just handed you $90,000 today, you're going to have a hard
time making $400,000 real easy on that.
But this is, I would argue, just kind of easy money.
But again, this is how most rich people are making tons of money, is they already have
a lot of money, and they're just putting it in some kind of investment, and that investment
is just simply making money because of inflation.
What is inflation?
Again, simple principle, it's the government just prints more money.
The government just basically prints more money.
And then as a result, the amount of money in our system
is larger, so the value of the money goes down a little bit.
As a result of the money going down a little bit,
the price of goods costs a little bit more.
You see this all the time, right?
Tacos cost a little bit more.
Gas costs a little bit more.
Milk costs a little bit more.
Why did that happen?
Because they printed more money,
they injected more money into our currency.
Now look, there's other things that affect prices
and we're gonna talk about that.
But just generally speaking, the reason why they keep going up over time,
the reason why your dad says, hey, my day, a hamburger was a nickel.
Literally, you're like, it was a nickel?
And it's just like, how is that even possible?
It's because of inflation.
Now, again, what if you just took your money and you just put it in a can
and buried it in the yard or you put it under the mattress?
People would do these kind of things.
The problem is that you're not going to gain anything from the inflation.
And the amount of money that you would be saving is usually a percentage of your income.
If we go back 30 years or 40 years, the salaries back then were way lower and so the percentage
of the money that you'd be saving was a lot less.
If you're saving 3% of an average salary in the 80s, you might only be putting away maybe
$1,000 a year or something like that.
Well, if you're just putting $1,000 a year in a can somewhere, and there's no ROI, there's
no, you know, protection for inflation, and you've done that for 30 years, that's only
$30,000.
Yeah.
$30,000 today is not going to get you that far, unfortunately.
So again, what I'm trying to explain, and the way our economy kind of works, is it's
almost like it's a train.
the economy is the train and the train is slowly moving away from you it's
really hard to get on the train the longer you stand there because it's
getting further and further away
And so the longer you have no money in any kind of investment, any kind of real estate
or the stock market or anything, it's just making it that much harder to catch up to
that train.
And all of your money and all the stuff that you have is just getting lower and lower in
value.
And so it's just kind of a nasty game, but that's how the world works.
I'm not necessarily explaining to you what's ideal.
I'm explaining to you how the world works.
If you have money in a jar, if you have money in a safe deposit box, it's slowly devaluing
itself as far as what you could, it's purchasing power.
A slightly better investment is again something that is going to protect you against inflation,
okay?
Let's use this same example though, and let's say you put $1,000 in, okay?
So we're just doing the exact same scenario, the only thing we're going to change in this
You are going to invest $1,000 per month, OK?
If you put in $1,000 a month for the 30 years,
at the end of the 30 years, you would have $797,000.
And I'm just going to say five.
I'm rounding up on that one, 1.5 million.
And the, I put this on the wrong line, my bad.
If you put it on the 10%, you'd have 1.9 million
and you'd have 5.3.
So, why do older people have a lot of money?
It's because they were just diligent and took away $1,000 a month for 40 years, and then
now they're sitting on $5.3 million in their stock fund or their mutual fund or whatever.
And again, some people, these numbers are way bigger, way more giant.
You know, this is just, this is like, we're talking about people that are starting from
Have nothing, okay? Some people are already starting with a lot of money and then doing this, okay?
But it's like why do rich people keep getting richer? Why do people make a lot of money?
It's because they're doing these kind of things most
Education systems of the past, especially when I was in school,
would teach you principles like this.
There was literal classes that would teach you how to balance a checkbook.
They would teach you about pensions.
They would teach you about 401K, all this stuff.
I don't feel like the modern education system,
and I don't feel like modern culture is teaching any of these principles
or anything looking down the future or the long term.
And yet the Bible brings up some of these principles.
What's better, keeping your money and burying it in the ground like the guy did in the parable?
or at least putting it somewhere where it's getting some kind of an interest, some kind
of return.
Look, the power of compounding interest is insane.
And so mathematically, again, putting $1,000, if we just think about it, you put $1,000 away
every month, that's $12,000 a year, times 40 years, you would only have contributed $480,000.
That's why people have a lot of money is because they're doing these kind of things. Okay. Now you don't have to only this is a stock market example
Stock market is not necessarily the best investment
You could do the same thing with gold people that just if you just took that thousand dollars and just bought literal gold bars every single month
It would be probably the same numbers or slightly even higher because lots of times gold has a higher return of investment
Not always it just depends again
The only thing that matters is what is the ROI and it's not like gold's doing something special. It's just that's how inflation works
Another thing you could do is again real estate if you took your money and you bought property
You're gonna have the exact same kind of numbers the exact same kind of situation again
Not because the real estate is doing anything special
It's just simply because the price is gonna keep going up because they keep printing money and the value properties keep going up
You know even in Dallas, Fort Worth area
We've seen just skyrocketing real estate prices.
Now that can be for multiple, multiple situations and real estate prices are going to go up
and down in the short term too, but just over a long period of time, if you don't have your
money in some kind of a real estate or some kind of investment or something, it's just,
it's not going anywhere.
And so some people say like, why am I poor and why do I continue to be poor?
Because you're not taking any money and you're not investing it in something that's going
You're either spending all of your money or you're not investing it in something that
actually goes up in value.
And I'm not spending time this morning to talk about all the negatives, but buying a motorcycle,
buying an RV, buying a timeshare, buying something that's a depreciatable asset or going to go
down in value, that's why a lot of people don't have money is because they're buying
things like that, they're not buying things that go up in value.
You're kind of at a disadvantage than a homeowner from an inflationary perspective.
Over the long period of time, you are not gaining anything from renting and your rent
will keep going up, whereas by being a homeowner, you will be protected from inflation.
Now, again, as a homeowner, you're still going to have potential dangers of taxes are going
to go up, you could have repairs, it just depends.
When it comes to a rent versus own, typically it's about timing.
If you're going to live somewhere for less than two years,
oftentimes renting is more advantageous.
But if you're going to be somewhere for more than two years,
typically owning is more advantageous.
And just in general, you've got to live somewhere.
Right and most people's wealth is tied into their house or into the real estate. They there is their primary residence
Just because that's one way to have a little bit of an investment moving forward
Okay, when the Bible talks about the evil Pharisees devouring widows houses
It's probably because most of their wealth is in their house
And one of the modern examples of this is reverse mortgages, which I think is extremely evil and I can preach all sermon on that but
Another thing that rich people do is they simply just invest into a business
themselves.
And this is what you'll see really popular shows right now like Shark Tank.
Who's ever heard of Shark Tank or these kinds of...
There's these TV shows where rich people, they just let someone come present their
business to them.
And then when they present their business,
they're trying to buy a percentage
of their particular business.
They're gonna invest money in that particular business.
And they're looking at it
from a return on investment perspective.
Now, because it's a business,
it's gonna have a lot higher return on investment typically
that they're trying to strive for,
but it's also a lot more risk, okay?
By just putting your money in some mutual fund,
it's relatively safe, generally speaking.
you always have a lot more risk of it going up and down.
You could actually go even negative.
So we're talking about wise investments.
You know, if you're trying to be very risk-averse,
stock market, real estate, gold,
those pretty much are going to be locked in
over a long period of time.
Unless your entire economy fails or something
and then you're screwed anyways,
then that's pretty much the safest investment you can have.
But what a shark tank to do.
They have someone come present their business to them.
They look at the sales that are being generated for that particular business.
They estimate where they believe the company can go, how much it can grow, what percentage
of its return investment is going to have, and they're going to invest money.
So they have, they're sitting on 50 million, 100 million, a billion dollars worth of net
worth.
They're trying to figure out how to not get 5%.
They want a 20% return.
Just imagine what these numbers look like if we started putting like 20% or 30% type returns
on this.
It's astronomical.
And that's why the rich just keep getting richer
is because they're constantly investing in businesses,
buying a business, and they're doing nothing again.
They're simply just funding the money,
they're just giving the money out,
investing in individuals,
and sometimes they're even multiplying their money
30 times their investment.
They're having people present business ideas to them.
They're giving them money and their company grows by 30 times what it was.
Think about the investors of something like Facebook or YouTube or some kind of particular
new product that people have never seen before.
They're going to really get a lot of wealth from those particular investments.
That's why investors love to do it.
Why is it that the Winklevoss twins?
sued Facebook for literally just like hundreds of millions or billions of dollars
Because if they had been early investors, they would have made billions of dollars like Mark Zuckerberg
I mean Mark Zuckerberg is one of the richest people in the world
Didn't have really any money when he started his little business, but then it exploded
But of course lots of people want to put money and an early investor into that particular company because they'll make the money with him
Even though they do nothing, but just have money people that have money just keep making money. So
Number one, if you want to make money, have money.
Now here's the thing, when you have that money,
you have to either invest it into something like real estate
or the stock market or a specific business.
That's what rich people are doing.
That's why they have money.
You show me a rich person and I'll show you someone
that has a portfolio of real estate, stock markets,
and interest in businesses, all across the board.
I worked in the banking industry for a long time.
I was a senior credit analyst for a large bank,
and we looked at people's financial statement all the time,
and there's one common denominator
between all rich people.
They have tons and tons of real estate
and interest in businesses and the stock market.
That's every single person.
You wanna know why they have money?
That's exactly why they have it.
Let's go to Matthew 25 verse 26 now.
We're in the same, maybe just 16, I'm sorry, verse 16.
says this it says in the same parable then he that had received the five
talents went and traded with the same and made them other five talents now
trading
I think can be a little bit more broad
in what the Bible is describing,
than what we think of in today.
Typically when I hear of trading,
we're thinking of people that work on the stock market
and they're trading stocks.
There's other things that people trade,
people trade commodities,
people trade different goods.
So there's different ways that people trade.
People even trade currencies.
When I went to college,
and I was getting a master's degree in finance and economics,
and they made us trade currencies,
which felt like literal gambling.
You know, it's kind of crazy when you think about it, but of course people make money
in trading virtually everything.
So that's one definition, but just a general definition of trading according to the dictionary
is the activity of buying and selling goods or services.
So it's really just doing business, right?
Buying things, selling things, making things, doing whatever.
is doing one of those things.
You know, if you think about how products work,
people buy raw material and then people make something
with that one raw materials.
Sometimes those raw materials,
when they're turning into a product,
it's not even a final product.
It's just they're turning it into another material
that can be used to create more products.
So they're selling it to them, then someone makes it.
then they sell it to someone that stores it,
then they sell it to someone that ships it,
then they sell it to someone that actually puts it in a store,
and then it comes to you.
And so there's just like all these different businesses
that go through the entire product life cycle.
And I would include all of that in the trading, right?
You're trading these different goods,
four services, you're doing all these different things.
So you're taking the money that you have
and you're using it for a business.
But if we really understand the parable,
he's not actually taking the money he has,
what is he doing?
He's taking someone else's money and he's leveraging that money to then make his own money through business
Okay, now at the end of the day he looks at it as his master's money, but it's just he's particular
He's using he's leveraging money. That's not his own to make other money
And so number one way to make money in this world
or to gain wealth is by just having money
and investing it wisely.
Number two though, is by starting a business.
Is by starting a business.
And I went to a business school,
I got a management degree.
Most of it was in entrepreneurial,
like understanding, starting businesses,
how to create businesses.
And again, our professor said,
hey, the quickest way to generate wealth for an individual
is just starting your own business.
Now, most businesses will not generate a profit or money in the first several years.
It's pretty much impossible to make any kind of money, but people that generate money,
they start businesses, they reinvest the money into themselves, and they use that to position
themselves in the marketplace that over time they will start generating a lot of wealth.
In today's economy, in today's world, it's very hard and it would be almost impossible
for someone to just have no job and just start a business.
So a lot of people, if you understand a lot of people, they have a job and they start
what I would call a side hustle.
or they start these garage businesses.
And you'd be surprised how many even major companies today
were started in someone's garage,
started on the side,
started as just kind of an alternative.
Lots of people that have unique job situations.
maybe they're a firefighter or they're in some kind of an industry where they have a lot of off
days or they have a seasonal business where then they have an off season. They start other kinds
of businesses or side hustles. People that have skills, whatever skills you have, they start their
own kind of side businesses and side opportunities. You know, people and even women start all kinds
of businesses, you know, on the side. We see the proverse 31 woman. She's making merchandise.
and selling it. That's kind of that side hustle, that side business that someone's doing,
and that generates a lot of money.
But leveraging that money is going to really give you the opportunity to generate a lot of wealth.
What is leveraging money? Well, today it would be like borrowing money, going to the bank,
getting a business loan, or taking what money you have and putting it down and some kind of a business.
Because most people can't start a business from all the capital they have.
They need to leverage it by getting loans, by getting some kind of resources and then investing them and trading them.
Go through to second Kings chapter number six, second Kings chapter number six.
So point one, have money, invest it wisely.
That's one way to make money.
Another way to make money or generate wealth over time is to start your own business of
some sort or to generate income on your own.
And how do businesses make money though?
Why are businesses successful?
Well, if you go to any economics course, whether that's in high school, college, master's
level education, anything like that, the most important principle they'll ever teach you
is the law of supply and demand.
Supplying demand is just basically the most simple principle.
It's found even in the Bible.
And I want to show you a story here, 2 Kings chapter 6.
Look at verse 24, it says,
And it came to pass after this that Ben Haydad, King of Syria, gathered all his hosts
and went up and besieged Samaria.
And there was a great famine in Samaria.
And behold, they besieged it until an ass's head was sold
for four scored pieces of silver
and the fourth part of a cab of doves dung
for five pieces of silver.
Now this is crazy, okay, he's saying you just cut off the head of an ox or I'm sorry not an ox an ass or donkey and
You sold that for 80 pieces of silver
Now I don't know exactly what the conversion is today's money, okay?
But I've done other conversions where I looked at like 30 pieces of silver when I talked about the Lord Jesus Christ
And again, it's not real easy to estimate exactly what that looks like
I thought maybe it was around $50,000 of today's money.
I could be totally wrong on that.
But we know that a piece of land was purchased
with the 30 pieces of silver that was given for Jesus Christ's head.
To buy an entire parcel of land today is quite a bit of money.
So maybe it was $10,000, maybe it was $50,000, maybe it was $100,000.
But 80 pieces of silver, I mean this is potentially,
if I have the same conversion that I used for a Jesus,
that would be like $128,000 or something in today's money.
Think about like spending $128,000 for just the head of a donkey.
Just to eat it.
I mean the goal is to eat it.
Do you just eat its tongue, its cheek?
I don't know, I don't think you're gonna might eat all of it.
I don't know, because I mean,
you never spend that kind of money or that kind of dough.
He's saying only that five pieces of silver
for a cab of Dove's Dung.
This is just like a dove or a pigeon came
and just took a dropping right in front of you
and someone sold that.
At the same conversion, that would be $8,000.
Can you imagine someone paying you $8,000
for a piece of pigeon dung?
Why? That's the law of supply and demand. You're so hungry that you would be willing to eat that and it's like the
highest bidder, the person that has the most money that's willing to pay the high...
I mean think about all the people that offered a lower price. I mean they're like $5,000, no $8,000!
It's like, dang, that's crazy. Why? Because money's worthless when you're starving to death.
Now, look at chapter 7, verse 1,
then Elisha said,
Hear ye the word of the Lord,
Thus saith the Lord,
Tomorrow about this time,
Shall a measure of fine flour be sold for a shekel,
And two measures of barley for a shekel in the gate of Samaria.
So they say, look,
Overnight the price of goods is going to change dramatically,
to where instead of buying something that you would never want ever,
you're going to get one of the most desirable things
for way less, way lower amount of money.
Now, again, I don't know if this shekel,
because I've read the story and I didn't notice it,
but it doesn't say a shekel of silver.
A shekel is a measure of weight.
So if it is the same, a shekel of silver,
as it was in these previous, means pieces of silver here,
then...
That would be about $1,600, okay, for one Jekyll.
It could have been a much different item,
and it could have been even lower.
But no matter what, we see that the price of goods
is supposed to drop dramatically.
Why?
Because, again, law of supply and demand.
Now it's said in verse 2,
then a Lord on whose hand the king leaned,
answered the man of God and said,
behold, if the Lord would make windows in heaven,
might this thing be?
And he said, behold, thou shalt see with thine eyes,
but thou shalt not eat thereof.
He said, look, God would have to just like rain down
flower from heaven for this to even be possible.
And he's like, even if that happened,
I don't think it's possible.
So he's just doubting that God could even make this happen.
Now if you keep reading this story, look at verse 15.
And they went after them unto Jordan and lo,
All the way was full of garments and vessels which the Syrians had cast away in their haste and the messengers returned and told the king.
What happens is, four lepers say, we're not going to sit here until we die.
We're going to go out and surrender under the Assyrians and when they go out there...
Somehow God had scared all the Assyrians away. They thought like the Egyptians had come to deliver them and it was all fake
It was just it didn't even really happen
It was like a conspiracy video that they all got spooked by or something, you know
And so they all just ran away and so when the lepers come out the Syrians in their haste and just left just endless amounts of goods
clothing money
food just endless supplies of all kinds of stuff so they go out there and they find all this
and they're like we can't just let everybody die in the city so they go and tell them.
They go out and follow them and they just find more goods than they know what to do with
and they're bringing them back into the city. So as a result now they have more grain.
Then they ever thought they could have and they're bringing it to the gate of the city where people are now able to purchase at a
Reasonable price or a much more reasonable price than before
It says in verse 16 and the people went out and spoiled the tents of the Syrians
So measure of fine flour was sold for a shekel and two measures of barley for a shekel according to the word of the Lord
So the price of goods literally changed over one day and it's just by the the idea of supply and demand go to Revelation 6
I'll show you again supply and demand
So, one way to generate wealth or generate money is to have a business or start a business.
Why would your business be successful?
Again, one of the most important components is the law of supply and demand.
Offering a product or a service or a good that is in high demand.
Because when it's in high demand, you can raise the price.
That's also low in supply.
Low demand and high supply you're probably not going to do very good. You're probably not going to be very successful
What you want in business in general is to offer a product or good or service
That is in high demand that is in low supply
That is how you're going to generate wealth and generate money
It says in Revelation 6 verse 5,
And when he had opened the third seal,
I heard the third besay come and see,
and I beheld, and a little black horse,
and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand,
and I heard a voice in the midst of the four besay,
a measure of wheat for a penny,
and three measures of barley for a penny,
and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.
So in the end times, the Bible talks about
in this final period of seven years
when there's all these judgments and all these plagues.
One thing that's going to happen as a result is there's going to be great famines throughout the earth.
And as a result, certain products or certain goods are going to be in scarce supply.
As a result, what's going to happen? The price of those goods is going to go dramatically up.
Now, penny, we think of it being the most insignificant amount of currency in American dollars.
Penny's kind of the lowest that we have.
But a penny in the Bible is more representative of like a day's wage, approximately.
What would be a day's wage today?
I don't know, $100, $200, $300, something like that.
Even just if we took the lowest amount, $100.
$100 for a bag of flour is just kind of really high.
I think a bag of flour today, if you get organic,
it's probably five, six, seven bucks for a bag of flour.
So if it jumped up to $100 overnight,
boy, you can just imagine what happened
to all the other prices of goods
and just how extreme that would be,
how difficult that would be on people.
Why again supply and demand if we have great famines and all these farms fail and
Grain is not in production as much
Well, then it's just gonna drive the price of goods way up and because of that a lot of people are gonna starve
A lot of people are not gonna have money. A lot of people are not gonna have goods. Why is it that grain is so important because?
wheat and grain is
Heavy and calories heavy heavy and calories whenever you diet and
Look, it doesn't matter what you call it keto paleo carnivore all this kind of stuff. You know what they all try to avoid
bread
Gluten-free. What are they trying to avoid a lot of times?
They're trying to avoid certain kinds of grain and bread and stuff like that.
The impossible burger is trying to avoid these things. Why? Because you need a calorie deficit.
Bread is rich in calories. But look, when you're starving, you know what you want?
Food rich in calories. That's what you want bread. Give us this day our daily bread because you need lots and lots of calories
You can't necessarily just eat fruit and survive. You need something of substance now when you're way over wait
You can survive on vitamins and water
There was a guy that severely obese he lived like I don't know something like
390 days on vitamins and water alone
Okay, but look, when you're underweight and you're starving, you need calories and what's
going to supply that fast bread.
I mean, bread is going to be your go-to item, and so that's why it's so valuable and so
important in these famine-type situations.
So we've learned about supply and demand a little bit from the Bible.
Look, you can learn everything you want to know from the Bible, general principles.
Don't spend money on getting an economics degree, just learn supply and demand from
And I've seen this in my life a lot.
There was this Christmas season years ago,
and I don't remember the date,
maybe some of you can remember,
where this thing called the Tickle Me Elmo
was like the craziest thing ever.
Who remembers the Tickle Me Elmo Christmas?
Okay, boy, there was this item coming out,
and the marketing was just on fire for this product
to where it was in such high demand,
like no one could find them.
And if you could get one,
A lot of people are just buying them to just mark it up
and sell it on the black market.
I mean, hundreds of dollars,
maybe even thousands of dollars in some cases.
Why?
Because again, low supply, high demand,
people can just jack the price of these goods way up.
I know for myself,
I experienced this with a PlayStation 3, okay?
Now, I ended up thinking
that I could make a lot of money on this.
And so I went to a Best Buy like a day or a day and a half
before it was going to come out.
And they had a line waiting outside.
So we were just like, I was like, in this line of like 20
or 40 or 50 people eventually.
It started growing, whatever.
And I camped out there all night to get a PlayStation 3.
And I ended up buying it.
And then, you know, because.
Prior to them being released some people had like an early edition or they had one somehow
I don't know how and they were selling them for
$10,000
$8,000 and it was coming out for 750 bucks and I was thinking like dang
I'm just gonna wait in line and make my five thousand bucks or eight thousand dollars or whatever right so I wait in line I
Get one and I'm I go and I listed on eBay
And the way eBay works is people have to keep bidding or whatever.
And what people do is they'll sign up for two accounts
and they'll secretly bid on their own product to drive at the price.
So that's what I did.
But here's the problem.
Before this, people were buying them for $8,000, $10,000,
because it was so low in supply.
But after they came out, there was enough supply
that the demand had shrunk to where nobody really cared anymore.
And I ended up buying my own PlayStation from myself.
And, in fact, it was so frustrating that I'd gone through this process that I ended up,
it took me like 30 or 40 days to get to the point and I realized like nobody cares and
nobody wants to buy this.
So then I ended up opening.
So I literally just had a PlayStation 3 for 30 or 40 days and I never even used it.
and I couldn't sell it and so I was just stuck with it
and so I just opened it eventually and used it or whatever.
But why did I go through that process?
Because I thought like, hey, this is a hot commodity.
I'm gonna get one and be able to sell it for more,
but then I ended up failing in that particular regard
because the supply finally met the demand.
There's a new thing that's come out
and it's really interesting, it's called banana ball.
Who's ever heard of this thing?
It's called banana ball.
It's really interesting. It's like in Georgia, I think is where it started with this team called Savannah bananas
And it's like it's kind of like the Harlem Globetrotters version of baseball
Where they go out and they do trick plays like do a backflip while they catch the ball
And they'll do all these dances and it's just it's just kind of silly and dumb
I'm not really into it
But what's interesting about this particular product is it's a hot commodity all of a sudden
And it's really exploding, and in fact, this particular event structure, or this new game
that's been invented, or this new event that's been invented, is so popular right now that
there's over four million people on a waiting list to buy a ticket.
And they can only sell like 50,000 or 60,000 or 70,000 tickets at a time when they have events.
And they don't necessarily have as much of a regular season as, you know, baseball.
So right now, every time they go somewhere, they have an event, they sell out all the tickets every single time
because they have over 4 million people trying to buy this particular product at this time.
People are buying these tickets, not even to go to the game,
just to resell them on the market.
Why? Because the supply is really low
in comparison to all that demand.
This happens with playoff tickets.
If you go, if you have tickets to the Cowboys,
to the Stars, to any of these type of things, you know,
and it's a game that everybody wants to go to,
the price of the tickets goes ways up.
If the team doesn't do very good that year and we're not in the playoffs,
you can get the tickets for Dirt Cheap. Why? Because, again, supply and demand.
There's another thing that I found interesting, and it's pickleball versus tennis.
And what's interesting is it's almost like pickleball is just destroying tennis.
And I've been thinking about like,
even you go to like an academy, you go to a Walmart,
you go to any of these places,
large tennis sections where they were selling merchandise
have now shrunk dramatically,
and now they have huge sections for pickleball rackets
and pickleball items and different things.
And you say like, why?
Why is that stuff happening?
Because there's much more demand for pickleball
than there is for tennis,
or at least it's eating into some of that particular demand.
A lot of tennis courts are being converted into pickleball courts and stuff like that.
And if I was an investor, I would not be investing money in tennis right now.
I'm just going to be honest with you.
And you would say, why?
Why would tennis go down in value or lose popularity and pickleball go up?
Well, let's just think about it, you know tennis is a sport that requires a lot of athleticism
I mean if you're gonna play tennis it takes a lot of athleticism not only that a lot of technique and a lot of skill
Yeah, and if you were to go play someone if you go out to play tennis with someone that is very good at tennis
You will not play against them because essentially all they'll do is serve really hard over the net
And you won't even be able to return it and it won't even be a game
And then when it comes to you serving you'll fault almost every single time or you'll have a lob
And they'll come in and just smash it and you literally won't even get to compete. There'll be no game
It's a very high bar to entry as far as just the skill level the amount of time and investment
And so a lot of people just don't play it can't play it
If you're older or if you're a female there's a major disadvantage to playing against a male
in tennis specifically. Just because of the athletic prowess. When it comes to tennis guys,
I think there was this like famous match.
And I'm gonna get it wrong, but it was like a kind of a famous tennis player that was past his prime
He was older got challenged by one of the top females in
In the tennis sport because she was talking trash saying that she could beat all these guys
So they had like some match and the guys like smoking and all kind like he's not even taking it serious
And he just like I think he beat her I could you could look it up
But it was just kind of proved the point that like look a male serve and tennis is just like extreme and
Comparison to a female serve and tennis
But then let's compare this to pickleball.
The thing about pickleball using whiffleball is it really kind of normalizes a lot of things
and it makes it to where so many more people are able to compete.
It's a much more inclusive sport.
So now you can include older people more, women.
Their disadvantage to men is a lot less severe than it would be in tennis.
Not only that, again, it's a cheap sport.
You can buy a couple of pickle balls, it's pretty cheap.
There's a lot of outdoor places where you can play free.
So just the opportunities are just really high.
It's easy, it's really inclusive.
So why is it so popular?
Because the demand is way higher.
And why is it even, in some cases,
becoming a little bit more expensive
because the supply is not there?
I mean, now it's a lot harder to find pickleball courts
and to find opportunities to go and play
because it's becoming more popular,
the demand keeps rising.
Pickleball paddles are getting more expensive.
Memberships at clubs, there's clubs popping up everywhere.
Why?
Because the demand is starting to outgrow the supply.
When it comes to tennis, again, it's waning, less people are interested.
So these are just general principles that we can all observe and learn, and then we
want to apply them for ourselves.
If you want to start a business, you need to think about these things.
You need to think about, hey, where is this market going?
Is this something that's going to include a lot of people?
A lot of people can use it.
What's the demand for this?
What's the supply for this?
in low supply and high demand.
Why is it that subway is getting destroyed
and closing everywhere and places like Popbelly
and I think there's another, like even Firehouse Subs
and some of these other places are growing and expanding?
It's because what's in high demand?
A good sandwich.
What's in low supply at subway?
A good sandwich, okay?
So it's like, hey, why did some of these other restaurants come in and why are they able to continue to grow in this market and why is Subway doing bad?
Well, it's because a crappy sandwich, there's not as much demand for that.
Some business is thriving and others are failing.
Demand and supply.
And it's a really important concept to understand why some businesses are successful.
This could be with a product that you sell, a product that you make.
You know ladies that want to make a little bit of money on the side. They you know can employ the exact same tactics
Why is it that her merchandise and Proverbs 31 is selling for a really good price?
Because it's a quality garment
quality garments just sell for more money. There's this weird Facebook group my
wife is always telling me about. It's called super cute dresses. Who knows
what I'm talking about okay? I know you ladies know what I'm talking about. There's
this weird thing called super cute dresses and it's like these women just
like chimp out basically on dresses out there because it's like they're selling
used dresses for more than they bought it for and all this crazy stuff and it's
one reason, supply and demand.
It's hard to find quality dresses that are modest maybe even breastfeeding dresses
And so there's a lot of demand for it the supply is low
So then they can have these outrageous prices or they can increase prices, you know
When it comes to horse garments and cheap made garments
Well, you can go to the mall or go to discount stores and buy them by the dozen for cheap rates
Why because there's so much supply and there's not as much
demand. So again, these are just general principles. If you want to make money, starting a business
is one of the best ways to make money. But again, what do you have to do? You have to
employ this principle of providing some service or some product that's in high demand that
has low supply. Okay. All kinds of considerations, quality, price, all of that is a factor.
Say why is it that I'm not making money? Why is it that I don't have money? Well number one you don't have money
To invest or number two you don't have a business. What can you do if you don't have either of those?
Here's a third way to make money and again
We're scaling these down like the way you're gonna make the most money is having money
The second one is having a business and and taking leveraging other people's money
and using that to create a business, start a business, whatever.
Then once you start generating that wealth, you can either continue to invest in yourself,
which is investing in business or investing in other businesses.
Third way to make a lot of money or to gain wealth is by skilled labor.
Skilled labor. Now it says in Proverbs 4 verse 7,
wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom and with all that getting, getting understanding,
exalt her and she shall promote thee, she shall bring thee to honor when thou dost embrace her.
Notice that promotion comes from something, wisdom.
Everybody, generally speaking, can labor but there's a difference between skilled labor and non-skilled labor.
Skilled labor is typically going to be based on wisdom, being able to do something that other people are not able to do.
Whether that be with your hands or your mind both can be applied people that are very skilled
Technicians or use their hands maybe the someone that's a welder or someone that works in some kind of a trade
If they're very skilled in that particular trade
They can make good money or if someone's really skilled with their brain with knowledge wisdom
Understanding, you know, you're gonna be able to make a lot doctors are making a lot of money. Why because of their brain
Lawyers are making a lot of money. Why cuz they're scumbags. No, I'm sorry. It's because of their brain
Why is it that people are making money because they know things that you don't and of course this is why
Colleges and higher institutions of learning exist
Why should someone go to college to actual gain wisdom that will help you have skilled labor
Why do a lot of people go to college to get drunk and party?
Okay, I'm not against college
But I am against going to the fraternity and getting drunk and playing beer pong and just wasting your life and getting worthless degrees
In fact, I saw a chart and it was just showing a chart of degrees and how much money people
make and it was saying, it's way more important what degree you get than what school you go
to.
It's much more important which degree you get than what school you go to.
You get a liberal arts degree, it doesn't really matter if it's from Harvard,
it's not going to necessarily benefit as much as going to a lower,
accredited school and getting an engineering degree,
or getting an architectural degree, or getting a medical degree,
or getting a legal degree, or something related to that particular field.
If you want to make good money, skilled labor is going to really benefit.
I'm pro-college, higher education and training.
you know, as long as it's with the goal of having skilled labor.
You should avoid as much as you can student loan debts and those kind of things to acquire that.
But even if it takes a little bit of student loan debt to get a really highly skilled position,
it can many times be worth it in the long run.
There used to be a board game, it's called Life.
Whoever played, they never played Life.
At Life, at the beginning, you get to choose.
You're going to go down the college route, or you're going to go straight into labor force.
and to go to college you had to pay like $50,000 or something
or like set you back more money or something like that
or maybe if you didn't you just gotta quit $50,000 or something.
But every time I play life I always go down the college route.
because when you go down the college route,
you get a better salary from whatever job you get,
and that salary adds up over time,
and you pretty much just always do better
when you go down the college angle
than the non-college angle.
Now, obviously that could be because the creators
want you to go to college and give them money,
and I get all that stuff,
but it's also just generally true.
Generally, getting education over not getting education
will benefit you in the long run.
Does that mean you have to?
No.
But if you want to make money, you need to be skilled.
Can you have skilled positions without going to college?
Absolutely.
You know, in the software industry,
you don't have to get a college degree
and you can still do just as well
in that particular industry.
There's a lot of trades that you don't have to go to school,
but again, being very skilled in that position
is going to help you have a lot of money.
Do you have to go to college to start a business?
No, many times you can start your own business
and you can do better off than people
that are having skilled labor.
Skilled labor isn't going to make more money than starting your own business.
Okay?
Starting your business is higher than skilled labor.
But again, what are ways to make money?
Have money, starting your own business, skilled labor.
Go to Proverbs 13.
What's the fourth way to make money?
To work.
Just putting the labor in, just putting hours in, you're going to make money.
That's how you make money.
And what does it say in Proverbs 13 verse 11?
So look, even if you make a very modest income, even if you don't make a lot of money, even
if you weren't a very skilled laborer, think about what I showed you on the board.
Even if you just put a measly $500 a month away in the stock market and you worked just
a normal job, after 30, 40 years, you would still have a pretty sizable amount of money
that you could use to retire with, pass on to your children, retire comfortably, have
all your bills paid for, and do fine.
And look, at the end of the day, you can't take it with you anyways.
But you know, I'm just trying to teach you how to make money. You know young men you should really think about this
Go to Genesis 24. It's the last place. I'm gonna have you turn this morning
Very simple sermon
Ways to make money
What I've learned is that most people don't even know very common basic principles of life anymore. It's very sad
Think about people that are poor and you'll realize they're not doing any of these things
People, and you say, why do I not have money?
Well, number one, you're not using the money you have
to invest or putting in real estate or something.
Number two, you didn't start a business.
Number three, you don't have skilled labor.
Number four, maybe you just work,
but you don't even work that much.
Well, that's going to keep you where you're at.
If you want to elevate, you've got to do one of these things, okay?
Are you doing it because you want to be rich?
You should never do that.
But at the end of the day, hey, I have to work.
I might as well put in whatever effort energy God is going to give me.
He said to get wisdom.
If he gives me money, I should be a wise investor with that money.
And hey, if I want to take the effort and energy to start a business and put a lot of
strength into that, there's great opportunity in America to do these kind of things.
Do you have to do any of these things?
To be a successful Christian? No.
The Bible says a man's life is not,
a man's life consists of not
in the buns of the things which he possesseth, is what the Bible says.
So look, the rich man isn't going to get a special place in heaven
and the poor man doesn't get in a lower place in heaven.
In fact, many poor people are going to be the greatest
in the heaven and the richest in heaven
and many of the rich people, well, they're not going to heaven,
but many of the ones that are saved are not going to necessarily be that great.
I doubt that Dave Ramsey's is even saved.
But even if he was
He's gonna he's gonna die a wealthy man hundreds of millions of dollars
Maybe even a billion dollars by the time he dies, but you know what? He's not gonna have great riches in heaven
You know a lot of people use Dave Ramsey as this model of like how to live your life. I do not recommend his content
I do not recommend his suggestions because Dave Ramsey will pretty much give you the love of money
If you listen to him long enough and his only goal in life is to get rich
and he is not getting rich spiritually at all.
He's not preaching the gospel,
he's not going soul winning,
he doesn't use the King James Bible,
he's not in a good church.
He'll counsel people to get divorced.
He'll cancel people to just send their wife to work
just because money's the most important thing in their life.
And look, money's not the most important thing in life.
If you have a lot of debt, I'm not mad at you,
I'm just trying to teach you how do you make money?
It's biblical principles.
Here's the fifth way to make money,
it's just to marry a rich person.
You're like, how does it work for ladies?
Okay, well, I'm just telling you.
Genesis 24, verse 50.
Then Laban and Bethel answered and said the thing proceeded from the Lord
We cannot speak under thee good or bad
The old Rebecca's before thee take her and go and let her be thy master son's wife as
Lord has spoken and it came to pass that when Abraham's servant heard their words
He worshiped the Lord bowing himself to the earth and the servant brought forth jewels of silver and jewels of gold and raiment and gave them to
Rebecca he gave also to her brother and her mother precious things now if you read the whole story prior to this before he even asked to Mary
He says like hey my masters
Father Abraham he's real rich. He has lots of goods and you kind of wonder like how could a woman marry a guy?
She's never seen
Now I
Said this a few weeks ago, and I keep saying is like there's only three things you need to get a wife, okay?
Number one is confidence number two was good looks number three was just money
Sometimes it just works. Okay. Now. You don't even have to have all three you just have one
So, you know, if you say, I don't have good looks and I don't have confidence, well, we know which category you need to work on.
Okay?
And at the end of the day, you know, Rebecca's a great wife. She's a great woman.
You know, people say like, oh, what a gold digger.
You know, that's not the right attitude.
Because would you really criticize a man for marrying a beautiful woman?
Say like, oh, you're just, you just want to marry her because she's beautiful.
Why, why was that a bad thing?
Why is that a negative thing?
I mean the Bible said a strong man retained his riches.
The Bible says a good man leave an inheritance
unto his children's children.
There's nothing wrong with proving the fact
that you work hard or generate income or have assets
because at the end of the day,
your wife is gonna have to eat of your table.
She's gonna have to eat the bacon
that you're bringing home or not bringing home.
So, hey, as a man, I have to look at my wife
for the rest of my life.
I wanna like it.
And as a wife, she's gonna have to live on your dime
for the rest of her life.
She probably wants to like it.
So you know what, don't sit here and say like,
oh, how dare a woman consider, you know,
a guy's potential of making wealth or what money he has.
If you're gonna say, guys should be able to marry women
that are attractive or healthy or in good shape.
Hey, we both have our things that we want.
I think you should bring both to the table, right?
And as a young woman, you should consider
Something what is this guy gonna do? Is this guy gonna provide for me?
Is this guy gonna take care of me? Is he gonna work hard? Does he have a vision? Well, you place video games all day
Well, he works at 7-eleven
You know or it's like hey, I'm planning on starting my own business. Hey, I want us to save money
Hey, I want us to invest in things. Hey, I want to go out and get some skilled labor. I want to do these things
Hey, that's a guy that's probably got a better vision for you in your life
You should consider those things you should think about them
You know if I was a young lady or if I talked to my daughters
I'm gonna want them to think about guys that they date, you know what they're earning potentials like what they're gonna do because they're
Gonna have to bribe for them
And that's really, really important.
You know, the Bible says money, answer with all things.
Now, at the end of the day, is that the most important thing?
No.
The most important thing is that you fear God and keep His commandments.
But aren't some of the commandments in here being good steward?
Aren't some of the commandments being wise?
Aren't some of the commandments, you know,
Using the money and then the things that he's given you wisely
Absolutely, isn't some of the commandments providing for your spouse and providing for your family
Isn't some of the commandments working hard and let me tell you something if you put all of your strength and might and
The principles the Bible are teaching
You know most of the time you will generate good income you will generate good wealth in America
The reason why most people are not generating good wealth is because they're lazy
stupid or both
is because they're lazy, stupid, or both.
It could be just ignorant, I guess,
and I'm trying to help you get rid of that one.
And, you know, I wish I had been taught a lot of these things.
I went to college and got a worthless degree,
and I don't want to see people do that.
I'm not against you going to college, you get a good degree.
You know, I wish that I had done better investments
when I was younger.
There's never a bad time to start.
And I hope maybe this can be a practical sermon
to kind of help encourage you.
This evening I'm gonna talk about the dangers of money
and just things that cost you a lot of money,
ways to lose a lot of money.
So hopefully we can learn from that as well.
Let's close in prayer.
Thank you Heavenly Father so much
for giving us wisdom through the Bible.
Thank you for giving us an opportunity to generate money and income and wealth and take care of our families
To take care of ourselves to eat and rejoice. I pray that
We would all try to work hard. There would be good stewards of what you give us
I pray that we'd be careful. We wouldn't get a love of money in our hearts or minds
But we would try to just serve you and work hard and be a good steward of what you've given us
There wouldn't be a wicked and slothful and lazy servant. We wouldn't be selfish. We wouldn't
Just do nothing
with what you've given us, but rather we would be faithful in that which you give us.
And I pray that you would help bless all the men and these families and the women
as they try to work in a world that's very difficult, very corrupt.
There's a lot of problems, inflation. I pray that we would be wise as serpents
and harmless as doves. I pray that whatever wealth and blessings you give us,
that we would use them for the kingdom of God and to take care of our families.
and that you would allow us to have resources to further the gospel message and in Jesus' name
we pray. Amen. All right, in closing, let's go to song number 408.
Loyalty to Christ.
Song 408, let's all sing that out together.
From Overhill and Plain, there comes a signal strain.
Disloyalty, loyalty, disloyalty to Christ.
It's music holds along, the hills take up a song.
Disloyalty, loyalty.
to Christ. Oh here you grade the sound that moves the earth around. Disloyalty, loyalty, loyalty to
Christ. A rise to day renew, bring out the watch for true. A loyalty, loyalty, yes loyalty to Christ.
Where Satan's banished
The strength of youth we lay, And Jesus weep today.
Disloyalty, loyalty, loyalty to Christ.
We have a baptism this morning.
Brother Felipe is coming for baptism.
Brother Felipe, if you trust the Christ, your Savior.
Yes.
Then I baptize your name with the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Buried in the likeness of his death.
Praise the walk and newness of life.
Make sure to congratulate Brother Felipe.
You are dismissed. God bless.