Episode 46 - What Does the Bible Say About Investing? with Chip Ingram
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Last year’s conference was easily one of the highlights of our year. If you joined us, we’re so glad you did. If you didn’t, we’re glad you’ve tuned into this episode.
At the conference, Chip Ingram opened up with a talk about how Scripture can and should inform our investing strategy. It was so good, we couldn’t help but share it with you here. Go ahead and press play and enjoy all Chip has to say!
Episode Transcript
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Henry Kaestner: Welcome back everyone, to the Faith Driven Investor podcast. While Chip Ingram, CEO and teaching pastor, was Living on the Edge, Ministries has been a two time guest on the FDE podcast, this is the first time we've had him speak to faith driven investors. Today, you'll get to hear his talk from the faith driven investor conference. In it, he shares what the Bible has to say about investing as he challenges the bifurcation between giving to Kingdome causes and investing in faith driven ventures. Hear him ask How might God use you to make a new paradigm so that you build businesses? You realize that this is an opportunity to also give generously and invest in Kingdome impact. Let's listen in.
Chip Ingram: I'm not really an investor, been a pastor for the last 30 years. And, you know, I've written a few books and invested a little bit here and there. But I'm here, first of all, to welcome you and kind of kick this thing off. And second, to commend you. You know, there's a lot of investors that invest well and then they take their profits and are very generous for Kingdome impact. But there's not many investors who really get that. What you actually build in terms of the marketplace, what you invest in and how you develop that can have as much Kingdome impact as even your philanthropy or your generous giving. And so what I want to do is three things. I want to give you a little biblical precedent for what we're going to do. I want to challenge that whole bifurcation that, you know, when we give money to Kingdome causes, to church and to projects, that's the work of God. And over here, it's you know, we do a marketplace ministry to make money. I'm going to really challenge you to rethink that. And then third, I have a story. I'm not much of an investor, but recently I got to make an investment and everything that you're going to talk about. I think my story might be a parable for the entire conference. So biblical precedent, a very familiar passage. But I'm going to look at it a little bit differently. Follow along, Matthew. Chapter twenty five. This is the third parable about being ready for the Lord's return. Verse 14. It says, Ford is just like the man about to go on a journey Jesus is speaking who called his own slaves and entrusted them with his possessions to one. He gave five talents to another two and another one each. According to his ability, the one who received the five talents, put his talents to work, traded them, worked in business and got five more talents in the same way. The one with two talents put his to work and gain two more talents. But the one who received the one talent dug a hole, put his money in the ground for his master's money. Now, after a long time, the master came back to these slaves and he business term settled the accounts. When the one had come and received the talents, he said, I have five counts, master. I've invested them and I have five more. And notice, he says, the master says, Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Very interesting. I want you to catch this. I will put you in charge of many things and enter the joy of your master. Most of you know the story. The two talents received the same commendation and the one with one talent is sharply criticized and his one talent is given to the other because he's irresponsible with it. Now, I don't want to teach this whole passage, but there's a handful of observations in this passage that I think are of biblical precedent for Faith driven entrepreneurs. First of all, a talent here wasn't coinage. It was a literally like a block of metal with value and. Probably the best way to get it is talentless, usually about 6000 denarii, and that would be are you ready? The one talent person basically got what it would a daily wage for 20 years. Sometimes I've heard this Totò and people think, oh, I only have one talent. Now think about not having to work for 20 years. That's a lot of money. The two talent would be someone who said, how much do you make in 40 years. There you go. Here's a block of money. I want you to invest it. And the five talent son was given literally enough money that if he worked every day, he wouldn't have to work for one hundred years. Here's my point. They all have very significant amount of money. Second, it's each according to his ability. You know, it's not egalitarian. God intrust different things to different people, according to their ability. And then he evaluates and rewards them. Not based on how much, but what did they do with what he gave them. Third, there's a dual role in the ancient Near East. During this time, when Jesus is talking, a slave would almost become like a partner. Yes, he's a slave. Yes, technically he was owned, but there would be a very familiar relationship. And so as he goes off, he has two roles. One, he's a steward. This is your money master. But you've entrusted all this to me. Second, though, he's an investor. And don't think when he says he invested the five talents, don't think like he he put it in a 401k or he put it in some financial institution because of the way this is written and the time and the group. In other words, he created a business. He had to invest in a business. So he had the dual role of steward and investor for the observation is notice the reward. His reward isn't, wow, you had five talents. Here's five more. Here's more money. He says, I'll put you in charge of many things. In other words, you know, when you've built a business, when you invest and when it grows, the reward is the impact, the platform, the extent. And what he's saying to them is your trustworthiness has allowed me to give you an extended impact. And, you know, if you when you invest just like all of us and whatever we do, when you're made for it, when you think you pray, you invest in this person, you help them along the way. You give insight here. When it grows, there's great reward. But then notice, not only is there a horizontal thing that happens in terms of extent of impact, more responsibility, but there's a vertical one now enter into the joy of your master. What I want you to get here is that investing, building a business, taking money that God has given to you and creating it in businesses with people that can really make a difference, that provide goods and services, that create jobs that make an impact on employees lives that are goods and services that that blessed the common good of other people. That's very significant impact. By contrast, I'm a pastor, and so my only investments are, you know, most workers are like me and say you have A 403 B, right. And so I've put a little money out of my paycheck for 30 some years. And, you know, it's a fidelity or a principle or this or that. And they send me a bunch of papers. And yes, by now I do have a financial planner. And I by the way, we need you to go into your website in Large-Cap SmallCap. I have no idea really what I'm doing. And I don't know whether fidelity or principle or any of those groups, you know, I know that we're not investing in immoral stuff, but I've seen investments in my life just as I need some money for later. I've never thought ever in my life, where are you putting that money? And could your money in investments have a kingdom impact rather than just I've taken my money and I've had a great chance to give an Kingdome causes. So I want you to really think this. How might God use you to change your whole new paradigm so that as you build businesses and as you coach people and as you develop people, you realize this is an opportunity not just to make money, not just make money even to give, but both in. Yes, make money so that you can give generously for Kingdome causes. But what if you invested in things that had Kingdome impact by the virtue of the actual investment? Now, here's the story I want to tell you. And you know, many of you, obviously, you've invested lots of money and millions of dollars and and I'm a pastor. Right. But over the years, I've been debt free and and I've written a few books and I made some pree decisions about what to do with that money. And probably like many of you, when I was young, I learned to tithe and then I learned to do kind of proportional giving. And in the last maybe eight or 10 years, I've had a handful of times where God has allowed me to make a six figure gift and to the church building program missions living on the edge. And it's been just an amazing joy to see God provide resources I never dreamed I would have and to see it invested in books in China or missions, things. And, you know, it's been really exciting because I never saw myself ever as a major donor. And yet over the years, I've gotten to be a bit of that here and there. Well, about must have been, I don't know, two, three years ago there was a young man who I really believed in. And it's a long story, but it was an investment in a group. And my wife and I, as we prayed about it, had it prompting from God. Now, I've never invested in a company. I've never invested in a startup. And if you knew the whole story, you would know maybe why we were prompted. But I won't go into that. And so I've kind of come to at this stage in my life where, yes, I want to put some money aside. But at the end of the day, it's numbers on a piece of paper. I don't want to die with a bunch of numbers on a sheet of paper. And this young investor that I really believed in, I took one hundred thousand dollars out of my savings and he couldn't go full time on his startup. And that allowed him to go full time on a startup. Now, because he was related to Henry and got coached and mentored by Henry, he was going to be a faith driven right entrepreneur. And so built into his strategy was, we're going to have ministry, we're going to have a kingdom impact built into his concepts, for these are our values. Every time he does an off site, he tells the story. This is what God has done. These are what our values. He's hired both Christians and non Christians. Another part of his story was it has to do with cars and repair and software and stuff that I don't really understand. But part of it was we want to help people as a part of our you know, we have a dashboard of success and one of our dashboards is maintenance for moms. We want we want to help moms, single moms in desperate situations. And whether that's repair, well, OK, so he got his first round of funding and that did really well. And and I was glad because there was a big part of me that thought, well, you know, I really believe in that guy. And if I never see that, it's not like I have a lot of money laying around. But I thought God told me to do it, so I did it. Well, then he got a second round of funding. And it just what you know, like off the charts. Well, here's what I want you to get. I got to be a part of his first emails. You know, when it's family and friends, we would meet over coffee and he would talk about, these are my dreams. I got to do a little coaching just just now and then from a distance. Not the business side, but just the heart side. And then little by little by little, I watched him as he just championed his faith every month for, I don't know, the last six, eight, nine months they have given a car, given a car to a single mom, but not just the car, but with discipleship, with meeting with her friends and family every time it's actually in this building that I'm in right now. When they do the car, all the employees come out and they gather around and they give the car and then they pray for, well, now he's got a group of people and one of the Eastern European countries and 15 or 20 or 30 people there. And it was a lady there. That's a part of that company that had one of the only one or two outreaches of there's all more abortions happening in that country than anywhere in all of Europe. And so now there's ministry there. I've looked at first it was 30, then 50, then 70. All these people now have jobs. Here's the virus. All these people, they have jobs, they have a ministry, and then he has these off sites and he keeps championing. This is why this is what God says. And you know what I realize I'm really glad when I've been able to give a six figure gift to ministry in China or ministry to help build a building at a church or ministry over in this place or that place.
But when I look at the investment that I made, I'm looking at all these families being changed.
Now, one of his employees lives very near to me, and I've seen the evidence in his life. I'm seeing moms get minister, too. I'm seeing international ministry occur. I'm seeing a whole group of people with a testimony to all their clients all across the country. And by the way, when needed, did that second round. I just thought to myself it'd be kind of nice to at least get my money out of it. I'm not sure where it's going to go. The return on my investment was unbelievable.
Unbelievable.
And what I want you to know is that as you all start this conference, I want you to really be thinking about not just here's my investments, how do we make money? And to be generous with it, I'm going to challenge you and you're going to have great speakers to know all about this. I want to challenge you to be that kind of servant who says I'm going to give generously out of my profits, of course, but I want to be a part of marketplace ministries with faith based entrepreneurs that have a kingdom mindset so that the impact in the marketplace is not just money, it's not just a return on my money, but I mean its lives and it's transformation. And you invest your money in people. You know, when I read this little parable, I thought to myself, you know, think of the Jewish culture. Do you think the slaves went out and cut a deal with Rome in a business or with some gentiles? What did they do? They met some other Jews, people they trusted. They built a relationship and they built a business. And pretty soon he had one hundred years worth. Right. Big, big money. Now he's got two hundred years worth of in. All right. And he did that because he built relationship and ministry and investment in people and saw the kingdom impact not just in the profit, but in the actual process.
Host: Thank you so much for joining us on today's show. We're very, very grateful for the opportunity to serve the larger faith driven investor community. Hey, the best way for you to stay connected is to sign up for our monthly newsletter at faith driven investor Doug. And while you're there, we, of course, want to hear from you. We derive great joy from interacting with many of you. And it's been very rewarding to see people join the discussion now from all around the world. But it's also very important to us that you feel like this is your show and that you'll help make it something that best equipped you on your journey, one that you're proud of and one that you'll share with others. This podcast, it would be possible without the help from many of our friends. Executive producer Justin Forman, program director Johnny Will's music by Carl Chigwell. You could see and hear more of his work at summer drag's dotcom and audio and editing by Richard Burley of Cornerstone Church in San Francisco.