- Did you know there are more verses on money, riches, & wealth than any other topic in the Bible?
- Money represents security.
- True profit is not the surplus of money you have in your bank account.
- True profit is anything that leads to life.
- Mark 8:36 - “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world but forfeit his soul?”
- But there is a financial side to profit God wants us to have.
- God hardwired us with a need to work and a desire for reward.
- God wants us to be good at our jobs to provide for our families.
- He just wants us to focus on eternal rewards more than monetary rewards.
- Backstory - Israel was truly blessed by God.
- They were the crown jewel of the Middle Eastern nations.
- Doing things God’s way always pays off.
- But Israel started to think their own strength got them there.
- So God rebuked them through the prophet Isaiah.
- In the midst of that rebuke, God said this:
- vs 17 - “Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit, Who leads you in the way you should go.”
- The word “teach” in this verse means “to train, to develop skillsets.”
- The word “profit” means “to become valuable.”
- So this verse doesn’t tell us that God will give us profit.
- It tells us that God will train us to develop skillsets that make us valuable.
- In Expert Ownership, we teach 4 steps - Value Creation, Marketing, Sales, Value Delivery.
- Value Delivery - create solutions to problems.
- Marketing - turning People to Prospects.
- Sales - turning Prospects to Purchasers.
- Value Delivery - turning Purchasers to Promoters.
- This is where we connect people to God!
- And what follows value? PROFIT!
- We don’t focus on profit.
- We focus on value.
- When we do that, we will never fall in love with money.
- KEY - Valuable people look for problems over profit.
- But the Israelites didn’t do that.
- They went after the money - they focused on profit, not value.
- God said:
- vs 18 - “If only you had paid attention to My commandments! Then your well-being would have been like a river, And your righteousness like the waves of the sea.”
- Which one is more important, profit or peace?
- Imagine closing a deal where you make 100k in commission, but you have no peace in your life - your spouse won’t talk to you and your kids hate you for being so busy at work.
- You can’t control your appetite for food or your thirst for alcohol.
- Are you really going to enjoy that 100k? Nope!
- What we need more than anything is PEACE!
- When we focus on adding value to people through our work while honoring God in the way we do it, we will experience “peace like a river!”
- vs 22 - “There is no peace…for the wicked.”
- If we don’t do things God’s way, we cannot experience true inner peace.
- True profit = PEACE!