 Hey, good morning, everyone. Welcome to a new week. Hope you had a blessed Easter Sunday and a good weekend as well. All right, let's begin this class with the word of prayer. Prabhakar, can you please lead us in prayer? Yes, master. Thank you. Dear heavenly father, we place the apology of holy name. At this moment we come on to your throne of praise, father. Thank you for this wonderful opportunity. Thank you for this wonderful time and day, father. Ladies and gentlemen, in this class, father, lead through your school's good, father. Give us your guidance so that we can learn whatever you want to teach us, father. Let's pastor all the pastors, father, lead them as they are. I dedicate all the class members, each and every one, and during this hour, unto your glorious name, father. Let this be a fruitful, unlearning, and exalting hour for us. Thank you for us in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Prabhakar. Sorry. All right, so last session we covered chapter 19. We looked at work-life balance. And this session, what we'll do is we'll go to chapter 20. We'll talk about saving, investing, retiring, and beyond. And then tomorrow we will quickly look at chapter 21, which is entrepreneurship, and close off this course with chapter 22 as well, which is workplace transformation. So we'll try and cover both these chapters. We look at the main points. So tomorrow will be our last class and we'll try to cover chapter 21 and 22. But today we'll cover chapter 20, saving, investing, retiring, and beyond. Now, we know that life is lived in seasons, right? There are seasons where you work, you begin a job, then you grow up the ladder, and you get experienced in that job. The Bible says that as surely as the sun rises, the sun does set, which means there will come a time when we will have to retire. But here's the challenge that we face as believers, right? Because God has called us to say, okay, don't worry about the future. Trust in the Lord. Our future's, you know, Proverbs says, trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean out on your own understanding. But the Bible also teaches us to be good stewards of what is entrusted to us. So we have to maintain this balance of being spiritually minded and earthly wise, right? Being spiritually minded and earthly wise. Now, just because we save or we're investing in certain things and we're thinking about retirement does not mean we don't have faith, right? So we have to maintain a balance. The Bible very clearly teaches us, be spiritually minded. But Jesus also taught us to be earthly wise, to walk circumspectly, to walk in wisdom, right? So we're going to look at a few scriptures on what we can learn from saving, investing, retirement and beyond, right? Maybe some of us are, you know, still in the page of, you know, it's just starting your career and you may feel, hey, why should I think about retirement when I'm just starting my career? But these are things that we can always keep in our mind, right? You know, eventually, if you're not married, you're going to get married, you're going to have children, you know, and children are going to grow. So there's a lot of preparations that are involved, right? So let's look at what the Bible teaches us about this, right? And then we can come to a conclusion to see whether saving and investing in retirement is it right or wrong, right? Let's look at a couple of points. So I'm on chapter 20. The first point, save to prepare for the future. Proverbs chapter six was six to eight. Yes, could one of us please read that? Proverbs chapter six was six to eight. It's a familiar passage. Proverbs six versus six to eight. Yes, can anyone please read? Proverbs six, six to eight. You lezzy fool. Look at an aunt. Watch it closely. Let it teach you a thing or two. Nobody has to tell it what to do. All summer aid stores our food at harvest it stock, stockpiles provisions. Thank you. Thank you, Abinas. So this is a very familiar passage. Look at the aunt. You know, this is a message translation, but I like the NKGV. I think it says you sluggard. Look at the aunt. You sluggard. See how they work. The word sluggard means somebody who's always, you know, lazy or tired, right? But the Solomon is writing here. He's saying learn from them, learn from the aunt and see what they do. Even when Joseph took up the responsibility of, you know, he interpreted the dream and he said, okay, you know, Pharaoh, there's going to be seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine. And so Joseph was God's man in that place. He was operating under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, but he did something so wonderful, right? He didn't say, okay, let's just pray. Let's do 21 days of fasting, prayer, or let's do 40 days of prayer. You know, he was spiritually minded, but he was also earthly wise. So here's what he said. With the wisdom that God gave Joseph, he said, all right, let's plan ahead. We have plenty for the coming seven years. So from that plenty, let's save each year at least 20% of what we have. And we store it up, right? So when the time, when the seven year ends and when the famine starts, we will have enough for the seven years. Now the first thing that comes to my mind, or the first thing that, you know, the first time when I read this passage, I thought about retirement, right? Sometimes you think, okay, we should not save for retirement. We must, you know, work hard, give to everyone, bless everyone. And then trust in God, God will provide now. It's not wrong to plan ahead, to invest ahead, right? Now, Jesus, sorry, Joseph, he did that, right? Did he trust in the Lord? Yes, with all his heart. And we've seen, you know, Joseph even previously, he had a lot, he had complete trust in God. He honored God in every area, even in the prison, he honored God. Even in Potiphar's palace, he honored God. So we see that even though Joseph was spiritually minded, but he was also earthly wise, right? He made sure that, okay, we can save and then when there's less, we can use from this during the famine and we'll be able to, you know, look after ourselves. Here's the, here's the balance that we must find. Staying aligned to what, to the instruction that God is giving us in the scripture concerning money and wealth, we must stay aligned with it, right? And we do understand that, you know, saving and investing is right, but that does not become priority. Right? When I say priority, which means it should not be that the moment I get up, I think about saving. The moment I, you know, in the afternoon, I think about saving. At night, I think about saving or every moment I think about investing or what if I'm going to retire? What do I have? Now, what's happening? We are filling our mind with these thoughts, which is, which is not wrong, but then we are not able to do our tasks that have been assigned to us at the current moment. I hope you're understanding what I'm trying to say, because we're so thinking about, okay, how can I save? What are the ways of saving? And how can I, you know, plan for my retirement? What if I retire and I don't have anything? Now, the Bible teaches us and we see that even Joseph, he did not think about a day and night. He said, this is what we'll do. We'll save for this first seven years, next seven years, we will use what we have saved. Right? And when we are aligned to this, saying, okay, God, I'm going to be a good steward of what you have given me. I have children. I know that, you know, in the future there's going to be expenses. I need to save. I know that in the future they're going to go to college and there's going to be expenses. And I know that in the future I will have to invest in certain things, but I put my trust in you. And that is where we find our balance. Right? And so even when we're investing, even when we are saving, we're not thinking only about what, you know, how much we have or what are we trying to, how much are we saving this year or next year. No. Because the Bible teaches us that the root of all evil is money. But if our heart is there, we'll turn out to do evil things in order to gain access to more money. So that is why save to prepare for the future, but do it in alignment with God's will. Do it in alignment with the scriptures that teaches us about money and wealth. Right? Second point, invest to multiply what you have. Let's read Luke 19, 23. I'll read that. Well then, why didn't you put my money in the bank? Then I would have received it back with interest when I returned. Now, not only do we save money, but we can also invest money. Now, this has caused a lot of, you know, questions or a lot of debates, especially in Christianity. You know, the Lord Jesus is giving this parable in Luke 19 and he's saying, this is something about the kingdom of God. He used the story of the wealthy man was going away and he said, okay, I'm going to hand over a gold coin each to each servant. And he went about this, you know, the master went and the first two of them, you know, they multiplied it, they invested it, they multiplied it. But the third guy, he took it, he put it in to the ground and he said, oh, my, my master is a hard task master. So if I lose this, then he's going to be really upset. So let me keep it safe in a certain place. And this is what he said after that, after coming back, he said, why didn't you invest it so that you could double the interest? Or why didn't you put it in the bank that the interest would have, you know, increased to that amount. Now, since this is, you know, about money, it is right to consider that, you know, multiplying financial resources that we have is biblical. So if we say, for example, right, you have a certain amount of money, and you feel that, you know, you want to invest in something. And you feel that, okay, if I invest or if I put it in the bank and it's going to increase, it's all right to do it. You know, we've been taught as Christians, oh, don't be, you know, don't rely on it. Or, you know, many places, many Christians say that, okay, it's wrong. It's a sin to take interest. But it's not, it's not, right? All you're doing is you're preparing, you're using earthly wisdom for the money that God has blessed you with. So there's nothing wrong, right? Even if you're putting it in a bank and allowing the bank to put interest in that, it's nothing wrong in that, right? So you'd be assured of that, right? And God wants us to use what he has given us, and he wants us to multiply it. Now, this is both for the heavenly kingdom and on the earthly kingdom as well. So when God blesses us, he wants us to multiply in the spiritual as well. So he says, okay, I'm giving you this gift, you know, maybe worship leading or playing an instrument or preaching or teaching or ministering to people. God wants us to multiply in that gift. We must not be in a place where we are, you know, so for example, God has given us a gift musically. Five years down the line, we must not be doing the same thing. We must see improvement in our spiritual gifts. Now, the same way, when we look at it in the earthly manner, when God blesses us materialistically, he does expect us to, you know, invest and multiply it. And I love that verse in Proverbs. It says that, you know, I forget the chapter and verse, but it says, the blessings of the Lord make it one rich, right? It's not about having more, but with whatever we have, when God blesses it, it will be enough for us, right? So it could be a small amount that you feel, okay, I'm putting in the bank. But when you do it with all sincerity and you say, God bless this, you know, and let it be a blessing to my family, to my children, God would bless it, right? So now there are many opinions about it, about, you know, taking interest in all of it. But we see here, biblically, it is not wrong, right? We can make investments now. I want to be a little bit careful here. Just because it's good to, you know, invest and it's good to, you know, get interest from your materials resources, we must be wise where we invest. We must be wise. Now we can't say, okay, God, you told me to invest. You said multiply what we have. Now I went and put it in this company and now the company is closed down and I've gone under a major loss. Now, especially when you're taking such big decisions and it involves a lot of money or a lot of resources, you need to be very, very careful, take time, make sure that you hear from God clearly and you know that this is God leading you to do it and only then go ahead, right? Because as pastors and leaders, you know, many times this has happened where church members, they come and they say, you know, I want to do this. Can you pray? Many times we pray, right? We just pray, Lord, bless them, bless their efforts, whatever they want to do. But they haven't heard from God, right? And it's just something random or something out of the blue that they want to do. And then it comes back and it says, hey, you know, pastor prayed but still, you know, nothing happened. And now I've gone under loss. No, it's our responsibility. We are good stewards. We should be good stewards of what we have, right? And we must ask the Lord to speak to us and lead us. As pastors and leaders and ministry leaders, we can only, you know, pray for you. We can only, you know, give you certain directions and that's all we can do. We cannot enforce our courts and our ideas upon the congregation. So you must take responsibility. I must take responsibility for what God has blessed me with, right? Third point is to plan financially to live responsibly. Now, we need to plan financially for taking care of our, as we mentioned, right, taking care of our children, taking care of our family members. And then there's a time when we will get into our old age, we need to plan responsibly, right? In light of Matthew chapter 6 was 19 to 21. Is it okay if we can just read that? Matthew 6, 19 to 21. Yes, any one of us can please read that. Matthew chapter 6, 19 to 21. Yes, anyone? Matthew chapter 6, 19 to 21. Sir, shall I read it? Please go ahead, Rupa. This is ESV version, sir. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Thank you. Thank you so much, Rupa. Now, this is so wonderfully explained here. So Jesus is saying, don't put your heart in treasures where moths and it's just going to vanish away, right? Now, we were just talking about how important it is to save, right? But the point is, acquiring wealth must not be our primary goal in life, right? Our hearts must always be set on the things of God, right? Because what happens is, if acquiring wealth is our primary goal in life, we will definitely fall into sin. We will definitely, you know, look at other ways of acquiring more sin, sorry, more wealth and more money, right? But our main priority in life must be set on the things of God, right? And we must establish this in our heart at each one of us. We must establish, we must say, God, I thank you for what you have given me. I thank you for what you're, you know, for the wisdom that you're giving me, or we can also pray, God, give me the wisdom to plan ahead, prepare ahead financially, prepare ahead for my family, for my children. But as I do that, Lord, let my heart be fixed on Him, on you. Let my mind and my heart be fixed on the things of God. Help me to be a cheerful giver unto your kingdom, because God is a God who blesses. You know, sometimes, you know, we have this whole thing, okay, I'm going to save this much amount every month, right? And we make it a target. And all of a sudden, you know, it happened to me. All of a sudden, there's this family who was in, you know, extreme need. They don't have anything. What do we do? Say, God, no, but I want to save. You know, I promised I'll plan that I'll save such an amount every month. But if I give this family now, what about my, you know, my savings plan? Now, that is why our mind must not be, you know, acquiring wealth alone. When our hearts are set on the things of God, we will freely give to God's people who are in need. Right? Because we know that God will bless us. God will multiply us, right? We must understand the true value is not in the riches that we have, but the riches that we can find in God. We are to always be rich in the relationship that we have in God, right? And then God will definitely continue to bless us, right? It could be, we could be people who are, you know, two days back, I was, I was looking at, there's a, there's a church family in our church. And this couple, they're going through a very, very tough time financially, and I know it, right? The wife has lost her job before COVID. The husband too lost her job, but right now he's doing a meager job, which gets him very little salary, but they're so faithful. They will come every Sunday to church. They will not miss church. And they happen to come and meet me. And when they came, you know, they brought so many things, you know, so many gifts, I would say, like snacks and, you know, things to, for the children. And I thought to myself, out of the little that they have, see the heart of giving. And I prayed for them. And really, my heart was really blessed by just seeing that. And I said, God, help me to have a heart like this. They don't have much. They really don't have much. And as far as I know, there are a couple of days they haven't had food. They were really struggling, but they still want to give. The hardest to give. Why is that? Because of that rich relationship with God that they have, they know that it is more blessed to give than to receive. I keep telling them, don't, don't do this. Don't do this. You need to know no pastor, God will bless me. I'm doing it for God's kingdom. It's so wonderful to see the faith that they walk in. In 1st Timothy 6, 7 to 19, we are to guard ourselves from the love of money and not trust in riches that dissipate easily. We must guard ourselves. Right now, all through the scriptures, Paul has written many epistles and he warms us. He instructs us in so many things, but he does instruct us many times about money. And he says, we must guard ourselves from the love of money because this is the root of all evil. Money is not bad. The love of money is bad. Money is needed in every area of our life. We need money. We can't say money is evil and then don't do anything. Money is needed. Money is a resource which God has provided, but the love of money is a root of all evil because the enemy can use money and entangle us and take us away from God. So in our financial planning, which includes saving and investing, we must be good stewards of the resources entrusted to us. And even as we do that, we fulfill our God-given responsibilities. What is our God-given responsibilities? To bless others, to bless the kingdom of God, to serve others, to serve the poor, to serve the needy, as much as we can do for others as well. And then we'll be assured, hey, my heart is not on money or loan. My heart is on the things of God and God will really bless us. Let's look at the next point. Parents should provide for their children. Let's read Second Corinthians chapter 12 and verse 14. Second Corinthians 12 verse 14. Yes, could one of us please read that? Second Corinthians 12 and verse 14. Second Corinthians 12, 14, sir. Yes. This is now the third time that I'm ready to come to visit you and I will not make any demands on you. It is you I want, not your money. After all, children should not have to provide for their parents, but parents should provide for their children. Thank you. Thank you, Rupa. As God-given responsibilities for those of us who are parents here, we must take care of our children and provide for our needs. And I'm sure all of us do that. We don't have to be a Christian to do that. We can be people from every any other faith as well. It's a responsibility. You know, when you're not married, we do a lot of things. We probably spend lavishly or we spend carelessly. But then once we are married, once we have children, we must be very wise. It is our responsibility as parents to take care and provide for our children, taking care of their daily needs, giving them a good education so that they can stand on their own. All these are important. Right. And I'm sure all of us know this. But sometimes what happens is in this whole bid to, you know, invest and to save up more and more money, we may end up not providing the best for our children. But we thank God that God has taught us here. God is saying it is we who must take care of their needs, giving them whatever they need for their better future. Right. Now, always remember that as parents, if we don't provide for our children, we don't look after their needs, then we have failed as parents. Now, when I say provide, it's not only financially. It could also be being there for them. Right. It could also be mentoring them, you know, building them up. All of these also is involved in this. But the financial part also is important that we be able to look after them, provide them with good education. When we go to the next point, children should care for widows and elderly family members. Again, 1st Timothy 5, 4 to 8, Paul is writing, but if a widow has children or grandchildren, they should learn first to carry out their religious duties towards their own family. And in this way, repay their parents and grandparents because that is what pleases God. But if any do not take care of their relatives, especially the members of their own family, they have denied the faith and are worse than an unbeliever. Now, you see this instruction that Timothy is giving to, I'm sorry, Paul is giving Timothy. Timothy is the leader in the church, he's pastoring the church in Ephesus and he's bringing up this area and he's saying if you know, children or people don't look after their families or their parents and their grandchildren or their elderly families, family members, then they are worse than an unbeliever. Quite strong language. So it's basically like saying if we don't look after, we're worse than an unbeliever. Now, another very important area of God-given responsibility is to take care of widows, parents and grandparents that God has put in our hearts. You know, sometimes, I like to share this, many times in ministry, we get so caught up with things, right? We get so caught up with, okay, this meeting, I have to go for the youth meeting, I have to go for the, you know, children's meeting, I have to go for the Bible Fellowship, the women's meeting, the cell group, I have to go for this pastor's prayer. And so our lives are busy. And even if you look at the workplace, we have so many tasks, so many things ahead to do and deadlines and all of this. And we forget what is priority and we looked at it a couple of chapters as well before, where we looked at family being the center of everything that we do. So we must, whatever this God-given responsibility of taking care of widows and parents and grandparents, we must do it with all our heart. We must be there for them. Because the Bible clearly says that if we don't, we have worse than the unbeliever, right? Now, taking care of them does not mean that, you know, you quit your job or, you know, and we just stay and be there for them the whole time, no. Or does not mean that, you know, especially in a day and age, you know, there are many couples who come up to me and say, you know, I'm staying with my, I'm married and I'm staying with my in-laws. But what happens is my in-laws don't, you know, they always fight with my wife and then share, you know, my wife has an argument with my in-laws and now I'm in between, what should I do? That's a very difficult, you know, topic to talk about because as fast as many families come up and ask us this. And so we tell them, you know, it is looking after, first thing is your husband or your wife, they become one. Now, looking after does not mean that you have them with them with you always, right? But to be there for them, to provide for them, that is what is more important. And Paul is writing and he's saying, if we don't, we are worse than an unbeliever, right? And we understand, you know, sometimes our parents are in different cities or different nations as well. But still, we are called to be there for them, to look after them, to provide for them, right? Plan for what you will leave behind, Proverbs 13-22, a good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children, but the wealth of the sinner is stored up for righteousness, right? Part of financial planning will include how we want our inheritance or how do we want what God has blessed us with, how do we want it to go to our children and to our grandchildren, right? Plan for what you leave behind. I like this next point, right? Retire and refire. That means add meaning to those golden years. When we retire, it's not the end, you know, we have this mindset, okay, retire and then, okay, at times coming, we're going to pass away. Not really necessary. We can retire and refire. Entering old age is sometimes it looks like an unproductive phase in life, but no, the scriptures indicate that in our old age, also we can bear much fruit. In practical terms, when we retire, we can still be on fire. You know, the last three, four days, I was meeting with a family in Mangalore. I think I've shared this with you. The man is 90 years old and his wife is 85 years old and I'm amazed with their lifestyle, right? They don't have a cook. They have a helper who comes and cleans the house, but they don't have a cook. The uncle who's 90 years old drives better where he has to go. He drives to church and his eyesight, he doesn't wear specs. His eyesight is brilliant. I always say to him, uncle, if I was 90, if I am 90 and I'm like, you know, the way you are fit and healthy, that will be more than enough. And I asked him, what is your secret? And he said, the day I retired, I decided that this is going to be a life sold out to Christ, the remaining years. And he began to ask God for renewed strength. He began to pray, God, give me strength as an eagle that I may do whatever I have to do. So even now he's 90 and he does everything, everything that maybe a 50-year-old man does, everything. He drives on his own. He goes to the supermarket on his own and they spend many hours praying together, right? So, retirement is not the end of it all. We can always refire. God says that we can bear fruit even in our old age, right? Serve in the church, teach younger people and teach youth, teach children. One of their ministry is the Lord brings wherever they go, you know, they go to the fruit stall or they go to the supermarket. All they do is, you know, they tell them, tell people directly about Jesus. I said, uncle, you know, you need to calm down. So he said, anyways, I'm 90, what will they do to me? So I will boldly share the gospel, no problem. And he has shared the gospel. He has brought many people to Christ, even in his old age. And he was mentioning to me that up to 60 years old, he's never spoken to people about Christ. It was only after he retired that he realized the value and he realized that he, God has called him for, you know, to minister to people, to bless people. And he began to share the gospel, bringing many people to Christ. All this happened after his retirement. And yesterday as I was talking to him, he said, you know, he was talking to me and he was saying, pastor, by the time I'm 100, I want to bring at least another, you know, 50 to 100 people to Christ. So he's already planned 10 years down the line. I was like, wow, what zeal, what passion. So retirement is not the end. We can retire, refire, re-energize ourselves to do God's work in our lives. Last point, God who was, who is and always will be. Malachi chapter three, verse six, for I am the Lord, I do not change. It's always good to pause and reflect on the goodness of God, the God who's led us through all these years. I'm sure we do that, right? I remember I look back and I say, okay, God, I thank you. 2010, you know, I was just looking out, looking out for places to serve and the way you led me to EPC, the way you, you know, just got me in and the way you opened doors, you taught me and the way I'm so grateful for all of that, right? When we pause and we reflect, it's so wonderful. Even as we think about our families or our work, when we pause and reflect and say, God, I want to thank you for what you've done for me in the past and I thank you for what you're doing now. I thank you for what you're going to do for me in the future, right? And this is the God who has promised that he will walk with us. He will walk with us. So every season he is with us and he's the same unfaithful, same faithful, unchanging God and he will see us through the end, right? So we must be assured that, you know, retirement and our old age is not the end. God will always be with us. He will give us the strength. He'll give us the ability to be a blessing to many people, right? So we'll close on this. Tomorrow we'll quickly look at section four and just look at the main points. We won't go deep into the points, but we look at the points and we will close this course tomorrow and I'll probably post the final assessments up on Wednesday so that you can, you know, complete your assessments and hand them back over. All right. All right. Any questions? Any thoughts? Any questions? If you have any questions, thoughts that you'd like to bring about? If not, we can close and pray. Okay. No questions? All right. Subujit, can you please close and pray for us? Yeah, sure, sir. Father God, we thank you, Father. We thank you that you have gathered together, Father, and we have learned so many things, Father. Thank you, Father, for teaching us a new word, Father God. And Father God, we pray, whatever we've learned, help us to apply all these things in our life, Father God. So Father, we can work with all this, Father God. Father, bless pastor and bless every student's father and Lord, I pray, bless them with the, bless them ahead of their life, Father God, so they can grow according to your word and live according to your word, Father God. I place every one of them in your hand, Father God. Whatever we have learned today, let all these things, Father God, come out of our life and give us a good future, Father God. I thank you and I pray in the name of my Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. Thank you so much, Subujit. Thank you, everyone, for joining. Have a great day ahead. We'll see you tomorrow. God bless. Thank you, Father. Thank you.