What we want to look at in this article in the next few minutes is titled: The Father’s Business, Investments and Profiting. And we would start our meditation from the book of Luke chapter 2 from verse 41 to 49. See what the Bible says:
“His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. 42 And when He was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast. 43 When they had finished the days, as they returned, the Boy Jesus lingered behind in Jerusalem. And Joseph and His mother did not know it; 44 but supposing Him to have been in the company, they went a day’s journey, and sought Him among their relatives and acquaintances. 45 So when they did not find Him, they returned to Jerusalem, seeking Him. 46 Now so it was that after three days they found Him in the temple, sitting amid the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. 47 And all who heard Him were astonished at His understanding and answers. 48 So when they saw Him, they were amazed; and His mother said to Him, “Son, why have You done this to us? Look, your father and I have sought You anxiously.” 49 And He said to them, “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” 50 But they did not understand the statement which He spoke to them.”
May the Lord bless the reading of His word in our hearts in Jesus’ name. Looking at the Father's Business, Investments, and Profiting; these are three keywords, and I know you are very conversant with the first — business. The second word is investments. And the quickest way you can look at investment is when you look at sowing. When you invest it means you sow. When a farmer goes to the farm and plants a seed; If the farmer went with a bowl of seeds, don’t forget, apart from the farmer sowing the seeds, he could choose to eat the whole seeds.
When he is saying, ‘I don't want to cook it’, because if I cook it, it will only be enough for me today, I will have nothing else to eat in the days or years ahead’. “Cooking it will give me a means of survival today, but once I'm done cooking it; I have nothing else to live on after today. So, every farmer makes that choice; should I sow it, or should I cook it? And the same thing goes with investment. Whatever resource you have in your life or around you, there is always a need for this question to be answered: “Should I cook it or sow it; should I spend it or should I invest it”?
When you invest it, it means you are making sure that even though what you have can take care of you today, you don't want it to take care of you today, rather you want it to take care of you tomorrow that is called investment. So, when we talk about profit, we are talking about what are you going to benefit in the long run from your business based on your investments. Every time you make decisions, I don't want to eat it now; I want to sow it. Every time you do that, you are investing — investing as a businessman in a business. The goal is that you may profit from it. So, in this piece, we want to look at the Father's business, investment and profit.
Jesus laid a good foundation for us. He was just 12 years of age; He followed His earthly parent to the temple for a festival; ‘there went for a Passover, a feast of the Jews’. After the feast, instead of Him returning with the parents amid the excitement, Jesus decided to do something different: He stayed behind, and the parent went away thinking that He was with them, and did not know that he has lingered behind. What was he doing?
The Bible says, “Now so it was that after three days they found Him in the temple, sitting amid the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. 47 And all who heard Him were astonished at His understanding and answers”. Later on, when the parents questioned Him; why did you stay behind? Like somebody could be challenging us today; why are you doing what you do? Why are you not doing the things we are doing? When they question you; why do you do the things you do? Jesus gave an example for us. He said, “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?”
Jesus was 12 years; He left this earth as a man in the flesh at the age of 33 plus. And at 12 years old, He said, “Don't you know I must go about My Father's business?” Many of us in the body of Christ are older than 33 years today, but can we also look within ourselves today and say; ‘what I go about doing is my father's business’? We all have an alternative to the father’s business. Besides the father’s business, the truth is that we can do the business of this world. Again, we can do our businesses, things that we invest in daily; things that promise us an advantage or profits in the future. So, it’s not compulsory for all of us to do the father’s business, but Jesus said, “Don't you know [you ought to know] I must be about my Father's business”. So, friend, what are you about?
Are you about your business that makes you invest daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly? Are you about others’ business or the business of this world? Have we seen the background? There is a place we are going to look at again where Jesus gave us another picture of a Father's business and maybe a child or a son’s business. Which one are we going to be preoccupied with? We are looking at the book of Luke chapter 15 and we will start the read from verse 11 until we get to verse 32. It’s quite lengthy. See what the Bible says, “Then He said: “A certain man had two sons”. We are all either in this category or that category. As far as the father is concerned, there are only two categories; there is no middle ground. If the father had three sons, there might be an opportunity for somebody to say, “I don't belong to this; I don't belong to that; maybe I belong to the middle. The Bible says, “The father has two sons, And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.’ So, he divided to them his livelihood. 13 And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted; his possessions with [d]prodigal living.” [He did what was the opposite of investment]
When you look at the word invest, the opposite of you investing is that you waste. Let's look at the analogy we gave at the beginning: you have a couple of seeds inside a bowl. Maybe it is maize, guinea corn, or beans. You can choose to cook them or you choose to plant them. When it comes to business, cooking it is still better than you pouring it away. Wasted here means you didn’t eat it. Because, if you had eaten it will still do your body some good. There is an adage that says, “When there is life there is hope”. Do you understand? So, you do not invest, and you do not eat. Don't forget, the Bible says, “It is God that gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater,” meaning God is okay if you eat bread. God is the one that gives you the bread. God is okay if you sow; it is God that gives you seed. What God is against is you not eating or not showing what you have.
In this piece, we are not even trying to praise or judge those who are eating. The message is not to make the eaters feel terrible. The message is to encourage the planters, the sowers to be more effective in their planting because it is not enough to start as a planter. You don't want to be a sower at a point in life and then tell yourself this is the kind of profit or loss I got this year; may I never sow again or never invest. You would not like to be referred to as a former business person; 10 years ago, he/she was a great farmer, and a great investor, but he/she has stopped sowing — only eating. You don't want that. And if you don't want to be frustrated, that means the business is bringing you profits consistently and you are fulfilled doing the business. That's how you will sustain the business, whether it is the Father's business or your own business.
We're looking at the business of the Father, the investment, and the profit, and our focus is how you sustain your momentum even though you are serving or you are working in the business of your Father. How do you make sure that in 10 years to come, when people look at you, they will still find you in the father’s business and not in other businesses? That's the spirit of this piece. The Bible says, “And he wasted his possessions,” but what would his life have become afterwards if when he got to the land, the possessions he gathered, he had begun to invest with it? Imagine him selling many of the things that he didn't need and he used the money to buy some land. And he planted some seeds, will the father be angry with him? If when he left, he became as big as his father and would have been happy with him. The crux of his problem is not just that he left, but that he wasted everything.
I'm sure you still remember the parable that Jesus gave about talents. A particular servant got 5 talents, another one got 2, and another one got one. The servant with 5 talents traded with it; he did business with it. The one that got 2 also did business invested, but the one who got one, what did he do? He buried it. He said, “My master is a shrewd man, he loves to reap where he didn't sow,” but he has given him something to trade with. You said, “He loves to reap where he didn't sow,” but what you buried, was it not from him? He gave it to you. You are not expected to bury what he gave to you; you sow it. I'm sure you understand.
Now let’s look at it. “He wasted everything which the Father gave Him with prodigal living”, wasteful, extravagant living; he was no more mindful of survival. If you wake up in the morning, and you cook small rice that is enough for the family. In the evening, you decided to cook small pounded yam, or you eat beans, and tomorrow you do the same thing. And you and your household ate everything, would people say you are wasteful? That's why you must understand what could get his father angry with him. If he had gone on a normal life, a survivor living, and thereafter got to the point of spearing for investment; his life would have been better. But he was not spending his resources on the basics of this life. He was spending them for pleasure; on fun. Imagine him drinking a lot of wine, and eating a lot; instead of him eating in one bowl or plate, he ate on many plates as if he's a Korean king.
When you build your life on such extravagant living, you will actually in the long run have little or nothing to invest. This man went on a prodigal living, he was not eating for survival; he was eating for pleasure. If we build our lives also eating for pleasure, we have nothing to keep behind; to sow or invest. Do you get the point? So, we know how that man began to err. In verse 14: “But when he had spent all,” not when he had invested all, he has spent everything. This is like saying after God has sent you to this world, you are working in an office and God expects you to also make disciples of all nations with the resources he has endowed you with, he has blessed you with, to win people and to grow them in Christ Jesus. So, all your talents, all your virtues, and all your personal principles are expected to be the resources that you will use to raise disciples. But what did you do? When you got to the office, you began to spend all; you finished all your principles?
When people come to you to tap you, do you have any virtues? You would say, “Sorry, I'm low on virtues”. “Sorry, do you have any character left?” “No, I'm low on character. That makes you talk to people anyhow. You don't have principles. So, in the long run, all the resources that God has endowed you with, that you went to the office with, you got to the office and instead of using the resources to do the will of God, you had spent all. God does not want you to spend all; God wants you to invest all.
Now, “But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land, and he began to be in want,” and I realize that famine was not his problem. The famine happened to everyone. The question is when his circumstance deteriorated, didn't somebody employ him? They were both in the famine time. The economic depression is not our problem. That the government is not helping us, there is corruption, there is this and that, that's not our primary problem because the society is corrupt overall — everybody goes to the market to buy the same thing. The difference between you and I and the other people in the world is going to be by what we've done before the famine came. Before the famine, he was spending, he was wasting. So, famine came, and there was nothing that the famine could meet with him. The man who employed him, perhaps, was not doing the same thing. So, the person has something; a farm, and there were pigs. Do you see it?
Imagine when he came, he also started a piggery farm, a piggery business. So, if he had done the right thing when the famine came, he would have been selling pigs to those who were also in famine, and he will have had the resources to do other things. But he began to waste things. So, before we can tell ourselves, ah, I don't know how things are turning these days, if we were to introspect, we could realize that many decisions that we've made behind us, were not necessarily helpful in positioning us to prepare us for the times that we have come to. Things may not get better; they may only deteriorate. But are we getting better in preparing for whatever will happen?
In Isaiah chapter 60, the Bible says, “Arise and shine for your light has come and the glory of the Lord rises upon you. For behold, (look at it with the eyes of your spirit.) the darkness shall cover the earth, and deep darkness the people; but the Lord will arise over you”. When it comes to the earth and the people there it is going to be a matter of darkness or degrees of darkness. But the Lord shall rise upon you and His glory shall be seen upon you. I rise and shine for your light has come, if your light has never come and there is darkness on the earth, and gross darkness on the people of the earth, wouldn't you also be darkness? You could be saying, “This darkness is great,” but there could have been a way out for you if you were looking to God for light. That there is a problem everywhere doesn't mean that it must reach us.
That things don't work for everyone doesn't mean things shouldn’t work for us. But when things are working, perhaps, for many people, what are we doing with the resources we are getting? The opportunities that God gives to us, what do we do with them? The time, the good health that God gives us; health is part of the resources of God to every man, what do you do with them? Every time you wake up and you feel strong, that means God has given you another talent. Imagine any comedian that you know, and add a little migraine to their life, will they be able to make themselves laugh? Your talents are completely useless no matter how plenty they are if you don't have good health. That you're able to do things with your hands, and your head, and you can speak eloquently it is because you are healthy.
So, the first talent that God gives to every man is health. What do we do with it; do we waste it on gist, watching TV alone — from morning to night? What do we do with our time? What do we do with our health? The anointing of God on your life; when you pray, God will answer, but you are praying nothing —there is nothing for God to answer. The talent is prayer, but what do you do with it? Some of us are so gifted by God, but what do you do with the talent? How do we use the things that God has given us to profit in God?
“Then he went and joined himself as a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. 16 And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything. 17 “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!”
The younger man wants to return to the default setting. Initially, I thought I was a son and was entitled to my father’s resources, and he gave the resources to me. I did not have the character, nor the competence to manage the resources but I took them. Now, I have realized that my life is not about my father's resources; my life is not about collecting them. I can collect a million Naria from my father today, and not be able to manage it. Do you know somebody else who could collect 200, 000 and has what it takes to manage it? It's not about more resources, life doesn't necessarily get better with more resources, what capacity do you have? He said, “He came to himself:” he began to think correctly; “maybe I could do better in life if only I can go back and serve my father”. In the beginning, he didn't see himself as a servant to his father. He saw himself as a son, and an heir apparent, like when the other brother is no more he is the next.
He came to a point, and realize that being a son alone had not helped him in any way. What has been a son to that man been, it had only pampered him. It has excused him; he was not able to learn. And he got to life unprepared as a son. He said, “No, I'm not going to try to return as a son; I've messed that up. Let me return as a servant without an entitlement mindset, let me go with a service orientation, that the only thing I will go about henceforth will be my father's business.” You can’t serve a man that does nothing with nothing. His father was productive, so if you want to have a servant, you must be productive. So, when he said I will become like a hired servant to my father, he knew what he was saying; he knew his father has a business. So, he said, “let me not go and be a son, who is waiting for my father to die and I will inherit his property”. “No, let me go and serve him now. Let me go and contribute my effort to make sure that the business grows.”
You remember when Jesus said, “Don't you know I must go about my Father’s Business,” there was this attitude that He had, He didn't say, “about our,” but said, “My Father's business”. I must go about it, He was like saying, ‘this is the reason I exist’. But we don't wake up with that mindset as believers. We believe, if we do nothing, brother so and so will do it, and sister so and so is already doing something. “I cannot come and kill myself,” we see or say all manner of things like this; “the business doesn't depend on me. I'm just one of the billions of people, Jesus can use anybody.” In the long run Jesus is not able to use anybody. Because even though everybody is claiming to do a son, everybody is not having the attitude of an investor or somebody that wants to work.
Look at it, he said, “How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! 18 I will arise and go to my father and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, 19 and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.” “Father, don't be looking at me as a son that you be feeding and you don't want me to take responsibility or take risks. Like you're trying to shield me and protect me so much to the point I'm not useful for you or useful for myself. Make me like one of your hired servants; relate with me like that.
Jesus said, “I have finished the work that you give me to do”. It is servants that talk like that. In case you want to drag it Look at Hebrews, the Bible says, “Jesus although a Son, but He learnt obedience,” another word for obedience is submission. Subjecting oneself to an authority, He learnt it through the sufferings He went through. So, as Jesus was suffering, Jesus was learning submission. That means submission was key to his ministry. So, every time Jesus was going through a difficult experience, Jesus was learning more reasons to submit himself to the will of the Father, to submit himself to the burden of the Father, whatever the Father wanted, that became his joy and preoccupation. Why? As he was suffering, he was learning to submit to the Father. For many of us I know we know the story, later on the elder brother came back because the father began to merry. ‘My son is back’ and the elder brother got angry. Let’s continue from where the elder brother got angry.
Luke chapter 15 verse 28. “But he was angry and would not go in. Therefore, his father came out and pleaded with him. 29 So he answered and said to his father, ‘Lo, these many years I have been serving you.” How many of us have ever thought the elder brother was never in the will of the Father? How many of us ever thought the elder brother was one lazy young man that did not have ambition, we thought he was doing well right? But see how the elder brother summarized it. It says; “These many years I have been serving you.” So, the elder brother has been having the mindset of a servant and he has desired that the father should treat him as such. When the older brother woke up in the morning, he was busy thinking, how do I serve my father in his business? And you see, usually, when you are serving in a business, another stylish word you can use is you are trading or you are investing your time, intellect, and energy, with the hope that the business will produce results or profits. Every worker or servant of a business is an investor in the business.
So, he said, “Lo, these many years I have been serving you; I never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends. 30 But as soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him.’ Now to put the older brother into perspective, see what the father said; 31 “And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours.” There is a Scripture we are also going to look at that will also help us to appreciate this; the older brother said I have served you many years, you didn’t give me anything, but the father said you have served me many years, but guess what? “All that I have is yours.”
So, if the father had given him something, doesn't make any difference, what the father did not give him is still his own; it is a question of mindset. So that you will know that I am not going to treat this your younger brother as if he is not a servant, ‘He told me he is not worthy as a son, he should be my servant’. Get the perspective why I am cooking and killing things; “It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found”. On the basis of that, we are going to eat and make merry: “we have him back, but when he wakes up tomorrow morning, he won’t come and be asking for any livelihood what will he come and do? But seeking how he can serve me. Apostle Paul asked Jesus, “Lord, what would you have me do?” That's the mindset.
The younger man wouldn’t wake up every morning and be drinking anymore and say where are the remaining calves, let me still kill another one. No! He counted it as a rare privilege that he received again. He will labor. Like Apostle Paul said; and I labored exceedingly more than them all yet not I but the grace of God. Just look at Apostle Paul before Jesus interrupted him; you could look at him like somebody who also wasted his resources. He was supposed to be build lives, but he imprisoned lives — a man that was supposed to be set people free, he imprisoned them until he met Jesus. Then he said, “Lord, what would you have me do?” That's how you will know that we are all broken into those two.
Apostle Paul was like the prodigal son initially, before he came back, that's why you will see the mindset of Apostle Paul going forward; it was that of a servant. He said, Lord, what would you have me do?” He didn’t say Lord where are the merry, merry’s? Where is the food? That was not what he said; He said Lord what would you have me do? “I have wasted my life enough.” I know the resources you gave to me. You didn't ask me to be supervising how they are stoning and killing people. No, that's not why you created me. You created me to build them. You created me to reconcile men to you, Lord, what would you have me do?” And that is it, you are either like the older son or you are like the younger son. But whichever way you must come to yourself. If you are like the younger son and consider yourself to be a servant in your father's business, don't go to your father's business like the owner, after all when the Father dies! But guess what, God will never die, Jesus lives on forever and ever. You won’t inherit the business behind your father, come now and serve your father.
There is something else I want us to read before I conclude; Luke chapter 14 from verse 7 to verse 14: we want to understand “you gave me nothing” and you are the “owner of all.”
7 So He told a parable to those who were invited when He noted how they chose the best places, saying to them: 8 “When you are invited by anyone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in the best place, lest one more honourable than you be invited by him; 9 and he who invited you and him come and say to you, ‘Give place to this man,’ and then you begin with shame to take the lowest place. 10 But when you are invited, go and sit down in the lowest place, so that when he who invited you comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, go up higher.’ Then you will have glory in the presence of those who sit at the table with you. 11 For whoever exalts himself will be [c]humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”12 Then He also said to him who invited Him, “When you give a dinner or a supper, do not ask your friends, your brothers, your relatives, nor rich neighbours, lest they also invite you back, and you be repaid. 13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the [d]maimed, the lame, the blind. 14 And you will be blessed because they cannot repay you; for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”
And this is something that really alighted upon my heart and I feel I should share with you. Usually, the tendency is there for us to always want immediate gratification and Jesus Himself is teaching us to beware of immediate gratification. If you do something to anybody and they want to pay you, be reluctant. If you must get paid, let it be that you have a release in your heart to get paid because anybody that pays you so quickly is robbing you of your later payments. Look at what Jesus said; When you are doing a wedding, He said don’t invite the rich, when they are doing their own wedding, they will invite you. You have gotten the reward.
So, when you do good to people, don’t do it so that they can do it back to you. The Scripture says, “Give and it shall be given to you.” It didn’t say the one you give to is the one that will give you back. It didn’t say the one that you give to is the same person that will give you back. That’s not what the Scripture. It says “Give and it shall be given to you, good measure pressed together shaken together shall men.” It is not the man you give to, the woman you give to, that will give back to you; other people will be moved by God. So, when you give don't give to somebody that will give you back. But we are always quick to receive, and when we want to do good, we do strategic good: “I don't want anything that leaves my hand to live my life — who can I give this thing to that it will bounce back to me?” Don't do that, but if you do that the Bible says, “You have been paid already”. How much can anybody pay you?
Imagine a poor person owing you and a rich man owing you, who can pay you better? So, when you do your good to the poor; you have done it to their Father in heaven who is the richest; He pays much more — abundantly. When you sow a grain of maize, what do you get back? Do you get that thing as one? No! What you are giving up is something tiny, it doesn't shake your body. But when God wants to give you back, you might have to shut down in worship thanking God for that return in investment. Investment that was done many months and many years ago, you could have even forgotten that you planted something somewhere. But God is faithful. The elder brother was like father you did not give me anything. Even though the father did not give him, he didn’t ask the father, but the younger asked and the father gave.
He did not ask but he was thinking about it. And he was like father you didn’t give me anything. That means he didn’t mind it. But if the father had given him anything, it would have been temporal, it would have been small. A fraction of what the father has. Thank God he didn’t ask the father, because he would have been short changing himself. Because, the father could assume that maybe his mind was on those things not on the business.
Imagine the father having six billion in his account and the son was like you never paid me, if he is to be paid 250 thousand, how many years will it take him to reach 6 billion. So, the father said don’t worry even the entire thing is yours. Let us not be too quick to ask God, lord pay me the glory. See how Jesus started. It was a message of glory. If you sit down prematurely for your own glory in a good place, the person that invited you moves you from that good chair and say go to the back that means the person will experience shame.
When you sit-down in the front on the high table people will see you like a big man; that’s immediate glory, temporal glory. If somebody who is greater than you comes, then the man will ask you to stand up and go to the back. What happens? Temporal glory, permanent shame. But if you sit at the back from the beginning and the man say you are too big for the back, come to the front. The man cant tell you to go to the back again. So, temporal shame, permanent glory. That’s how life is. Before people pay you off, I'm sure you still remember the story of Elisha, Naaman and Gehazi. Gehazi eventually went for temporal gain but got a permanent shame. Elisha rejected the temporal gain, for more permanent glory. Do you understand? And I pray that God will help us in Jesus’ name.
The father's business may look like it’s not rewarding you, but guess what, as long as you are investing, for every investment, the Bible says in the book of proverbs, “In all labor, there is profit”. What is labor? In all investment, there is profit. If only you can invest, there'll be something for you to show for it. The Bible also added that idleness produces poverty. So, as long as you are in your father's business and you are laboring, there is something for you in the future. There may be nothing for you now, but there will be something for you in the future. So, are you going to set your mind on the now, or you are going to fix your gaze on the future? That decision must be made by us. God is faithful, He is not unmindful of what we do today. He will pay us.
