3 Good Investment Tips for 2025

New Year’s Message

Allen Snapp

Grace Community Church

Dec 29, 2024

3 Good Investment Tips for 2025

If you have your Bibles turn with me to Phil. 3. I want to approach the New Year from a little different angle this morning and share some investment tips for us to take into 2025 with us. If you had invested $1000 in Apple in 1997 when Apple hired Steve Jobs back, it would be worth almost 2 million dollars today. If you had invested a million dollars in Blockbuster in 2000 that million dollars would be worth nothing today. In 1997 Yahoo had the opportunity to purchase Google for one million dollars. They chose instead to invest in Yahoo Kids! Today Google has a market capitalization of over 1.3 trillion dollars. Yahoo Kids was shut down in 2013.

Whether you know it or not, you are an investor. We invest our lives in something every single day: our time, our money, our energy, our thoughts, our actions! One thing I appreciate about the New Year is it gives us a chance to do some inventory about how and where we’re investing our lives to make sure we’re investing wisely in things that bring good returns.

In this passage Paul gives us some great investment tips as we head into 2025.

Tip #1: Invest your confidence in Jesus

⁴…if anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so: ⁵ circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; ⁶ concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. Phil. 3:4-6 (NKJ)

Paul takes inventory of his life and he had it all: circumcised in the right way on the right day the way every good Jew should be, he came from good stock, a Hebrew of Hebrews, a member of the highly respected Pharisaical order, unquestionably zealous as he persecuted those heretics the Christians, and faultless in his keeping of the law.

These are the things that made Paul who he was, that earned him respect and admiration as he walked down the street. And he was confident that he was doing everything right in the eyes of God too. This is an inventory of Paul’s identity.

Then on the road to Damascus he met Jesus. And Jesus flipped his life upside down. What he thought was so valuable became worthless and what he thought was worthless became his life’s passion.

⁷ But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. ⁸ Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ ⁹ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith… Phil. 3:7-9

Paul took inventory of his entire life and what he once thought was gain he now saw as loss. He says my confidence isn’t in my lineage, my confidence isn’t in my status, it isn’t in keeping the law to make me right with God. These things are garbage compared to knowing Jesus. These things are rubbish compared to the free gift of God’s righteousness. I don’t trust my goodness to make me right with God, I trust in Jesus to make me right with God. My confidence is in the free gift of God’s righteousness.

It's good to take spiritual inventory of our lives every once in a while and ask “what am I investing my confidence in?” It’s always a good investment when we put our confidence in Jesus. No one who puts his trust in Jesus will ever be put to shame. (Rom 10:11)

Confidence in Jesus changes how we look at life, how we go through trials, how we handle success. Confidence in Jesus changes how we pray, how we read the Bible, how we approach God, how we do good works. We do good works out of love and gratitude for what God did for us, but we don’t invest our confidence in good works to make us righteous. All our confidence is in Jesus.

Let’s invest our confidence in Jesus to do what we could never do and make us what we could never make ourselves. Give Jesus the decisions of your life confident he will make better decisions than you ever will! Be confident he can accomplish more with your life when you place it in his hands than you could ever accomplish.

You know why Yahoo turned down buying Google? Cause their ad income was based on keeping people on their site as long as possible and Google took people to other sites too quickly. Yahoo has struggled to stay solvent, Google is flourishing.

There’s an investment tip in there for us: we hold onto our lives thinking if we give God the reigns He’s going to run our lives into the ground. The opposite is true – when we give God full control He does marvelous things. When we cling to our lives we end up struggling with little to show for it. Confidence in Jesus is always a good investment!

Tip #2: Recognize there’s value in the bull markets and the bear markets

¹⁰ that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, ¹¹ if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Vv. 10-11

Life has its ups and downs. Good times and hard times. Bull markets when stocks are rising and bear markets when stocks are falling. Bull markets are exhilarating. Bear markets are scary. But there’s value for our lives in both!

Paul’s goal was to know Jesus in the power of his resurrection and in the fellowship of his suffering. We all want the resurrection, but we can do without the suffering. We love the bull market when things are going great and it’s cool to be a follower of Jesus. Prayers are being answered. Blessings are pouring

out. Life is good!

Then comes those spiritual bear markets when the stocks fall. Paul calls it the fellowship of his sufferings. No one wants that. Tragically it’s in the hard times that some people walk away from the Lord. They were all in for the power days, for the resurrection times, but when some degree of suffering enters their lives they walk away saying I didn’t sign up for this.

But actually Christians do sign up for both the resurrection and the suffering. Both the power and the fellowship. And that’s the hidden value in the spiritual bear markets. If we hold tightly to our confidence in Jesus and not walk away, we get to know fellowship with Jesus in a deeper way. In times of suffering and weakness we get to know Jesus in ways we won’t in times of resurrection and power.

Dave Ramsey shares about the time when early in his marriage he borrowed too much money, the bank called in his debts and he and his wife lost everything.He says: “I remember being so scared I couldn’t breathe. I would stand in the shower and cry. I met God on the way up, but I got to know Him on the way down.”

When our confidence is invested in Jesus that confidence is sure in the good times and the hard times. In the ups and the downs. In resurrection power and in the fellowship of suffering. Recognize the value in the bear markets and don’t ever think about walking away from the Lord in a season of suffering. In fact, cling to him that much more tightly and you’ll come to know him in a deeper and stronger way.

Tip #3: Make every day an investment into a better futures

In stocks and commodities futures are contracts to buy and sell at a specified price on a specified day. It’s risky cause you don’t know what prices will be in the future. It’s investing in tomorrow today and that’s what Paul says he does every day (only without the risk):

¹² Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. ¹³ Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, ¹⁴ I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Phil. 3:12-14

Paul is acting today (I press on…I press toward the goal…) to apprehend his future (reaching forward to those things which are ahead). He uses the image of a racer who reaches the goal, breaks the tape, and wins the prize. He’s investing in tomorrow today. There’s a sense in these verses of straining and pressing and reaching to make progress towards the right goal, God’s goal, for his life. He’s investing today in the bright future God has for him tomorrow.

I think that’s a good principle for us today, especially as we approach another year. Let me leave us with a few thoughts to help us make spiritual forward progress and lay hold of all Jesus has for us in 2025.

1. Don’t despise the day of small steps

I was looking back over some past New Years messages and one of my encouragements at the end was “Think big and pray big”. That’s good advice, but the problem is it can make us think that only big counts.

Forward progress with small steps is far better than not having forward progress at all. No forward progress means we’re not going anywhere. We’re not growing, we’re not changing, we’re not pressing toward any goal. We are stagnant, and stagnant actually means we’re going backwards.

In 1979 the Seattle Seahawks played a home game against the Los Angelos Rams and only gained 48 yards the entire game. But their quarterback got sacked 6 times for a loss of 55 yards so in the end they gained -7 yards. We don’t want to go backwards, we want to go forwards this year.

Take inventory and consider what might be one or two areas you want to make spiritual progress in and then commit yourself to small steps to press towards those goals.

2. Embrace change

When I read this passage, it seems clear that Paul is pushing himself forward to reach for new goals and seize new opportunities. With that comes change. Change is uncomfortable for some people, but it’s necessary. We won’t get different results doing the same thing – which means in the areas where we want to see change, we’re going to have to make changes. Don’t be afraid of change!

• Sanctification – becoming more holy in our behavior and thoughts – can’t happen without change. If we want to be better spouses, parents, or friends, we have to be willing to take steps to change.
• If we want to be used for the kingdom of God we have to be willing to step out of our comfort zone.

Be confident enough in Jesus to embrace the change he wants to bring to your life.

3. Keep going and don’t give up

Paul says he forgets those things that are behind. He doesn’t dwell on the past – past mistakes, past regrets, past opportunities missed, past should’ves, could’ves, would’ves. It’s true that the past gives us important roots that help us understand who we are and where we came from Paul knew he was a Benjamite and a Pharisee. He’s not talking about severing his past as a human being.

But roots that anchor us is one thing. Roots that tie us down in the same place doing the same thing in the same way with the same results is a kind of roots we don’t want. We will make mistakes, we will blow it. We’ll fail.

Keep going and don’t give up. Remember the Seattle Seahawks and their -7 yard game? Worst in NFL history. But they were able to forget it and end that year with a winning season. A massive and embarrassing failure didn’t become their identity and instead, winning team became their identity.

I don’t know how this message is going to speak to you or more importantly how the Lord will speak to you through it. Let’s take a few minutes to pray and what I want to do is open this mic up for anyone who wants to come forward and pray a brief prayer. What is something you want to pray that God does in 2025?

I’m going to lead us in a song and I’ll pause while someone is praying.