The sermon titled 'Financial Intelligence Q&A Session 2' features various speakers discussing financial wisdom and practices from a Christian perspective. It begins with a discussion on the board game 'Cash Flow' by Robert Kiyosaki, which is praised for its practical financial lessons. The speakers recommend reading 'Rich Dad Poor Dad' and 'The Richest Man in Babylon,' noting the latter's pagan perspective but valuable financial principles. The session covers real estate advice, emphasizing the importance of understanding dual agency. Retirement is debated, with a preference for continuing work to prevent idleness. The sermon advises young people to seek financial wisdom from trusted individuals and start small with investments. It highlights the benefits of researching and purchasing cars online for better deals. The speakers also stress the importance of starting early on retirement savings and taking full advantage of company 401k matching programs. The session concludes with a reflection on worry and its detrimental effects, urging reliance on God's provision as emphasized in Matthew 6:25-34. Listeners are encouraged to trust God's sovereignty and not be consumed by fear or anxiety, focusing instead on wise financial stewardship.

And we'll shuttle a microphone to you and to the person who wants to answer the question. So over to you. I actually have one comment on something Mr. Jennings said with the game cash flow. We were in Amway back when he came out with that game, Robert Kiyosaki, and he was a guest speaker at a conference the year he came out with that.

We bought it at the time, it was $169 to buy the board game at that time. We played it, I had a couple men, we played it every few weeks. It was very well worth it. One of those particular men had played that game, literally put it into practice, bought a duplex, bought another one, moved him and his wife into it, much to her dismay when they got married, bought another one. One of the healthiest, most fit men I've ever met was at a regular doctor's appointment, was checking out, standing there, fell over backwards, had a intersection in his blood vessel, and was in coma for close to six months, had to remove most of his skull.

The accountant at church who was a believer went back and helped his wife with finances but the point is that because he had played that game Literally and put that game into practice they did not lose a thing financially all based on everything he had done based on that game Yeah, I made my kids play that game 20 years ago cash flow Yeah, I Want to make a recommendation? By the book rich dad poor dad particularly young people And also you might read a short book which really only tells one side of the story, but it's helpful. It's called The Richest Man in Babylon. The Richest Man in Babylon. You know, the thing about Babylon, it's really just a fictional story about life in Babylon and the richest man in Babylon and how he got so rich.

But in Babylon you had all the same problems that we have right now today. And so a lot of the principles that you've heard are found in that book. But they're basic ways of multiplying your resources and being faithful with your resources. The bad part of the book is it's a pagan book. It doesn't give the rest of the story that Mike just gave that faithfulness and heavenly riches is really the only thing that matters.

So, anybody else? Alan, this goes to you. Can you request not to have a dual agent for the broker? Because we've fallen into that on both sides. The good side, I mean, wasn't good for the other person because they were on scrupulous and told us information but then when we sold our house later on, it happened.

So you can request not to have a dual agent. On the agency agreement that we send to people, they have to initial on their yes, I am okay with dual agency or no, I am not. And then they have exclusive dual agency. So it's definitely something to watch out for but you do not have to have that because you have to sign something you're supposed to stating that you're okay with that. So if you do wander into an open house and it is listed like that, it doesn't mean that you don't deal with it.

Again, it means that you keep most of the information to yourself, understanding that they represent the seller, and then find a broker. Again, it doesn't cost you anything. And again, and this goes into something I've talked with Kelly and Al both about is understanding that there's a lot of information that's gone out. Most of us had about 45 minutes more in our notes than what we could actually hit on. And what we're hoping is, is that not necessarily us, but you all have people within your lives that have wisdom on these things.

It becomes killing our pride in asking these questions. You know, when you're going to go buy a vehicle, or you're going to invest, or you're going to do these things, seek out Kelly, seek out Al, seek out Scott, seek out Mike, seek out Ash, or seek out your father, whomever it is in your life that you trust, but seek them out so you don't get caught in things like this. But yes, you can request that. Amen. Yeah, thanks for saying that.

I would just, yeah, there were some questions last night about what do I do to start small. I know some young men and women have questions like that. Go to Kelly. He'll help you how to deal with the $200, 000, $500, 000 you have. And you have to start somewhere.

So start small. And I think he can help you figure it out. Maybe I missed it in the discussion, but an interesting question that often comes up in finances is, should a Christian ever retire? No. Or retire from one thing to go to something else.

There you go. Did you hear that, what Mike said? Retire from one thing to go to something else. Yeah. Yeah.

But if you're like that Mexican fisherman, you've got it made from the get go. Play with your kids, love your wife, and play the guitar in the evening. I just have One comment to make about the retirement thing. I don't know where I read this, but I read this years and years and years ago. That men that retire get sick very quickly.

Men are not made by God to retire. Absolutely. You know, men who sell their companies and get all kinds of money, it's bad for them. If they don't have something to do next, it's so bad for them. And they get divorces and go through midlife crises and they buy gold chains around their neck and they end up in the gutter.

Wealthy men, it happens all the time. Yeah, you should work. Men should work. They should work till they're dead. So with the story about Mexican fishermen, where would you say is that line between being not lazy but in a way lazy and not furthering your company and then actually not overworking yourself biblically?

You know, I think, you know, the apostle said, well, Solomon said, don't wear yourself out to be rich. Paul said a very similar thing to Timothy, those who want to get rich fall into temptation, and many as near. It's that desire to be rich, that's the problem. The desire to multiply your resources for the glory of God is an entirely different thing. And you know, so I think it, the motivation matters for all of it.

We are required by God to be fruitful and multiply. But that might look differently in different people's lives. People have different gifts. They have different personalities. They have different desires.

And we shouldn't look at one man's productivity and scorn another man's lack of productivity. There's tremendous wisdom in having time to be a father. Some of the richest men I know, if I call them up at 5 o'clock in the evening, they're on their way home. It's because they live orderly lives. They're not constantly, they're not constantly obsessed with their wealth acquisition because they've set their priorities and they invest in their local church and they invest in their families.

So a man has to live a balanced life and not be obsessed with the acquisition of riches. Maybe somebody else can give a fuller answer to that but the out the top my head I Those are the first things that come to mind. There's nothing wrong with being the Mexican fisherman. On the sail, is there an advantage to shopping for cart online versus shopping on the lot? One way or the other?

Generally, yes. Because when you're shopping online, you'll start to see, kind of like with homes, anything that you're purchasing, you'll see a pattern of kind of what they're going for. So shopping online, you can kind of pick that out kind of on your own when you get there or before you get there. So you'll be able to look and see, you know, how many of these are in there, how many of these are for sale, kind of where are they all at, and you'll see kind of a, you know, kind of a pattern there and kind of where they're located. But it definitely helps to do as much of that research online prior than walking onto the lot.

Plus, online, it's showing you not just that particular lot, but it's showing you the whole general area around it. When you're online, you can disappear. They know that. So they're going to get you a better deal faster, because you can email three, four, five, 10 deal ships. If you're in there working with somebody, you're kind of already in the game and you're at a disadvantage versus just being able to walk.

So I've found it tremendously beneficial to do all your dealings online. Like I said, price is already nailed before I even go in there. That's my personal experience, it's worked well. And that's where it's a little different with new versus used. New, it's a lot easier to do that.

Because new, there's thousands of 2020 Camrys for sale. If you're looking at a 2016 Camry with 30, 000 miles, it's a lot harder to kind of shop that because there's only so many of those out there. So you definitely can shop it and you can learn about the pricing on it, but it's not as easy. You can't email generally 20 dealerships on a used vehicle because you don't know where they all are. Whereas a new vehicle, it's real easy.

You go to Toyota, you go to whatever it is you're buying. You email all the dealerships, I want this vehicle. Boom, boom, boom. You're done. And you wait for them to come back.

On a used vehicle, There's only so many of those there. So if you're looking for a certain used vehicle, it's a little more difficult But you can still definitely educate yourself Let me add one more tip on this. I found in Kelley Blue Book you can pick a year and a make and a trim you get very specific on the vehicle and then you can expand the search from 25 miles, 50, 75, 100, 500. And you can really hone in and see what these are all selling for and you can usually find three or four vehicles within a hundred miles that are very close to your criteria. So even though it's not a new vehicle, you can do that very effectively with those filtering tools on Kelly Blue Book.

And that's very helpful, because you can say, I want a 2015 Volkswagen Passat diesel SEL premium red. And you'll know there's 14 of those within a thousand miles and you know three of those are within a hundred miles and then you can look at the mileage on them what they're going for are they private party sale are they on a lot or what and it's very helpful to do that then you can say well what if I if I don't want red What if I go for blue or what if it's red blue or white and instead of 14 cars you get 52 to look at? And then you shrink the distance in you can play those games and you can kind of Really hone in on what you want and even do that effectively with a used car I've found also to the reason Al's able to do that the reason you're able to do that is because cars basically sell for what they're worth you can you can get really close to what that car is worth by doing that kind of research and that's why Al can walk in there and say if I like this car I'm gonna buy it at this price because he already He already knew what the car was worth.

I was about 27 years old and I called, and I need, Debra and I needed another car. And I said, you know, can you get, he sold used cars in LA. And I said, can you get me a really good deal on a car who's a Christian? He said, Scott, there are no good deals. Cars sell for what they're worth.

Now, I know that you can find deals with individuals and things like that. But if you go to the dealership, the car's going to sell for what it's worth. They're going to sell it for that within some kind of range. You might get the lower range and get a better deal, but it's gonna be within a range and you just have to be realistic about that. One thing we didn't hit on a lot, and I'm gonna say this is kind of a brief last note on vehicles, the general recommendation is how much cash you got and go buy a vehicle for that as a young man.

I very rarely in my life even have ever bought a vehicle with under 100, 000 miles on it because I've always looked at what can I afford to pay for cash? That's the vehicle I bought. If I paid $2, 800 for it and it ran for a year and a half, great. If it ran for two years, great. Three years, great.

But I bought them for what I could afford, not necessarily on how cool they were, and I ran them into the ground. I mean, I had Volvo's that had 260, 280, 300, 000 miles on these cars, and a lot of them I bought them with 160, and I put another 160 on them but I got smoke and deals on those because of the amount of miles. Amen. Yeah. Okay, anybody else?

I want to ask Will actually if I answer this question. I know he asked a question last night. I wasn't sure if I actually touched on it to the degree in which you were asking that question. My question was when should you invest in a 401k? Like, how much did you have saved up, wanting the future, you know, to get married or whatever, and then invest in a 401k?

Like, how long, when should you be looking into that? I said- Does that offer you the opportunity to invest in it? Because those are the company's rules. When it comes to investing, one rule of thumb I always say, start as early as you can. I think brother Al hit on that last night too.

If it may just be 20, 30, 40, 50 bucks, whatever it is, start now. And then in 401k world, my general wisdom is if they have a match at your company, invest enough to get the match from the company. That's just kind of extra money going into your account. And then at that point, doing enough wisdom, doing enough research, you just kind of know what other investment options are out there, having your plan and then going by that. So generally, directly to your question, If there's a match at your company, try to get that.

Put whatever you need to in that to get that. And then also just be doing your due diligence on what investment vehicles are within that 401k. And so you want to diversify that well. And whatever money you have left above that, know where you wanna deploy that as well. And most 401Ks you get to choose the match, how much it is, here's my advice, max it out, go to the top, it's free money.

You might as well go to the top. Just remind not to have that 401k in your company's stock. Again, your salary, your bonus, everything else is there. You wanna have that diversified. That's probably the only investment in the 401k that's not diversified, right?

It's some mutual funds and everything's well diversified, but the stock in that company is not, you've got all company risk on that. If you ever leave that company, as long as you're vested and investing periods are different, maybe it's a year, whatever, you get to take that money with you and you can convert it into a self-directed IRA. You can leave it where it's at, although I don't recommend that because you have limited options in that 401K. You have like six or eight options. You pull it out, put it in an IRA, you can invest in anything you want, silver, gold, stocks, bunk.

All the whole universe of investments is available and there's some really, really high tech online trading tools today that were probably are more sophisticated than the professional traders had a decade or two ago. Some amazing research abilities and things if you have the time to do that. So yeah I agree early on the 401k keep it out of your company stock max out that match that is free money it's usually if you're put in a certain amount the company usually match that amount or just slightly less So that has the amplification power of your investing and that does build up pretty fast over time. 10 or 20 years you look back and go, wow, where'd all that money come from? It's kind of nice.

Amen. Okay. We're going to end by talking about worry and then I'm going to ask each speaker to give a 15 second final shot and then we'll sing and then we'll go home. But I want to talk about worry before we finally conclude this conference. Worry will not pay your bills.

Worry will not strengthen your family. Worry will not bless your church. Worry will not make you a more effective worker. Worry does not make anyone more productive. So that's why the Bible speaks to it.

I'd like you to open your Bibles to Matthew chapter six and find verse 25. Matthew chapter six, verse 25. Verse 25 Reads therefore I say to you Do not worry about your life What you will eat or what you will drink nor about your body what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? And then the Lord Jesus gives an illustration of birds.

Look at the birds of the air For they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field how they grow.

They neither toil nor spin and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field which today is and tomorrow is thrown into the oven will he not much more clothe you, owe you of little faith? And then his concluding words begin with this matter of don't start worrying about necessities. Therefore do not worry saying what shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear for after all these things the Gentiles seek for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you." So after really telling them don't start worrying then he says stop worrying about what's around the corner. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about its own things.

Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Now maybe you notice that Jesus three times issues the command, do not worry. And he uses a word that really means to go to pieces, to be pulled in all kinds of different directions. Don't let your worry pull you around or jerk you around, that's really the idea. And that's wisdom from heaven.

Solomon said in Proverbs 12, 25, anxiety in a man's heart weighs him down. Don't be weighed down by worry, It doesn't help. One writer said, worry is interest paid on trouble before it's due. Another man said, worry is a thin stream of fear that trickles through the mind. If encouraged, it will cut a channel so wide that all other thoughts will be drowned in it.

Another writer put it this way, worry is faith in the negative, trust in the unpleasant, assurance of disaster, A belief in defeat. Worry is so harmful to us. Someone else said, worry is wasting today's time to clutter up tomorrow's opportunities with yesterday's troubles. But God speaks of this in 1 Peter 5-7 he says, cast all your cares on him for he cares for you. In Philippians 4, 6, and 7 he says, do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

In Hebrews 13, 6, God says, so that we can confidently say, the Lord is my helper, I will not fear what can man do to me. David describes those who put their trust in the Lord in Psalm 112 verse seven. They will have no fear of bad news. Their hearts are steadfast, trusting in the Lord. God makes it very plain that he's watching out for his children.

In Romans 8 31 he tells us, what shall we say then to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us. One writer said, no sin does dishonor to God as much as unbelief does. It is an interpretive blasphemy, and calling into question his mercy, power, justice, but especially of his truth. That's Thomas Manton commenting on 1 John 5 verse 10, which says, the one who does not believe in God has made him a liar.

God's made many promises to his people. David said that he'd never seen the righteous suffer hunger and you know my parents' parents and my parents lived through part of the depression. They ate, they ate in the worst economic times in American history. And that's my expectation for all of you. That God will take care of you, He'll take care of us.

We don't need to fear at all. And we should take Jesus at his word, not to fret. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of sound mind. That's 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy 1, 6 and 7. I heard a pastor recently say that fear could be described in this acronym, false evidence appearing real, spelling fear, false evidence appearing real.

And, God made promises to us, the Lord will not allow the righteous soul to famish, but he casts away the desire of the wicked. Proverbs 10-3 and Matthew 6-25. Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life what you will eat or what you'll drink nor about your body what you will put on is life not much more than food and the body more than clothing. So don't worry God is in control of all these things. What a blessing it is to live under the shadow of his wings to know that his sovereign hand is ruling absolutely everything.

And then he gives us responsibility to take action and to be shrewd. And I pray that this church is full of shrewd people. You know frankly I've been very thankful over the years to watch our young people. Many of the young people in our church are far far ahead financially because they worked when they were young and I'm really really grateful for that. Some of you have bought houses, some of you have had enormous resources to put down on houses, and things like that, and I'm just so thankful that you chose to be workers, and you didn't fritter your lives away in a bunch of entertainments.

That's actually sinful to do that. But I'm just very grateful for you. We did this conference with the young people in our church. And we didn't do it for some kind of massive correction, but just to sort of plunge us in the whole doctrine of shrewdness in dealing with the world's resources.