The Market Declares the Glory of God

Creation and the Beauty of the Natural World

Shelter-in-place order, April 23rd, social distancing, New Hampshire, self-isolation. I want to talk about getting paid, son. You ever read about like John Edwards or some of the old Puritans and they talk about God's creation.

They talk about the way that the clouds are just so beautiful, the mountains, the rivers, just all the stuff. God's wonderful creation. It's just, you could look into this stuff and just awe and wonder endlessly.

I mean, you could just, it's just, it's unbelievable. And the way that the Puritans wrote about it, you know, some of these guys would go to the woods and, you know, they'd see all this stuff and they'd just, they'd just be in awe.

Tears would come to their eye and just, they just want to worship. It just makes you want to worship. And you ever been in a small group that you read a book like that and then the small group guy gets, you know, so emotional and he's like, how often have you just sat back and appreciated God's good, good, good creation?

You know, those are those touchy feely small groups. And I never really cared for them, but, but you know, you know, you get the idea, right? We've all done this and go to the beach. You just see the, the, the horizon.

It's just amazing. That flat, perfectly flat, flat horizon. It's just so cool. Let me look at the images that I've got up here. I mean, look at this stuff. It's just absolutely amazing. Look at this, look at this rainbow here with the, with the, with the Valley and the waterfalls.

Just amazing. Look at this waterfall. Wow. This is beautiful stuff. And I, I often, you know, I'm not one of these touchy feely types, but when you go to a place like this, it's hard to not just appreciate God for his creativity, for his power, for his majesty.

You see a sunset like that. It's just, it's just really something to behold. You know what I mean? But let's not limit the imaginative, imaginative, creative, just sort of wonder of God's creation. Cause we've got to remember, like God created like everything, like, like literally everything.

Like that's, I don't think that I can wrap my mind around exactly what the word everything means. Like everything, he created everything. And here's something that I often kind of feel that same wonder about.

The Market as a Beautiful Creation of God

That's right. That's right. Markets, markets, and market pricing markets. And this, what, what, what happens in a market that, that human action, that exchange of, of, of value. That's a beautiful thing.

Like that, that brings a tear to my eye. I'm not going to lie. And it's, and it's, it's just, it's just amazing. If you watched my fight, laugh, feast pod, or listen to my podcast today, you heard me talk about this, but I want to really drive this point home because the market is a beautiful creation.

It's really, it's beautiful. You get two people coming together. I'll tell you the example I used in my podcast today, a couple of days ago, I took some of my Trump cash and I bought some stocks. You know what I mean?

I've been buying stocks for a long time, but, but I took that Trump cash and it put a good portion of it into the stock market. And I bought a few stocks and I bought a Sunoco stock. I bought a silver mining company.

And I also bought a silver and gold mining company. I own a number of different silver and gold mining companies, but these are two new ones for me. One of them I really like, but anyway, I'm not a stock.

I'm not a stock broker. I'm not, I'm not giving you real estate or stock advice here. But when I did that exchange, like, like something beautiful happened in that exchange, because I walked into that exchange.

And what I was saying, when I went to that market, I said, I want to buy these stocks. And I think those stocks are worth more than the money I have in my hand, because I wouldn't buy it. You wouldn't buy anything unless you valued it more than the money you had in your hand.

That's, it wouldn't make any logical, rational sense to buy something that you didn't think was more valuable than the money you had in your hand. And for whatever reason you value it, you know, it could be just out of pure enjoyment.

You know, you buy a candy bar or something like that, just for pure enjoyment of the candy bar, that joy that you get from the candy bar was worth more than the dollar you had in your hands. Or it could be for security, maybe you're buying a weapon, or maybe you buy a security system.

Or maybe you're buying an investment that is going to help you financial to be financially secure, whatever the reason is, there's different reasons we value things. But you walk into that market, whatever kind of doesn't have to be the stock market, be any kind of market.

And you're saying, whatever it is that I'm going to purchase with this, I value more than this. So you go into that transaction thinking you're getting the better end of the deal. And likewise, and it's, and it's, and it's purely, it's, it's, it's purely thinking about yourself and your own situation.

You know what I mean? Like, it's not greed, but it's self interest. It's self serving. When you go to that market, you're serving yourself and you know, whatever your interests are. So when I go to the market, oftentimes I'm serving myself, but also my family, because I'm interested in my family, I've got a, I've got responsibility for my family.

So I go to the market with self interest, and I want to get something that I value more than what I have. Think about the other person in that transaction. They think the same thing. They value the money that you have in your hand more than the item that they're going to sell you.

So they think they're operating from their self-interest, and they think they're getting the better end of the deal. And we're both kind of thinking that. So when these people, when the person sold me the Sunoco stock the other day, I don't know who it was in the market, the way we do markets, you know, now they're just such a huge industry that we don't often meet the person that we're buying from, right?

We make an order and then we make, you know, get someone to make, to fill that order. So whoever sold me the Sunoco stock was thinking to himself, you know, that money, I need that money more than I need these stocks.

I value that money more than I value the stocks, you know, the stock in this company, this equity. And so they sold it to me. They walked away from that transaction thinking they got the better end of the deal.

And maybe they did. But I walked away from that transaction thinking the same thing. I was operating purely on self-interest, obviously in God's parameters, not like a greedy self-interest that we often think about when we think of the word self-interest, but I'm doing what I want to do.

In other words, I'm doing what I am interested in doing. I took my Trump cash and I bought some Sunoco stock, right? So there you go. I walked away from that transaction thinking I got the better end of the deal.

And so one of us is going to be right in the eyes of the world, in the eyes of the impartial, right? But we can actually both be right. It could be a win-win for both of us. So think about it this way.

Let's say I bought that Sunoco stock for $20 a share. And then it gets to $40 a share in May. You know, in the eyes of the world, they're going to say that I got the better end of that deal. You know, I made 100 back on that investment in one month.

That's just an example. I don't think that's going to happen. But in the eyes of the impartial in the world, I got the better end of the deal. But it's possible that that's actually not accurate because that person who sold me those Sunoco stocks for $20 a share, even though they could have had $40 a share, if they waited a month, it's possible they needed that cash now.

Like, they needed that cash. And I don't know how much that person paid for those shares. He could have paid $10. And so he ended up making $10 a share and he needed the cash now. And so it was very valuable to him, even if he thought, hey, this could go to $40 a share next month.

But there's value in having this cash now because I need it for whatever it is. I'm making a purchase. I need to pay my rent, whatever it is. And so you don't ever really know what someone values and why they value it at that price, at that amount.

No one really knows that except the two parties involved. Like, I could be like, well, I want the Sunoco stock because I want to have that stock for the rest of my life. Or I want to get in. I want to get out.

I want to make a quick buck. There could be lots of reasons why I would buy Sunoco stock or a silver mining stock or anything, an Apple, you know, I need a computer, a phone, anything. And nobody really knows why people value things the way that they do, except the people in the transaction.

And then the market, what we call the market, is the aggregate, is the sum total of all those transactions. And so that's why the market is so beautiful, because two people can walk into a transaction motivated by their own interests.

And both people walk away with a situation that improves, in their opinion, what is an improvement from the situation they were in prior. That's why you make an exchange. And the same is true with a labor.

When you agree to work for someone for $15 an hour, what you're saying is, I value $15 per hour more than I value what else I could be doing in that hour. I'm more than I value the hour itself, for any other reason.

And so we both walk into that transaction, you know, feeling like we got the better end of the stick. That doesn't mean that you're making what you think you should make. But there are other things that go into this, like, let's say I think I'm worth $20 an hour, but I can only find a job for 15.

Well, if I need the money, then that also factors into my calculation. So I'm like, okay, well, yeah, it's worth it for me to sell my labor for $15 an hour. So the market is beautiful in that way. The market is beautiful in that way.

People like to blame the market for greed. And people like to blame the market for all kinds of sin and stuff like that. But the truth is, you can't blame the market for that. Because the market is God's creation.

And the market is beautiful. And the market can't be greedy. Because the market isn't a person. You know what I mean? The market can't be greedy. The market can't be evil. The market can't do those things.

People can be greedy. People can be evil. People can steal. People operate in a market. But the market is not a person. And so when somebody is greedy, that's not the fault of the market. That's the fault of the person.

That's sin inside of a person. And so we need to be clear about that. The market is beautiful. When I think about the market, I get the same feeling that some of y 'all feel when you see this. Pretty beautiful, right?

It makes you think about the Lord and how amazing he is and how powerful he is and how creative he is. Well, that's how I feel when I think about the market. What an amazing invention. What a great God we serve.

Profit Motive, the Parable of the Talents, and Returning Value to God

Awesome stuff, man. Awesome stuff. Anyway, I hope you found this video helpful. God bless. Look, this video was not an endorsement of Sunoco as a company or any particular stock or anything like that.

But I personally think that God is very, very pleased with his invention of the market. I think that he intends us to use the invention of the market. When God created the world, he also created the market, and he expects us to get returns based on that voluntary exchange of value.

He wants us to get returns. I think it makes sense to want to go get as much return as you possibly can to be profit motivated, not for your own greedy purposes, but for the kingdom of God. Profit motive is healthy, and we should try to be excellent at gaining profits.

I think God's quite proud of this creation. Look at this parable. This is one of my favorite parables, and it's very market oriented. I think God is showing off this creation of his, the market, in this parable.

Here's what he says. He says this about the kingdom of God. It will be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted them to his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one each according to his ability.

Then he went away. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them. You see, he started engaging in business. He went to the markets, and he started trying to take advantage of people selling things that he felt were more valuable than the talents that his master gave him.

He did take advantage of that. Listen, listen. He said, so also he who had the two talents made two talents more, but he who had received the one talent went and dug it in the ground and hid his master's money.

Now after a long time, the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. He who had received the five talents came forward bringing five talents more, a hundred percent return on the investment.

Man, he took advantage of those markets. He said to those people, I value what you have more than I value the talent that I have in my hand. Let's do some trades. Let's do some trades. And he did enough business.

He actually gained a hundred percent on his master's money. Let's just face it. He got a tremendous return on his master's money. You could say he did that at the expense of others because he traded with others.

And so you could say that it was at the expense of value that they held that maybe they didn't quite know what they had. That doesn't mean he was robbing people or cheating people. No, he engaged in business and those people walked away from those deals feeling like they got the better end of the stick.

And yet here this guy is, he turned five talents into 10 talents. That's a tremendous return on the investment. We often get mad at people who make money in the stock market. Like people were getting really mad at what's his face from Pershing Capital, who made a killing during the stock market crash a few weeks ago.

People were getting real pissed at him. And it's like, well, I don't know. I mean, I don't know. It seems to me like being competent to get returns on your investments is probably something we should all strive for.

He says, master, you delivered me five talents here. I've made five talents more. His master said to him, well done, you good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little. I will set you over much.

Enter the joy of your master. You've heard this parable before. I'm not going to go into the whole thing. It certainly seems to me like profit motive and the ability to engage in markets, to make money, to earn.

I think God intends for his people to do that. I think God is very happy with his invention of markets where you can do that. Two people can walk into a transaction and not rob each other and yet walk away with more value than they walked into that transaction with.

That's an amazing thing. And that makes me really just feel like, wow, what a God, what a God. Anyway, I hope this was helpful. God bless.