Episode 1. On Surety
There are certain things we take for granted – that the sun will come up again tomorrow; that we’ll head off and do what we do post days; that our plans and dreams will come to pass. So many …
They say that there are only two certainties in life – death and taxes. It’s pretty depressing. And yet we run around working hard, achieving things, so certain that tomorrow I’ll do this and next week I’ll do that. But what if there is no tomorrow for you? Then what?
So many things in this life appear to be incredibly certain. Real estate for instance. For the majority of my life time in Australia real estate has been a brilliant investment. When I was growing up there was a saying ‘you can’t lose on real estate’. And so the Australian dream, as they called it, is for everybody to own their own house.
I’ve been at auctions where people have bid ridiculous prices because they were afraid of missing out on their dream. And banks were equally duped by the market, they were happy to lend money on these ridiculous prices because of course with a loan came a mortgage.
Now a mortgage is a registered instrument of security, some call it ‘surety’ and surety is what we’re chatting about today on the program. Another way of saying it is that it’s a certainty or security. The deal is if you sell your house for any reason legally you have to pay the loan out as part of that sale and if you don’t make your payments the bank can come along and foreclose and sell the house from under you to get its money back.
That’s fantastic when it’s all going well, when the market is on an up and up but over the last decade and a half we’ve actually seen real estate prices fall. People were shocked, bank foreclosures went up, people were out in the street, they couldn’t sell their houses for anywhere near the amount that they paid for them. And it kind of pulled the rug out from under people’s financial certainty.
Hang on a minute; you can’t lose on real estate! Yeah? Sure you can. It’s just that for a long time it was such a great investment. People often described it as a rock solid investment and now having learned the hard way we realise that real estate, like any other financial instrument, has its ups and it has its downs.
And if it’s happened in a country like Australia which weathered the global financial crisis pretty well by international standards, then think about how many Americans feel; how those in Spain and Italy feel; Portugal and other countries that have been hit really hard by the financial crisis.
Okay Berni why are you rabbiting on about real estate today? Well it’s not so much real estate that I’m on about, it’s this subject of certainty, security, surety. We behave as though so many things in our lives that truly are quite insecure are in fact rock solid.
The stock market often behaves that way when it’s on a bull run. People start buying in and buying at ever inflated prices, prices that are based much more on market sentiment than on the underlying fundamentals of a company. And then we’re surprised when the bubble bursts and the market plummets.
But historically markets have always had corrections, always for as long as there have been share markets they’ve fallen as well as risen. My point today is this, wealth is not a sure thing, even if you have millions, billions locked away tight in an investment or bank account, wealth is not a sure thing.
And anyone whose security is bound up in their wealth is at some point in their lives due for a correction, a rude awakening, a shock when they come to realise that money isn’t the rock solid thing that they thought it would be.
Let’s imagine that you spend your life building up a great deal of wealth and that’s relative depending on where you live and where your life is at. You can be a labourer in Bangladesh and work hard and save and build an asset base which is significant in the society and the context in which you live. Or you can be a wealthy business woman in New York or China who’s worth billions, it’s all relative.
But let’s say in your context you build a healthy asset base and all of a sudden you feel a bit of a lump under your arm. So you go to the Doctor, he does a few tests and they tell you that you have cancer and only have a few weeks to live. What, let me ask you, is your wealth worth to you then huh?
I used to have this ridiculous saying, ‘well you know, if I can’t take it with me I’m not going’. Just stop and think about that, how patently absurd that is. At some point we’re all going and none of us, none of us is taking one cent, one penny, one rupee, one anything with us, not a zack, nothing. So then what will it all be worth?
Can I ask you a question, what are you striving for in your life and is it really worth it? What do you put your trust in, is it really that secure? This is how Jesus put this whole security thing into perspective, Matthew chapter 6, verse 19:
“Don’t store up for yourselves treasures here on earth where moth and rust consume, where thieves can break in and steal but instead store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust consumes, where thieves cannot break in and steal. For where your treasure is there your heart will also be.”
I know of one man who had a very expensive wine collection, hugely expensive. He was a well-known stock broker; his wines were worth into the millions of dollars. It was so important to store the older wines in a controlled environment that he paid money to a firm to store his wines in constant temperature and humidity and low light.
He thought it was all secure until he discovered that one of the employees at that firm had been stealing his wine one bottle at a time, carefully removing the wine and replacing it with cold tea. See nothing’s certain, nothing’s safe.
And yet people carry on sacrificing to the false god of wealth as though that’s what life is all about. Come on, wake up! That’s what Jesus is saying here, why are you doing this? There’s an eternal reality here. Stand back, think about it, is what you’re doing really worth it? Are the things that you’re placing your trust and security in really worthy of your trust?
Or are there other realities, much bigger realities, life and death realities that demand us to take a fresh look, to take a look at surety and security from a whole different perspective? Well?
It’s kind of a funny week on the program this week because we’re finishing up a four week series on money and wealth and yet it’s Easter week. In a few days we’ll be remembering the amazing sacrifice that Jesus made for us on that cross and yet when you think about it talking about wealth and death is pretty appropriate for Easter week:
“For where your treasure is there your heart will also be.”
So where’s your treasure? All wrapped up in the comfort and pleasures of life that seem so important now, oh so certain now. Or have you figured out there is a much bigger reality out there, there’s a true wealth here and now, a wealth that goes way, way, way beyond anything money can buy.
And a true wealth tomorrow, for all eternity as you live out your eternity in the presence of the one true living God; the God who sent Jesus His Son to die for you and me so that our sins can be forgiven. As Jesus said in the parable of the wealthy man who was so smug about all the stuff he had accumulated, the man who built ever larger store houses to put his stuff into, Jesus said:
“You fool, this very night your life will be demanded of you and those things that you’ve prepared whose will they then be? So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich towards God.” (Luke 12:20-21)
As we step day by day inexorably closer to Easter, inexorably closer to that cross that asks so many questions of us, let me ask you this, are you living your life as a fool or as a wise person? Who or what are you putting your trust into?
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