The Greatest Investment You’ll Ever Make
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Mt. Liberty News
By Angela Bratton
Angela is on vacation this week, so I took the task of filling in. Hoping you all have a great week.
The sermon from Bro. Grant Coffey this week was “The Math of the Soul: Why Worldly Riches Offer a Losing Return on Investment.”
We live in a culture relentlessly engineered to convince us that satisfaction is always just around the corner—or more specifically, just one transaction away. If we could only secure a slightly higher salary, acquire a bigger home, or build a more formidable investment portfolio, we tell ourselves our restless lives would finally achieve stability and peace.
Yet history and basic economics consistently tell a different story. Stock markets crash. Currencies inflate and devalue. Real estate and commodities fluctuate unpredictably. The material wealth we spend our lives accumulating is fundamentally temporary, subject to the chaotic whims of a world we cannot control.
A recent sermon tackling Matthew 16:24–26 cuts through this modern consumer narrative with striking clarity. Rather than relying on soft, abstract idealism, the message addresses us in terms every career-driven individual understands: the cold, hard logic of gain and loss.
When Jesus posed the question, “What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”, He invited His followers to examine the bottom line of human ambition. To “gain the whole world”—to achieve the absolute pinnacle of financial success, societal power, status, and pleasure—amounts to nothing if the cost is the loss of one’s eternal soul. It is, in pure mathematical terms, a disastrous investment.
The sermon calls for a radical “transfer of ownership.” True spiritual commitment requires stepping off the treadmill of endless earthly pursuit, surrendering personal ambition, and recognizing that material goods make terrible objects of worship. Gold, diamonds, and prestige carry zero currency beyond this life; no amount of wealth can buy back eternity once it is gone.
This perspective was famously captured in Rhea Miller’s 1922 hymn, popularized by performer Jerry Clower: “I’d rather have Jesus than silver or gold… than anything this world affords today.” It serves as a reminder that the most valuable assets—unconditional love, inner peace, and eternal hope—cannot be traded on Wall Street.
In an era defined by economic anxiety and constant consumerism, evaluating our lives through this lens offers a grounding truth. When we align our priorities with what is eternal, we anchor our security in something immune to the instability of the market. In the final accounting, the wealthiest person isn’t the one with the most earthly possessions, but the one who knows what is truly priceless.
Now What’s Buzzing in the Mount Liberty Hives? Backroads to dirt roads, find out Mt. Liberty’s breaking news with Leigh Anne Coffey:
I’m not sure about the rest of the county, but Friday evening I anchored everything down, expecting wind and rain tonight and out here in our corner. We got about three little drops, a sprinkle and several leaves in the pool Saturday morning, but that was it. I was really hoping for some rain.
Traveling graces go out this week to Brother Gary and Miss Ann as they head to South Carolina along with two other couples to see another couple. They’ll return on Friday.
Johnson and Angela are taking their yearly trip to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. They’ll be back this weekend.
Sam made it in only to turn around and go back out this week. So did Noah, and he will turn around and go back out.
We’re getting geared up for our fall festival, All Saints Day, that will be the weekend of the 24th, and the kids kicked off their fall break with a full day of events and a picnic.
We wanna wish Kate Person a happy birthday. She turned four Sunday, and we wish Pam and Joe a happy anniversary.
As always, if you’re looking for a church, we would love to have you at Mount Liberty. Sunday school is at 10, and preaching is at 11.
