How do you respond to critics who call whole life a poor investment?

It's not an investment, and when you look at it, where it fits in someone's portfolio is an alternative to cash, when you think about funding it that way, an alternative to maybe money markets or bonds or the safe stuff.

On top of my whole life, I have a tremendous amount in the stock market.

You know, most of my money actually is in the stock market.

I own a business.

I have real estate.

People get too much into the this or that conversation, and what I found in all my research and all, you know, 23 years of experience working with very high-end advisors is the magic comes when you have it all, when- 'cause they all work together in their own ways.

So my question to you is, when that time hit, what effect did it have on you or what did you learn from that time?

Let's dive in.

About five years ago, as I was leaving my 15 year career at MassMutual's home office, I got a call from a young advisor that I'd worked with years ago when I was a life insurance wholesaler.

And his name is Tim, and the thing you gotta know about Tim is when I met him early in his career, all he wanted to do was talk about life insurance, whole life insurance, dividend paying, participating whole life insurance, and refer away the rest.

It took him almost four years to even get an investment license in a culture where you get it in year one.

He calls me out of the blue and says, Tom, I'm having a crisis of confidence.

I haven't talked to you in a few years.

I need to talk to you.

early as year

Amen.

Thank you, Link.

Well, good morning, church.

It's wonderful to be invited here this morning and to have the privilege to share God's word with you.

Just to give you a bit more background than just working at Norwest School, I have also been in pastoral ministry for over 20 years as a Presbyterian minister.

And so, again, it's great to be able to share God's word with the saints here at Riverstone and to be able to look at this wonderful passage that we have in front of us this morning.

And what I thought as I was going through this passage was, what I would do normally I would just go through and explain the verses exegetically and give us a rundown of what it is and how to apply these words but during the week I thought and considering the the theme that you've been going through Jesus in the present How does the vine and the branches speak to us today? What's it saying to us right now in our lives and how are we hearing it? So that's my plan for this morning.