In 1983, John Scully was the President of Pepsi. He had poured his life into that company and built it into one of America’s most iconic brands. By all accounts, he was on top of the world. But, in 1983, his life would dramatically change with a few simple words. Insert Steve Jobs.

Steve Jobs was the genius upstart entrepreneur who founded Apple. He had a brand new company and visionary ideas. But, he was untested, unproven, and frankly a little unstable. Yet, in 1983, he delivered one of the most incredible sales pitches ever recorded. When courting John Scully to leave Pepsi and come to Apple, this is what Jobs said:

John, do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?
—Steve Jobs

That proposal pushed Scully over the edge. At that moment, John Scully left everything he had built to follow Jobs and change the world.

I appreciate this story because it perfectly articulates how frivolous it would be to build a life on sugar water. But I also don’t like this story because Steve’s alternative is no better. To build a life on gadgets and tech would be just as meaningless as an empire of liquid sugar. It most certainly has been.

Most recently, this has become all the more clear. Tech stocks are plummeting, tech-friendly banks are going insolvent, and the entire industry is gearing up for a massive recession. If that were not enough, Big Tech hasn’t delivered on any of its promises.

Case in point, Facebook’s mission statement is: “to give people the power to build community and to bring the world closer together.” That sounds great, except that it hasn’t. Instead, in the Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok world, people have become more divided, isolated, and less able to have meaningful dialog, conflict, or relationships than ever.

All you have to do is look at the world around us, and you can see it. No one seems happy. People are polarized and angry at one another. Activism is fracturing people into increasingly smaller and smaller victim classes. Law and order is eroding, and the fabric of our society is unraveling as we speak. We are no better in the Steve Jobs era than we were in the Pepsi era. Any person who is being objective can see this.

With that, it is time for a new pitch.

If you want to change the world, limit investing in the limited and maximize your investment in the infinite. How do we do that? First, invest in a faithful church. Invest in a community that believes the Gospel and preaches it as their lives depend on it. Invest in a church that understands the disease of sin and liberally offers Christ as the only cure. Invest in a church that does not bend its knee to the world and woke culture but stands on God’s eternal and immutable truth!

How can you invest in this? I offer you three ways and one reminder.

Invest Your Time

One of the best ways to change the world is to get married, have lots of children, raise them up in the fear and admonition of the Lord, and teach them to invest their time in a local and faithful church. To fight to be there when the doors open and to value participation in the community. To help that church accomplish its mission. Listen intently to the sermon and walk away chewing on the truth of the Gospel throughout the week.

It involves teaching them to be present and active in the community and to give their lives for the very thing Jesus died for; His bride. It also involves teaching them how to go to work to the glory of God, how not to place their hope in their career, and how to build Jesus’ Kingdom through God-glorifying labor in their vocation (1 Cor. 10:31).

Paul says in Colossians 3:23:

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