Best Investment

              George Foreman
Best Investment
February 7, 2010
Abstract
George Foreman delivered this sermon at The Church of the Lord Jesus Christ in
Houston, Texas, on February 7, 2010. Foreman explains that serving God is the most
important and enriching aspect of a person’s life. He discusses numerous “firsts” in his
life to illustrate the meaningless of life without God.
Foreman opens his sermon expressing that he has personally striven to follow
God and make God the first priority in his life for the past several decades. Foreman
uses his experiences as testimony to the necessity of knowing and following God in life.
He continues by discussing the numerous firsts in his life to illustrate the difference a
person’s life before salvation and after salvation. Recognizing that his current situation
is better than the past, Foreman concludes investing in God is the most important thing
a person can do.
Foreman explains that he treasured his first two-wheel bicycle, although he stole
it. This bicycle brought him great joy, but only for a short time. Foreman then discusses
his first girlfriend. Foreman loved his first girlfriend dearly, but as they got older the two
grew apart and had few similar interests. During this story, Foreman interjects a
humorous anecdote about his first girlfriend’s son becoming mad at his mother for not
marrying Foreman. He next discusses his first vehicles: an old, damaged car and his first
Rolls Royce. Although Foreman’s first vehicle used much oil and eventually broke down,
Foreman had great sentimental attachment to it because it was his first vehicle.
Foreman explains that he treasured his first Rolls Royce because it represented his new-found
status, wealth, and luxury. Nonetheless, Foreman sold the car many years ago and
it lost all value to him. Foreman also states that his first vehicles mean nothing to him
and he would never take them back if someone offered. Foreman’s refusal to accept
anything from his old life reoccur throughout the rest of the sermon. Additionally, the
audience witnesses during this section how Foreman’s life changed because of his
boxing career. Foreman also describes his first home in California. He presents an
architectural description of the houses luxuries, noting the sunken bathtub, numerous
rooms, and expensive and furnishings. Despite the house’s grandeur and his love for the
house, Foreman states that he does not want the house back because it means nothing
to him. This story helps the audience understand the value of contentment in their
present situation. Foreman next discusses his relationship with his first wife, Adrienne
Calhoun, and her new husband. He expresses that although he used to worry about
Adrienne’s safety and pestered her with phone calls, he no longer wants to do that.
Furthermore, Foreman expresses he does not want to remarry Adrienne to illustrate
that the blessings God has given him now are better than his previous life. Foreman
concludes track one by discussing his relationship with his first child, Natalie. He
explains that he always wanted to be with Natalie when she was a young child. Foreman
demanded custody and hired babysitters to bring Natalie to events Foreman attended.
Although he still loves Natalie, Foreman respects the distance in their relationship and
even jokes about ignoring her phone calls.
Foreman begins track two discussing his first $1 million. Foreman explains that
he greatly anticipated making his first $1 million, and thought most of his financial
troubles would dissolve. He quickly found out the taxes on $1 million is exorbitant and
put a greater financial strain on him. Furthermore, many people sued Foreman once he
became wealthy and famous. While this originally confused Foreman, his friends
explained that many people seek to make money from rich individuals through lawsuits.
Understanding the frustrations that accompany wealth explains the emptiness in
material riches. Foreman also discusses his first appearance on television in 1973.
Although he greatly enjoyed television appearances when he was younger, Foreman says
that he turns down requests from television hosts now because it takes him away from
the church. Foreman then explains he used to have a fascination with watches,
specifically the Bulova Accutron. While Foreman’s brother Robert Earl borrowed the
watch, it broke and Foreman spent the next several years collecting Bulova Accutrons
from around the world. Nonetheless, those watches hold no value to Foreman now.
Foreman concludes his sermon by discussing the vanity of objects and firsts. He
recognizes that material objects are fleeting pleasures. Although personal relationships
will change and dissolve throughout your life, Foreman encourages his audience to point
more work on relationships than material objects. He illustrates this by discussing the
triviality of houses. Noting Muhammad Ali’s house and one of Foreman’s previous
houses, he explains that the frustrations of home ownership often outweigh the benefits.
Because of the emptiness of material possessions, Foreman encourages his audience to
make God their number one priority. While material possessions provide a little
pleasure for a little time, having the knowledge of God and his son Jesus Christ is the
most important responsibility in life.
Subject Guide
Track 1
Necessity of knowing God 00:00:01 – 00:01:49
First bicycle 00:01:50 – 00:02:30
First girlfriend 00:02:31 – 00:04:26
First vehicles 00:04:27 – 00:07:05
First house 00:07:06 – 00:09:14
First wife 00:09:15 – 00:11:07
First child 00:11:08 – 00:13:05
Track 2
First $1 million 00:00:01 – 00:02:49
First television appearance 00:02:50 – 00:04:36
First watch 00:04:37 – 00:06:29
Everything is pointless… 00:06:30 – 00:09:36
Without God 00:09:37 – 00:11:02
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Track 1 begins.
Why have someone even come to church with you if you’re not telling them the truth?
Why? It just doesn’t even make sense. It takes too much time, and why waste it on a lie? And
there are literally millions of people going to church today and they all leave out feeling real
good, but most of them leave out just as lied to as the day that somebody told them that they
were cute, and they knew they weren’t cute. But you must know the truth, and so this is what this
church is all about. That’s my calling in life. I didn’t intend to be a preacher. I didn’t want to be a
preacher. I was a big-time boxer, I wanted to be a celebrity, but God called me. Scared me in a
dress[ing] room, scared me, and I was literally scared to death. And I died. And I got this
ministry here, and every now and then he has something for me, and I do that too. But it’s based
on telling the truth.
He appeared to me in Marshall[, Texas] one time, when I was scared. Because I had been
going to church with some people and I really put a lot of faith and understanding into them, and,
come to find out, they didn’t know where they were going either. They were just flat out lying
about life. And the Lord appeared to me in Marshall, I didn’t even ask for it. I was laying in the
bed and he asked me, What do I want. Asked me what did I want. I said, “I wanted knowledge so
I could feed my souls in church, and a wife.” That’s all I ever wanted. And He’s given me these
things, and come to find out, he didn’t even have to give me the gift. He just let me open my eyes
and read the Bible. And that’s what most of us are going to have to do, is open our eyes and read
the Bible and find this grace of God and the understanding of Jesus Christ so we can save our
soul.
I remember my first bicycle. I stole it. That’s why I can remember, and I intended to keep
that bicycle, but I could only hide it so long. I enjoyed that bicycle, and finally I had to give it up
to the guy that owned it. [He] saw me riding with it, and he said “Give me my bicycle back,” and
I gave it back to him. But even before that, my mother had bought me a little tricycle. And I can
remember it with a little basket on front of it. The happiest day of my life. But if you ask me,
Where is that little tricycle? I have no idea. And if you gave it back to me it wouldn’t serve any
purpose to me, but it was the happiest day of my life then when I got the bike that I stole than the
tricycle.
I remember my first girlfriend. I fell so deeply in love with that girl. And when you fall in
love when you a little boy, you don’t ever fall out of love with that situation. You think about it.
I don’t think you ever quite fall in love ever like that again. I think I must have been about
fourteen years old, and was I in love. I was so deeply in love. And as years have gone by and I
have run into that lady, and she has her family. It was funny too, because one day I stopped by to
visit my first girlfriend, I visit her mom, actually. She allowed me to come and sit on her front
porch, and sit in the house, and I’d court the girl. I liked her. I treated her like she was an angel.
To me, that was an angel. She told me about, my first girlfriend had her first child and giving
him a good raising and all of that, and said, one day he came home and got upset with her when
he found out that I was her boyfriend. [He said,] “You see what you’ve done? You’ve messed up
everything. That was supposed to have been my daddy. That was supposed to be my daddy. Why
didn’t you marry him?” [laughter] But the girl just didn’t like me. I was up for it, but she cared
little about me. That boy was mad and they’d tell me that stuff, and we’d laugh about it all the
time.
[She] said, “Well you wouldn’t have been here.”
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“Yes I would have. If you would have married him, my life would have been a lot
better.” And we joke, and I talk to him now. We are good friends, that little boy, because of that.
But, that girl has gone on and I don’t see much of her anymore, and when I did see her, we don’t
have anything in common. We just, Those good days that we knew each other. But I was so
happy to have her. It’s gone, and it’s never coming back.
Then I can remember my first car. And I thought this car was going to get me any where I
wanted go. When I put in gas, I would fill it up with oil at the same time. And when I’d go get
gas, I had to get oil too. And I just, oil and gas, oil and gas. Finally, one day that car was in
Livermore, California, and that car had run out of oil before it ran out of gas. And I parked it on
the side of the street intending to come back and get that car, and I never saw that car again. It’s
in my mind. I can tell you the road it stopped on and everything, but I’ll never have that car
again. And if someone told me, “George, I found your car, here it is.”
I’d tell him, “Man that’s not my car.” Because I’m not interested in that old car any more.
That old car doesn’t serve any purpose to me in my life any more. It’s gone.
Then my first Rolls Royce. I was going to conquer the world with my first Rolls Royce. I
loved that car. I loved that Rolls Royce. And I’d been watching cars, and going down the streets,
buying cars. For some reason, in San Francisco[, California] I had seen this Rolls Royce dealer
and I’d go there every day that I was in San Francisco just to look at that Rolls Royce and say,
“One day, I’m going to have one of those.” And no car meant much to me like that Rolls Royce
car. I had seen other cars, beautiful cars, but this Rolls Royce stuck out. This was something
special. And then finally I made my first big pay day, got the world title, and I bought my Rolls
Royce. And I look back at that car, and that must have been about ’73, 1973, and here we are in a
new century. A new century. But I loved that Rolls Royce. It was the first car that was
everything I wanted it to be. Burgundy, and I like burgundy. And I drove it down the street and
people knew who I was. But today if you ask me, “George, where’s that Rolls Royce?”
I’ll tell you, “I don’t know where that Rolls Royce, my first Rolls Royce that meat so
much to me. I don’t know where it is.”
“Would you like it back?”
“For what? I don’t want any more of that stuff.” That car means nothing to me. I don’t
have any love for a Rolls Royce of that nature any more. It means nothing to me. Since then I’ve
had several Rolls Royce and Bentleys and all of that. But if you ask me about the first Rolls
Royce of my life, I don’t want it any more. I don’t need it any more. It can serve no purpose to
me. If you try to give it back to me, I’ll say, “No. I don’t want it.” I don’t have any room for it
number one. I’d have to tell you keep it for me then.
Then my first real home I bought. I remember it was up in California, up on a hill. And I
had been searching for homes, and finally I found the home that I liked. This home, what really
blew me away, if had a sunken bath. You go there, walk in the bathroom, and then you look
down and there your tub is. Now I think about how dangerous, I could have slipped off in that
thing, slipping on that tile, that tile in there. I could have slipped, boom, and broke my neck
when you think about how much I fall now. I could have fallen in that tub and killed myself. But
I remember that home because all the master bedroom and everything. Oh. And the cost of that
house. And after I got this beautiful home, I decorated it with everything possible. I had virgin
wool in there. And I had it dyed. And I had special wallpaper. Room for my first child. It was the
most beautiful home, it was spit level home. Boy, what a beautiful home I had! I loved that
house. It had speakers built in. A special gate you come there, you have to blow, toot, and
everything else and call, and then you could get me. And I had horses, and I had dogs. I had this
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special house in California. I went to California several years back, you know I couldn’t even
find that house. Because they had built it up so, that I kept looking, “It would’ve been here.
Where? I don’t know.” But how much I loved that house and what it means to me now is
absolutely zero. Nothing. If someone would call me and, “George I want you to have the house
back.”
I’d say, “What house?”
“But you can have it back.”
“Man I don’t need that house. Don’t want it anymore.” It was so precious in my day. I
had chandeliers, and a piano. People stole some of my stuff out of there, and even the things they
had stolen from me, someone says, “George, here’s it back.”
I say, “Man, I don’t have any room. I don’t want that junk anymore. Keep it.” It was
precious to me, but it has nothing to do with my life today. My first home, my first car. I don’t
want my first car. I don’t have any need for it.
Other day I was in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and had a good time visiting with my family,
and guess who I saw, my first wife [Adrienne Calhoun]. And we were talking and all, and we
hugged and greet, and I enjoyed my first wife. But I can remember I used to think, I better call. Is
she at home? And hear one of those songs like, Joe Frazier played the song and I’d be sitting
there in some other place boxing, and I’d hear this song, [singing lyrics from Joe Frazier’s song
“If You Go, Stay Gone.”] “Ain’t no need in going home, Joe they got your…” And I’d call,
“Hey where are you?” I was worried about my first wife. “Where are you going? What are you
doing? How long, when you going to be back?” and everything. I would wake up in the night,
Boy, I don’t want anything happen to my first wife. But anyway, I saw my first wife the other
day, and she introduced me to her first husband since she left me. And she, her first husband, and
me was tight, just like that. The best of friends. I enjoyed being with my first wife’s first husband
since she and I had broken up. But what about all those fearful nights that I used to wonder,
“Where is she at? Where is she? Where is she?” Now someone would say, “Well George, here is
your first wife. Do you want her back?”
I’d say, “No! I don’t want my first wife.” And I’m certain my first wife don’t want me.
But all the hours and the fear and the nervousness I had, for my first wife, she is gone, and that’s
it. We don’t want each other anymore. We are good friends, I mean we’re buddies, she’s tight.
We do favors for one another. But my first wife is a thing of the past in my life, and I am not
interested in her. I am not interested in her to be a wife.
Now let me get down to my first child [Natalie Foreman]. I can remember how nervous I
was. And nervous, I had never had a child before. And I thought, My gracious. And when I
found my child, I loved that child. To this day, I still love the child, don’t get me wrong. But I
thought, I’m going to be with this child for the rest of my life. I started having problems with my
first wife, and the first child, and I start saying, “I want my first child so bad with me, I’ll start
going to court.” And every time I’d get $1000, I’d go to court again. And I’d get another
thousand dollars and I’d go to court again. And I kept on going to court again to get my first
child. Because I wanted my child with me everywhere I was going. Sometimes I would have
baby sitters, “You go get her, and then bring her back, and sit here with her.” And this would
cost me thousands upon thousands of dollars for my first child. All I wanted was my first child
with me everywhere I went. And now since they have those telephones that you can see whose
numbers they call, they didn’t always have those, and sometimes I get a telephone call and I look
down there and it’s my first child and I say… [perplexed look?] And people will ask me, “Who
is that?”
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“Oh don’t worry about it.”
“So who are you running from?”
“My first child.” [laughter] Don’t get me wrong, I love my first child. But if someone
asked me, “do you want your first child back at home with you?”
I’d say, “No, my first child is doing just fine where she is. Let my first child enjoy her
life.” I don’t have any [inaudible], but I tell you I almost died at night waking up screaming
about my first child, but now, hey, so be it.
Track 1 ends; track 2 begins.
I even check the conversation I have, now, with my first child. “What did I say? When
honey?”
Now let me tell you about my first million dollars. I thought I would be the happiest
person in the world when I got my first million dollars. Now, I hadn’t realized what a joy that
would be, and I remember buying this, and I bought that, and the other. I bought this. I kept
buying things, so much with my million dollars, and you know what I forgot? That I had to pay
taxes on my first million dollars. Then that million dollars became the worst thing that ever
happened to me, trying to fight to catch up to pay taxes on that million dollars. And every time I
paid taxes on that million dollars, I owed tax on the other million dollars. People used to ask me,
“Say well George, I got a chance for you to come over and make a million dollars.”
I said, “No, hold on right now. I’ve got to get this straight.” I said, “Because, the more
I’m paying the more I’m owing here. Let me catch up a little bit.” I said, “Pay me this and pay
me that later on so I don’t get rolled up and go to jail here.” I became afraid of those millions of
dollars, that’s the truth. There was a great attorney here in Houston and his name was, and he’s
passed on now, Percy Foreman. I met him one time, even before I was champion, he walked up
to me and introduced himself, and he told me there was a place where a lot of Foremans were.
And that’s where he was from and blah, blah, blah. But anyway, we became great friends over
the years. And I called him because some people were suing me, and I hadn’t done anything, this
particular time. Generally, I had done a lot of bad things, but this time I was innocent. And
people were, they had read in the paper I had this million dollars and they kept suing me one
lawsuit after another. One lady told me, she did my answering service, she said, “George don’t
feel bad.” She said, “In California they’ll sue you for spitting on the sidewalk. That’s what they
do.” She said, “Don’t feel bad. We know that you’re a good person.” That made me feel a little
better. I was talking to Percy Foreman, and I said, “Man, why are people doing this to me?” He
said, “Well George, there’s an old Chinese proverb.” He said, “No man spears dead fish.” You
know if you go out fishing and you have a spear and you want to catch a fish, you throw the
spear at the smallest of fish, but if one comes by, I could be a giant, if it’s dead, you don’t spear
that. Let that go. No man spears dead. He said, “You a live fish, they’re going to spear you.”
That’s why, he said, “Don’t take it personal, that’s what they do to people when they hear
they’ve got a million dollars. They throw the spear at them. They’re trying to get some of that.” I
said, Oh. And that lasts me to this day. Then I’m happy.
I can remember, I’m in Kingston, Jamaica, and I just won the title.* And here’s the most
famous of all guys who does television shows, called me and said, on the telephone, he said,
“George, George Foreman, how you doing?” And someone told me who it was, it was the great
Bob Hope of the past.** And he said, I couldn’t believe it was him, [I thought] somebody was
teasing me. He said, “Well I want you to do my television show George.”
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[*Foreman knocked out the undefeated, previous Heavyweight World Boxing Champion,
Joe Frazier, during the second round of the fight in 1973].
[**Bob Hope was an American radio, film, and television celebrity until his death in
2003. Hope hosted a long-running variety show, The Bob Hope Show, from the 1950s to the
1970s, which Foreman visited in 1973.]
I said, “Really?”
He said, “Yeah. And I’m going to pay you.” And he told me this big number, I had never
gotten that for a boxing match, and he was offering to do a TV show. I was so happy, I told
everybody, “I’m going to be on television.” Put my clothes on. I even practiced the things I was
going to say, and I was on television, doing comedy on one of the major networks. All my family
and friends were tuning in on my first television show. And I was so happy talking about it every
day. We couldn’t get videos in those days, because you’d see it, and if you didn’t see it again,
you were lost. There weren’t any reruns, so we go back and I tell everybody, “Did you see me on
television?”
“Yup. Here we go again.”
“Did you see, are you sure you saw me?”
“Yup, we saw you George.” Today, I actually run away. They will ask me a range of
publicity and maybe last month, they said, George, uh, The Tonight Show, Jimmy Kimmel, and
all of them, they want you on their [late night talk] show. Man I don’t have time. I’ve got to be at
church, I got to leave. And I have to spend so many hours in church I just can’t do it. All those
precious moments, I love television. That means nothing to me. I turn down that stuff down. As a
matter of fact I hide from TV.
Oh, let me tell you about my first watch, and I don’t even have a watch today. That’s
what I should have on today is a watch, I forgot. I have more watches and I always forget them,
leave home without my watch. But it’s an Accutron. Remember that Mike? [audience member]
Bulova Accutron.* And I loved that watch, and you could see through it and all the playboys had
that watch. And I finally got enough money to buy that watch, and that watch cost less than
$150, but then I was cool. I loved that watch. Everywhere I’d go I’d make sure to hold my arms
so people could see my watch. Playboy watch. Finally I can start buying this, that, and the other.
And my brother, Robert Earl, he came to me, he said, “Man you’ve got all of those watches. I
always wanted that watch of yours.”
[*The Bulova Accutron became the first electronic watch 1960. The earliest Accutron
models had transparent casing on the watches face and back that allowed people to see the
electronic components.]
I said, “Sure.”
He put that watch on and he said, “Now I’m the playboy.” And he wore that watch, and
wore that watch. And finally one day, he told me someone had gotten mad with him over his
playboy ways and threw the watch away. Took it off his arm and threw it away, because he
thought so much of it. Because I asked for it back. And so I took to collect watches trying to get
that watch back. I went to Europe, everywhere I traveled I started collecting those Accutron
watches that you can see through. And eventually I have so many of those things I can’t even
count them anymore. They were no longer $150 though. People were charging me, and they
don’t make them anymore, because I thought they would. Then after I saw all of those watches
and I put them down and collect them, the last thing I’m going to put on my arm now is that
watch. I mean it was nice to have them and everything, but I don’t have any desire to wear that
particular watch. I even forget to wear any watch now.
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All the things in my life I’ve accumulated means nothing because they are gone. My first
million is gone. My first car is gone. My first child has got her own life and she’s got things to
do. And I told you about my first wife. I told you about my first car. If you try to get me back my
first home, I don’t want those things any more. They don’t mean anything to me. So in life, all of
us, we decide that we’re just going to structure our life to get something else to say it’s my first
this, that, and the other. But is it worth it? Gather all these things and in the end they mean
nothing to you? People mean something to you. Like, I love my daughter. I wake up in the night
still shaking my head about my mother. And I still sit down in the car and have a little cry about
my father, but they’re gone, and they’re not coming back. All I have left is, not my Rolls Royce.
All I have left is me. All I have left is me. And that’s alright, that’s alright. Because now, God
has given me something special. He has given me the knowledge of Jesus Christ. And today, if
you happen to get a car, don’t get so happy that you forget that that car is going to be tomorrow’s
junk. If you happen to get a house, and some of us are really, All I want is my new home.
Did I tell you about the time that I went to this famous boxer’s house, ol’ Muhammad
Ali, and this was way back years ago. He’s finally found this house in Beverly Hills, he loved the
house. I had these houses in Beverly Hills too. And you liked these homes. And we were sitting
there enjoying ourselves over at his house, waiting for him to come out, and lo, a rat run across
the floor. [laughter] I was with my friend, I said, “Did you see that?” That was a brave rat
because he came back. And I don’t know if he kept coming back or not, I think there were more
than one rat. So all these big ol’ homes, and all that big ol’ property, and they still couldn’t stop
the rats. It couldn’t stop it. And I’ve had some of the most fancy homes ever. Sitting there
enjoying my home and look flopping past me is a big ol’ roach. Now how did you get in here
roach? Roaches and rats, that’s who owns the homes. So you might say, I’d do anything to get
my first home. That’s ok, but don’t do anything. But remember, those homes are going to mean
less and less to you as the years go by because they’re going to be put in their proper places. All
of the big homes I’ve had. I remember my dear wife because she wanted this one house in
particular, upstairs and downstairs. This and furniture, blah, blah, blah, her house. And she was
so happy when she had got her home, and I had not seen her happy again until she sold that
booger. And then she said, “I’ll never do that again.” [laughter]
In other words, try, and try as you may to achieve things, but everything you get is going
to become unnecessary, and things you going to be happy to get rid of. Your first car, you’re
going to be, “Lord I need another car.” You’re going to find my first home, my first watch, my
first ring, my first anything. Even your first husband. We want to make certain that we drive you
to the face of God and make sure that the first thing you get and appreciate is Jesus Christ.
Because now after all is said and done, I’m alone, I have God. I have Jesus Christ. And that’s
what all of us should strive to get. To make certain that you don’t put these things ahead of God.
And don’t you strive to achieve anything without making certain that you’ve got God in your life
and Jesus Christ as part of your conversation. Because if you happen to wake up in the morning
with a million dollars and think you have something, I know for a fact it ain’t all that. It’s nice to
have money, but it ain’t all that. It’s nice to have cars, but it ain’t all that. It’s nice to have a lot of
jewelry, but it ain’t all that. Nice to have a swimming pool, but it definitely ain’t all that. But
what we want to make certain we leave out of this life with is the knowledge of God and his son
Jesus Christ.
End Track 2