Expert Ownership Podcast
Expert Ownership Podcast
Advancing The Kingdom With Your Business
Can business truly be a spiritual battleground where faith meets enterprise? Join us and discover how your business can shine God's light through a corporate culture rooted in biblical values and tackle societal darkness at the same time!
Enjoy.
Okay, so today we are talking about building the kingdom with your business. Now, obviously, we're talking to faith-filled entrepreneurs. You're already like, hey, I want to help build the kingdom with my business. And when we talk about kingdom, what are we talking about? We're talking about God's comprehensive rule in every sphere of life. That's the kingdom. Tony Evans defines it that way and I love that definition God's comprehensive rule in every sphere of life. That's the kingdom. Tony Evans defines it that way and I love that definition God's comprehensive rule in every sphere of life.
Speaker 1:David, even the root word of kingdom is king and dominion, kings, dominion. I asked my 14-year-old son hey, what's the two root words in kingdom? And he goes king and dumb. No, it's king and dominion. You crazy, anyway. But it's the dominion of God in every area of life. You do not separate your faith and business. You do not say, well, what I do at church is one thing, what I do at business is another. You don't sit there and sing the worship songs to the Lord and then turn around and manipulate and cheat people and not put others first right. That's not kingdom, king's dominion, it's the dominion of the king, king, jesus, in every single interaction and everything that you do with business and you know what, when you do that in business, it will change the community where you live. Yes, it will do that. You have a responsibility.
Speaker 1:Remember Jesus' last words before he went up into heaven and he said make disciples of all nations. He didn't just say make disciples, he made sure that we understood the context in which we were supposed to make disciples the nation in where you live, which would then whittle down to the city where you live, the neighborhood where you live, you know like, to the city where you live, the neighborhood where you live, the school district where you live. Change it, make it Christian because of your witness. Now God's kingdom has already come down, came down with Jesus. Now God's kingdom needs to come out. What do we mean by that? His kingdom is inside of you and you need to nurture it, you need to grow it, you need to strengthen it and then it needs to come out of you individually, as a family and specifically in our context today, for your business. Okay, now, I really think God has a special place in his heart for the marketplace. It's the venue where he chose the training of his own son. He chose the marketplace, the workplace where people go and do their work. I think there's a lot of reasons for that, but one of the ways is it teaches you to bring real, tangible value. If you don't bring tangible value in the workplace, you don't get paid, and we know, in terms of work, payment is the scorecard. If people aren't willing to pay you, then you got to bring better value. You know it's interesting. He got all 12 of his disciples from the marketplace. He did not go to one place of religious devotion and find his disciples, he got them all out of the workplace.
Speaker 1:And I tell people, especially young pastors, I'm like dude, if you haven't served tables, you probably aren't fit to. You're not ready to be a pastor Like you. You have to understand how to serve every single type of person, even those that'll stiff you, even those that are asking for unreasonable things Like you've got to get your butt in the workplace. You're coming out of seminary and it's not just pastors but it's all of us. But if you don't know how to work and if you can't make it in the workplace and now you're over there in the church because it's a little bit easier, you don't have to show up till nine and you get certain days off and all that other stuff. It's like, dude, you had better learn how to work, yep. And the reason why is, if you don't work well, you won't get paid. If you don't get paid, you can't provide for yourself, and so you're actually judged on the value that you bring, not on the intentions that you have. Okay, so now, the workplace is the great winnower of men. I've said that to so many people. It's the great, not just men, it's the great winnower of people. It separates those who make it from those who don't. Okay, and now we just see the workplace. It's a special place in God's heart.
Speaker 1:Now, as it relates to us as business owners, we need to see our businesses as a tool to build God's kingdom with and as a weapon to defend it. And some of you might say, oh, god's kingdom doesn't need defense. No, no, no, we've got to stand for truth. We've got to stand for truth. So we need to see our business as a tool to build God's kingdom, but also as a weapon to defend it. Now, of course, I'm spiritually speaking, I'm not talking about physical nothing. But we have to see it. Your business is a tool and a weapon. We have to see it. Your business is a tool and a weapon. It's about working. It's about fighting spiritual fighting A tool we build with, a weapon we fight with, we defend with, and that is spiritual. Where do I get that from? Well, let me take you back into the Old Testament. We've got Joel 3.10. In Joel 3.10, the Israelites.
Speaker 1:So God spoke something very clear and he says this. He says turn your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears. Now stop for a second. What's a plowshare? You know, this is what you till a field with, and that's what it is. And what's a pruning hook? It's what you go out into the field. After you've planted your trees and you've got your apple trees and orange trees or whatever it is, you go out into those pruning hooks and you prune things away. Those are the tools for their business. That's the tools for their business. And so what was God saying here? The tools of their sustainability would now be used as weapons for their deliverance, because the evil people were coming in and God knew they need to defend themselves. He says turn your plowshares into swords so that the fight is going to be real. There's a very real battle that's about to take place and I want you to take your plowshares. Those things that you do to make your living will now be used as a weapon. Those pruning hooks, turn them into spears. They're going to be used as weapons to defend yourselves. The tools of their sustainability would now be used as weapons for their deliverance. Then this is so cool when we see this kind of stuff in the scripture.
Speaker 1:A hundred years later, we see God speaking to another prophet, micah 4.3, and he tells them something else. What does he tell them? That, basically, a time of peace is coming. And he says turn your swords into plowshares and your spears into pruning hooks. Now he reversed it. See, a hundred years earlier the enemy was coming and he says take those plowshares you got, turn them into swords. Those pruning hooks you got, turn them into spears. Now, a hundred years later, time of peace is coming. He says hey, you know those swords that you got. Turn them into plowshares. I want you to use that to make money. Now, those spears that you got, turn them into pruning hooks. The weapons of their deliverance would now be used as tools for their sustainability.
Speaker 1:Basically, god is showing us that whatever it is that you do for a living can also be used to defend his kingdom For a spiritual purpose, to advance his kingdom Absolutely. Remember, you got to see your business as a tool to build God's kingdom and a weapon to defend it. Here's a live example Moses. When Moses was called by God to go and to deliver the children of Israel, this was going to be a massive spiritual hijacking, a spiritual battle, but it was also going to be a physical battle for him. And one of the first things in Exodus 4-2, we see Moses. He's kind of talking back and forth with God but God's like hey, I want you to go and I want you to deliver these people.
Speaker 1:In Exodus 4-2, god says to Moses what's in your hand? And what do you think was in Moses' hand? A staff. He was a shepherd. You know how long he had been a shepherd? 40 years. For 40 years he used this staff. He used that staff to guide them. He used that staff to fight away other animals. He used his staff for his sustainability. And now God is saying that very tool that you use to build your business, I now want you to use it to defend my people and to deliver them. Is that not amazing? The same staff Moses used in his occupation, god's now using it for deliverance of the Israelites out of slavery.
Speaker 1:Another example in the scripture Nehemiah. He gathered people by families, and what did he give them? And they were supposed to work right in front of their houses and their businesses, and he put a sword in one hand and a trowel in the other. They would have to be faithful in their work and faithful to fight. Work and fight it goes hand in hand.
Speaker 1:Your business is a tool to build with and a weapon to defend with it. Build and battle. Go ahead, david. Yeah, it's about the expansion of the kingdom. It's build and battle, and that's what you know. Ultimately, turning your swords into plowshares and into pruning hooks is the coming of Christ, with the year of the Lord's favor. Right, that's the ultimate. At the same time, there is still a battle to be won. God is on the throne. Jesus is seated there at his right hand, until his enemies become a footstool under his feet, in other words, until his enemies become useful, which means the enemies are going to continue to fight. The devil and his demons have not been judged and cast into the lake of fire. And so with our businesses. And so with our businesses, god is saying. Now I want you to use this business as not just a plowshare, but as also as a sword to fight my battles, to expand my kingdom. And that's when we, if you really want to be an expert owner, if you really want to be a kingdom business owner, you have to understand King's dominion. Because thereion because there is another principality in this world he is called the prince of the air. Which one's more powerful, the king or the prince? It's the king, but the prince fights to take the king's place. The prince fights to get worship. The prince fights to twist and distort the truth of God in order to rob, kill and destroy. And now God says okay, I want you to find where the prince is beginning to rule and I want to bring my rule there. So, if you're in San Antonio, texas, bring my rule. If you're in Little Rock, arkansas, bring my rule. If you're in Santa Barbara, california, bring my rule. That's what God is calling us to do and it requires us to have spiritual eyes. It doesn't. It's not the same for everybody. The same fight in Boise, idaho. Now, of course, some of the national macro fights yes, it's all the same. You know, you find abortion and you find the radical, you know, sexual revolution, but then the micro fights inside your town. Where is God calling you to now battle? For me, it's a huge business. So you got to see your business as a tool to build with and a weapon to fight with, build and battle. Okay, so just think about this.
Speaker 1:Jesus built stuff for a living when he was 28 years old. What was he doing? He was working as a day laborer. He built things for a living and then, at 30 years old, we see him actually stepping from the for-profit space into the non-profit space and he became a builder of the kingdom in terms of casting out demons and healing the sick and teaching people. But Jesus, you know, he never used an analogy of a church. When he was using his analogies to tell people about what the kingdom of God was like, he never said you know, the kingdom of God is like a church. No, he never did. You know what he said. It was like a business. Look at all the marketplace, look at all the workplace analogies. He gave all the business analogies he gave. It's like a farmer plowing a field, it's like somebody who's building a house and all of that stuff. Where do you think he got that from? He was in the workplace. So he built stuff and became a builder of the kingdom. Look, david shepherded sheep and became a shepherd of people, a shepherd of Israel. Gideon threshed wheat and became a thresher of the.
Speaker 1:He said you have got to see your business as a tool to build with and a weapon to fight with and we're talking spiritual battle and when you do this it's going to change your business.
Speaker 1:Let me give you just a couple quick, practical things to hang on to. The Lord teaches us that we are the light of the world. We're the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Okay, let's just focus on light for just a second. When we shine God's light, it does two things. Matthew 5, 16 says let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. So light, on the one hand, reveals your good work. On the other hand, light exposes the world's evil deeds. John, chapter three, says darkness hates the light because it exposes that its deeds are evil. All right, with your business, you're doing two things. Number one you're revealing your good works. What are the good works of business? Well, number one creating a corporate culture with a strong vision and a strong mission statement that has solid biblical values.
Speaker 1:Where you are now touching, you have touch points for your people inside your business where they can have an on-ramp to come to know the Lord. Right, you don't have to sit there and preach at them every day, you don't do any of that stuff but you have to give on-ramps to those who come to know the Lord and when those come to know the Lord, or even those that are working for you that know the Lord, those who come to know the Lord and when those come to know the Lord, or even those that are working for you that know the Lord you have to have the ability to have some sort of discipleship making apparatus or a mentorship or something. At least once a month you can establish anchor activities. That could be weekly, monthly, quarterly or annually. Right, even just one annual getaway where you actually can give people an opportunity to experience the Lord in a loving, god-honoring way through your company, right? So, whatever that may look like, but that's a good deed, of course, the good deeds of doing good work, right? All of that is understood.
Speaker 1:I don't have to discuss all hey, you got to do good work, you got to be on time. Okay, right, I'm not talking about any of that, but we're talking about being actually very intentional as shining your light as a business. That's what you want to do is with your employees, then also with your vendors and your contractors. What are ways? Pray and ask God. What are ways whether it's once a year at Christmas time, or whether it's three times a year or four times a year or once a month what are ways where you can actually touch your vendors and your contractors with the love of Christ in a way that ties your business and that ministry opportunity together? Don't just do it completely independent. There are some things you can actually do in your community that are what I call do-gooder deeds. Now, I like do-gooder stuff, but this is not the battle we're talking about. You can go build a house for Habitat for Humanity. You can go drill wells in Africa. You can do all that stuff and those are good. We need to do that, and that's often good when you can tie some of your employees into that, because it makes them feel really good about their work and it brings some compelling additional opportunities to connect as a company and to use your resources not just your money, but your resources with your talent in really good ways. That's all do-gooder stuff. That's great. So pray about God. How can I do good work? Matthew 5, 16.
Speaker 1:Then the other hand of this this is the part where Jason and I want to hit is the John chapter 3. What are the areas of darkness in my town? What are the areas of darkness in my city and in my state where God has placed my business, where I need to expose, where I need to shine the light For us? In Charlotte, we are a stage 3 abortion providing city. We have four active abortion clinics. We produce more abortions than any other city in the entire Southwest. So here we are busier than Atlanta. We've got one abortion clinic that is the number one abortion clinic across multiple states.
Speaker 1:I said Southwest, I meant Southeast, the Southeast in the United States, and so Jason and I were like that is the place of darkness, that's where we're going to go, and so we leveraged our office building. We began to host pastors, get pastors in and pray about this situation. Then Jason and I said okay, we are going to leverage our ability to create and scale large organizations. So what we're going to do is we're going to go out and we're going to start recruiting a volunteer workforce that we call Love Life, and now, of course, love Life is 1100 churches strong across 24 cities, but we have, just in Charlotte, we have 200 volunteer sidewalk counselors. They went through our sidewalk counseling training where, every minute that that abortion clinic is open, that those clinics are open, we have people there, and our dad was already there and he had a handful of volunteer sidewalk counselors there as well. So we said, dad, we're going to get you organized, we're going to bring in the masses, and then, when a woman chooses life, we now partner. Just in Charlotte, we have 150 churches that have over 300 mentor families. So, when a woman chooses life, they get plugged into a local church, they get plugged into a mentor family.
Speaker 1:Right, that's the area of darkness. Now, that is the very thing. That ministry is the very thing that those radicals when Jason and I had our HGTV show in 2014, that's what they targeted and they said to HGTV they hate women, they you know they're, they're bullies. They go to abortion clinics, of course. And HGTV was like no, we don't believe that stuff. We actually like what these guys do, but for the sake of not getting bad press, we'll go ahead and fire the brothers? Well, that, because we were shining the light in a dark place.
Speaker 1:So the question is what's the dark place in your city? What's happening in your public school systems? What are ways that you can get in? You don't have to figure everything out and lead it, but what are ways? What are leaders that are doing things from a Christian perspective? Not the do-gooder leaders, but the leaders that are doing it, pointing people to Christ? How can your business use your profits, how can you use your influence to get behind those leaders, to get behind those initiatives that are actually taking ground for the kingdom? Now, that is the way that you become a kingdom business, your kingdom inside, your kingdom outside. You're doing good works Matthew 5, 16. You're also shining the light into the darkness John chapter 3. When we do that, we are now turning our plow shares and our pruning hooks into swords that can be used to expand and advance the kingdom.
Speaker 1:So turn this podcast off. Ask God, take five minutes. Ask God what are ways where I can shine the light in my business to my people. And then ask God, what are ways, what are the areas of darkness in my town, in my city, where you are calling me to now utilize our resources as a business and shine God's light, and all hell's going to break loose. That's okay. Just ask God what are ways to do it in a wise, shrewd way? Right, you don't have to be an idiot. But God, what are you calling me to do? And then do it and watch what God does. Boom, I like it. There we go.
Speaker 1:I almost said Living Among Lions you know we have three podcasts, by the way Living Among Lions, how to Thrive Like Daniel in Today's Babylon. We've also got Expert Ownership that's what you're on. And then Beauty in Battle, winning in Marriage by Waging a War, but anyway. So thanks for hanging out with us on Expert Ownership and I love this kind of stuff, stuff. Now let's go and let's build the kingdom of god and let's defend it with our. Take that five minutes right now. Bless you.