Kingdom 1st Business Alliance with Rev. Randy Clay

Father, we just thank you and praise you tonight for those

that haven't shown up for attendance, we're thankful that

we're able to impart some things that'll be a blessing tonight

that we've worked on over the last month.

I thank you and praise You that as we continue in the months to

come, that everything that we have to say has a value to it,

something for us to consider to be able to get an understanding

of what is expected of us and how we can be involved in your

business, which is the only business.

So it will ever, ever last forever.

And we want to thank you and praise you for our part in it.

We give you praise for the word tonight and we thank you for it

in Jesus name, Amen. Tonight we're going to talk

about vision and I kind of titled this as a subtitle to

that. What are you looking at?

What are you looking at? OK, now I want to give you a

reminder tonight and if you can fill these in for me would be

great. We learned these when Apostle

Earl got to the point of Kingdom.

Most of you know my story in 2007.

It was a Black Friday. I was spending time with the

Lord. The Lord told me two things he

said. One, you're not Kingdom minded

enough. I thought, what does that mean?

OK, didn't tell me, OK. And so it wasn't until a year

later, that was 2007. It wasn't even year later, it

was a half a year later when we came down here and Pastor wanted

to be able to go to a conference.

And when we moved down here, I was supposed to go that

conference with him. We arrived at 2:00 in the

morning on a Tuesday. We were all wore out.

Pastor said I'm going to go to the conference.

He said you don't worry about it, I'll just let you know what

it was about. Great thought that what would

happen didn't happen, OK, because he was so changed from

that one conference in the arena of understanding the Kingdom

like he had never seen it before.

He decided this is the way that the Lord wanted the church to

go. So Paul Sorrell, you know, began

to teach us. He taught us for four weeks.

Were you here? It was 4 weeks call and it was

basically as talking about the unseen realm.

OK and I'll never forget he had me right as we got here.

Print a T-shirt and it was a black T-shirt with black ink and

it said, you know, let's see the unseen.

Now you could see it when the light shined on the shirt just

about right, but you had to really get up on it to figure it

out right. And I'll never forget that he

taught that that particular Sunday morning.

It was June the 7th, 2009. We got here in May.

So the Lord was getting ready to show me what he meant that

previous year on understanding the Kingdom.

The only thing that I had studied it out.

I, I thought, that's what you're supposed to do, that the Lord.

I want me to study it out. And I thought, OK, I'm going to

study it out. I had a opportunity to minister

back in Oklahoma two weeks in a row and I talked about the

Kingdom. I had no idea what I was talking

about still. And then when Pastor dropped the

Kingdom on us, the one thing that clicked with me is

understanding we're talking about a government.

Well, he had basically gone to see Miles Monroe.

Miles Monroe, one of his first books out, was Rediscovering the

Kingdom. All right, when Pastor got back,

he had bought the first three books that that Miles had

written. And he had and and I was going

into his office telling great service.

OK. And I saw those three books.

Well, I go to the other side of the desk and I'm looking in

books over kind of taking a mental snapshot of the covers.

I went and bought those books. You guys have probably heard the

story. All right.

And blew my mind. I mean, this is what we've been

waiting for. And this is before he, he

dropped the message on us. And so I'm, I'm, I'm thinking,

man, I'm getting what I missed out on.

And, and all of a sudden I'm telling Josh about it.

And Josh says, Oh yeah, pastor told us about that and he told

us not to read it. And I go, oh, that's weird.

OK, well, he never told me. So I just kept reading.

And then all of a sudden, 5 minutes later, I get a phone

call. I should have known you'd buy

them books. I said, yeah, man, they are

awesome. And he goes, how far are you in

the first one? I said about halfway.

And he said shut the books, I don't want you looking at the

books until I get done. I said, OK, put them on the

shelf. But I remember the third book,

the cover, because I looked at the covers pretty good before.

I just decided I'd wait, right? There's four things that Miles

said in there I want you to listen to, he said.

These are the greatest, OK? The greatest tragedy in life is

not death, but life without a purpose, OK?

The greatest challenge in life is knowing what to do.

I changed that a little bit, and I'll give you the word that I

added to it. OK, Miss, the greatest mistake

in life is being busy but not effective.

But the big, the biggest or the greatest failure in life is

being successful in the wrong assignment.

So tonight I have a question on each of those because when I got

to the tragedy all right, and he said a life without a purpose,

he said challenge. He said knowing what to do.

And I added the word next because sometimes we may be in

the middle of what to do, but what do we do next?

I always want to know, Lord, what is it?

What is it we need to do next? Because if we obey the first,

there will be a next, OK, all right.

Third thing was a mistake. The greatest mistake in life is

being busy and not effective and being a failure in in life is

being successful in the wrong assignment.

So the question that I have that we need to really purpose to get

in US tonight is who gives us the purpose, all right, what to

do or next? All right, giving us something

that will be effective and giving us something that is the

right assignment. That's that you, we have to ask

who gives us that? I'm going to tell you, and you

should already know, it's God. If we want to be a success in

life, we have to do what He wants us to do.

Now when we talk about vision, one of the things that I'm going

to give you, I'm going to give you several scripture tonight

and I'm going to read them all. OK, Psalms 127 verse 1 is where

Psalms 127:1

I'm starting and this is what Psalms 127 verse one says,

except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build

it, except the Lord keep the city, the watchman awaketh, but

in vain. So the first thing that we have

to ask our ourselves is it when it comes to our vision, all

right, or comes to a vision, we need to understand who's

building what we got going on, whatever it is that we've got

going on. We want to know and identify who

it is. All right now concerning, you

know, life and provision. OK, I want to let you know what

we should be looking at. OK, if we're going to talk about

vision, we're going to talk about what should we be looking

at? And I want to remind you of

Matthew, chapter 6, verse 26 through 29.

Matthew 6:26–29

Now remember, chapter 6 is in the middle of the Sermon on the

Mount, Chapter 5. Jesus went up to a mountain, sat

down, called his disciples to him and began to say, and he

goes starts a sermon. OK, he gets into chapter 6.

That's where we find at the beginning of chapter 6, how to

pray. We find out how to give alms.

We find out how to fast. We find these things out.

Then he goes into the realm of the way that we are supposed to

see provision. All right in verse 2026, he says

this. Behold the fowls of the year,

for they sow not, neither do they, nor do they gather into

barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

Are you not much better than they?

All right. The word behold in there is a

Hebrew word in Bleppo and in Bleppo.

I'm sorry, it's a Greek word in Bleppo.

Listen to the definitions. To look on, to observe fixedly,

all right, to look at with the mind.

So what is Jesus telling us here?

He said, listen, when it comes to provision, when it comes to

and we're going to equate this to business, OK, When it comes

to that, he's telling us what we need to fix our mind or what

should we be looking at? He said, behold the fowls of the

air. He said it isn't a casual

glance. Oh, oh, there's a bird over

there. He's saying, no, he wants you.

And the last one, it says that you, you see with your mind, in

other words, you think, you begin to ponder and think about

this bird. OK, Jesus said that.

He said you. I want you to look at this is

what you're supposed to be looking at when it comes to

understanding provision or increase.

He said, I want you to behold the fowls or the birds of the

air. Then in verse 27, he said, you

know which of you by taking thought can add 1 cubit unto his

stature. And he said, and why do you like

take a thought for Raymond? And he says the word consider

the lilies of the field, how they grow, they toil not neither

do they spin and and the word consider is is the Greek word

catamanthano. You don't need that.

Just just note that this listen to this.

It means to learn thoroughly examine carefully.

So when we ask the question, what are we supposed to be

looking at? I don't know about you, but I

want to start looking at what Jesus told us to look at in the

vision that He had for us. And he said, Yet I say unto you,

that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one

of these. Wherefore if God so clothed the

grass of the field, which is today is, and tomorrow's cast

into the oven, shall you not? How shall he not much more

clothe you? O you of little faith?

Therefore take no thought saying, What shall we eat, What

shall we drink? Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

For after all these things do the Gentiles seek?

For your heavenly Father knows you have need of all these

things. Then we get to verse 33, which

all of us should know. Seek ye first the Kingdom of God

and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto

you. He said, take therefore no

thought for tomorrow, for tomorrow shall take care of the

things of itself. And sufficient unto the day is

the evil or translated trouble thereof.

So sometimes we get caught up in what we're living instead of

taking time to look and see what it is that God wants us to see.

Sometimes our businesses, sometimes the the lack of

business or too much business or things like that can distract us

from what God's really wanting us to look at.

All right now, let me give you the purpose.

You know, the purpose that we want to talk about is this is

help business stewards understand the God-given vision

that should manifest in business, daily business

activity, right? We want to make sure that when

we're in business or we're doing something that we want to make

sure that God is, is the one giving us that vision and

showing us how to do it. Because he's, if he's giving you

a business, he lets you know in advance his vision of your

business that you're supposed to be involved in.

Now I was talking to Seth the other day and I said, Seth, if I

asked all the people here, now you got to imagine with me, you

got a lot of people here, OK? And, and The thing is, is that

I, I said, if we asked everybody in the crowd, how many of them

were told by God in their prayer time and their different things

that he wanted them to start the business they're in, How many do

you think would tell us that? And he said not very many, which

is true, OK. Most of us wind up in business

because we have an interest or we have a talent OR we have a

skill. And most of the time we think

about the fact that, you know, if we're working for somebody in

that skill, we see a lot of problems with them.

And we think I could do that better.

And that's usually the thought that happens before somebody

goes into business for themselves is that we could do

it better without knowing the cost, without knowing why we

charge so much. I had somebody years ago come to

me and they said we want to go into business because we can do

this cheaper than the other guy. And I said, OK, before you do

that, let's talk about overhead, Let's talk about, you know, cost

of materials. I mean, you're saying that you

can make this same product, but the fact that you don't have a

place to make it yet. OK, it's going to be interesting

for me to find out the rest of the story, OK?

So be cautious about the fact that you think you can beat

somebody in price because there may be a reason they have that

price, the salaries, the everything.

OK, So you got to be careful about that.

But when it comes down to that last statement that I just made

is that the Lord has told us and what and I said in there, He

said that if God has given you a business, he lets you know in

advance the vision of the business activity you're

involved in. Let's let's take a look at a few

things that God, what he sees about us in business.

OK, let's see what God sees. All right, Deuteronomy chapter

Deuteronomy 8 · chapter mention

8. Now when he took the children of

Israel into the land of promise, he gave them a picture, He gave

them a vision of what it would look like in advance.

And if you start in verse 7, he said, for the Lord thy God

bringeth thee to a good land, a land of brooks and water, of

fountains and depths and springs out of the valleys and hills,

and the land of wheat and barley, vines, fig trees,

pomegranates, land of olive oil and honey.

A land wherein you will eat bread without scarceness.

He said you will not lack in anything in it.

A land whose stones are iron and out of whose heels you'll dig

brass. He said, when you have eaten and

are full, then you shall bless the Lord thy God for the good

land which he has given thee. He said, Now beware that you do

not forget the Lord your God, and not keeping his

commandments, his judgments, his statutes, which I command thee

this day, lest that when you have eaten in are full, you have

built goodly houses, and you dwell therein.

And when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and silver and

gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then

thine heart will be lifted up. And you forget the Lord your

God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt from the House

of bondage, who LED thee through with great and, and LED you

through that great and terrible wilderness wherein were fiery

serpent scortons and drought, where there was no water.

Who brought thee forth out of the water, out of the rock of

Flint? Who fed you in the wilderness

with manna, with the fathers, who knew not that he may humble

thee and and prove you to do the good at the latter end.

And he said, And you'll say in your heart, My power in my mind

hand has gotten me this wealth. That's a key scripture.

OK, he's warning them. Don't say that.

Don't say that my my heart say in your heart that the power in

the might of my hand has gotten me this wealth.

Verse 18. He says because you will

remember the Lord your God, for it is he that has given you the

power to get well, then me, He may establish his covenant,

which he sworn to thy Father's that it is this day.

So God's telling us, listen, he's painting a picture, He's

showing a vision. When you get to the land that I

have prescribed for you, you know, I know people that have

not yet made it to their land. Why?

Because they're not holy WHOLLY the Lord their God.

They are not, They are not seeking Him and finding out what

he's about. And he lets him know.

He said, listen, all this stuff's coming, all right.

But he said be careful. Don't forget me when things get

good. Don't forget the things that

I've done to help you get this, He says, because it's me that

has given you the power to get wealth.

And basically if you translate that in the Hebrew, it means

I've given you the creativity or the ability to create wealth.

And he says and and he said that, but you got to find out

the reason, which is the last part of that verse.

He wants us to have all that we need plus more that he may

establish the covenant as it is and he said this day.

So his vision is not necessarily our vision if we're more

concerned about making a business or forming a business

for the things that we won't and the things that we do need

because all of a sudden, you know, got mortgages, you got

everything all right. But he tells us, I just read the

scripture. He said, don't take thought for

those things. What do I want you to do?

I want you to see how I provide the birds of the air what they

need, how I provide what the lilies in the design that they

are what they need. He said that's what I want you

focusing on, OK. I don't want you necessarily

focusing on, you know, the business standpoint of that's,

you know, it's us for no more. Some would say 6-6 and that's

it, right? OK, so he tells us that, but I

want to go back to the 28th chapter of Deuteronomy 'cause he

again paints the picture of the blessing that comes on our

lives, especially when we're in business.

Notice what he said and it'll come to pass in verse one that

and notice notice what he says. The condition is if you hearken

diligently to the voice of your Lord your God, Observe to do all

his commandments which I command you this day that the Lord thy

God will set thee high above all the nations of the earth and all

these blessings will come on you and overtake you if you will

hearken to the voice of the Lord your God.

Quick note the word hearken in there is the same word in the

Hebrew as obey. In other words, God doesn't have

a, a, you know, something he's making as a suggestion.

He's telling us what he wants us focused on.

And he says there, it'll come to that.

You will hearken or obey diligently my voice.

I think the problem with a lot of Christian business people is

they're not listening. I mean, he knows how to fix

everything, especially when you get he's done it for Melanie and

I numerous times. OK, Sometimes, you know, we

don't know what's going to happen.

How's it going to happen? All right, this last week we had

Pastor Marcy pray for people that need a financial miracle.

OK, I don't, I couldn't see exactly.

Everybody was in it. But here's the deal.

He, he's into that God's into financial miracles.

He didn't want you to have to live waiting on miracles.

OK, He has a better plan and a substance plan on showing you.

This is what we look at. This is what we need to do.

All right, so you continue on. He said all these blessings in

verse 2 will come on you and overtake you, and you'll hearken

to the voice of the Lord your God.

Now I want you to notice these next few verses.

What word it starts with. Blessed shall you be in the

city. Blessed shall you be in the

field. Blessed shall be the fruit of

your body, the fruit of your ground, the fruit of your

cattle, the increase of kind and flocks of sheep.

Blessed shall your basket be your basket, and in your store

bless shall you be when you come in, Bless shall you be when you

go out. The Lord will cause thine

enemies that rise up against you to be smitten before your face.

They will come in one way, and will flee before you. 7 The Lord

shall command his blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and all

that you set your hand to do. He will bless thee in the land

that the Lord has given you. The Lord shall establish you as

a holy people to Himself as He has sworn into thee, if you'll

just keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in

His ways. And all the people of the earth

shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they

will be afraid of you. Here we go, verse 11.

And the Lord shall make you plenteous in goods, and fruit of

the body, fruit of the cattle, fruit of the ground, the land

which the Lord swear unto thy Father's to give you.

The Lord shall open you His good treasure.

The heaven will give you rain in its land, in your land and its

season. He will bless the work of your

hand. You'll lend to many nations.

You shall not borrow. The Lord will make you the head

and not the tail. You'll be above only and not

beneath, if you will hearken unto the commandments of the

Lord your God, which I command you this day to observe and do

them. He said, And you will not go

aside from any of the words which I have command thee this

day to the right hand, nor to the left to go after other gods

and serve them. I think it's interesting because

there's a little word you know stuck in there.

And, and I believe in verse 1 and in verse 13 where he says

that you'll hearken diligently to the Lord your God in verse 1

and observe. Observe is a word that means to

look at or fix your eyesight on. OK, so he says it again in

there. He said, if you'll hearken to

the Lord thy God, which I command you this day and observe

and do his word. OK, So sometimes I think that

when we talk about the vision, the vision of a company, the

things that you and I have talked about, OK, and and in

getting an understanding of the vision, I think the first thing

that we have to establish that there's a higher vision than

maybe what we've been trained or what we see when it comes to

handling in our own business. All right, because here's the

thing that you want to get a hold of in, in Proverbs chapter

Proverbs 10:22

10 verse 22, OK, it said the blessing of the Lord, it maketh

rich and adds no sorrow with it. The word sorrow comes from the

same root as the word sorrow in Genesis chapter 3.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

When God has to put a curse on the man, he curses his

provision. He said the ground is now cursed

for your sake because of what you did.

It's your fault. The ground is cursed.

All right, he said. You will dig.

You will try to bring up crops, you'll try to do.

And he said your whole life will be nothing but sorrow in doing

that. The word sorrow there, and the

word sorrow here means to become worrisome.

In other words, you don't know how it's going to come now.

Most of us have been in that position.

Some of us might be in that position now that we don't know

how he's going to do it, but the guarantee we have is that he is

going to do it. And there's been there's been

things I've told you guys many, many stories of just, you know,

it's the but God moment. You've done everything you could

do. You can't do anything else in

the natural that you've been enlightened to.

And all of a sudden he begins to work.

I think he likes that because we are solely dependent on him

because he commands us to be so when he said do not take a

thought saying what are we going to eat, what are we going to

drink, what are we going to wear?

He said, listen, the Gentiles though that have no covenant

with me are going to worry about that.

But he said, not you, right? So again, it's it's it's getting

the eyes fixed on what God says is important, you know, to be

able to do that. Now, let's say that we never

consulted God. We never heard him.

You know what businesses start. Here's a verse, Proverbs 16

three OK, we find ourself in business.

OK, we want to know what are we supposed to be looking at?

What are we looking at? All right, listen to what he

says in this verse 3 Commit your work unto the Lord, and thy

thoughts shall be established. All right, the word work there

is Mahase, Mahase. In the Hebrew.

It means an action, a work, a labor, a business, pursuit or

undertaking of an enterprise. That's what that word means in

the Hebrew. So he says in there, he said

commit your works under the Lord and I thought shall be

established. The word thought means a device,

a plan, a purpose. And the word established means

to be firm, stable or directed a right.

So when we're in business, there's got to be a direction

that we always talk about the vision.

What is the vision? What's the vision of the church?

What's the vision of the company?

What's the and we'll talk about mission later.

But when we talk about that, I think it's interesting because

Pastor sends me a note the other day.

He's never sent me an Instagram ever.

We're calling him an apostle. Don't forget that.

You're supposed to correct me. Correct me, Melanie, you're

supposed to correct me. You're supposed to correct me.

All right, Apostle Roll sent me an Instagram, OK.

And it was a guy talking in there about vision.

I thought, oh, this is interesting.

I didn't know if you'd talked to him about what we were doing or

anything. And he said, he said this.

And man, it woke me up. He said the problem with being

in business is the fact that we don't understand what God's

building. And then this guy said he is not

going to build your business. But man, I, I've read all the

scriptures tonight that let us know that he's going to make us

plenty of some goods and he's going to end the blessing and

all this stuff. And then he said, we cannot

forget what he's building. Matthew 16.

You remember he asked all the guys.

He says, who do you guys say that I am?

And they said, oh, you're Elijah or Jeremiah, one of the

prophets. See.

No, no, no, no. Who do you guys say that I am?

Peter stands up. Hey, I think you're the Christ,

the Son of the living God. He said, blessed are you Simon

Barjona, because flesh and blood has not revealed this to you,

but my Father, which is in heaven.

And then he began to say, you know, he said you are you are

upon this rock. I'm going to build my church.

So if God is interested in building anything, and we must

know that he is interested in building the church because what

did Jesus say? I don't do anything that my

Father does not do. So it seems like that the

passing of the baton to build the church is Jesus

responsibility. Here's the thing he said if

you're building a business outside of helping Jesus build

the church, it will not make it OK.

Whoa. OK, So when you think about you

think about that. It took me and I sent him a note

after I watched this video, I sent him a note and I said

that's why I retranslated Luke chapter 12, verse 21.

Luke 12:21

Now let me read you the parable, all right, because it has to do

about somebody in business. They decided that they were just

in business to see their increase, he said.

And one of the companies said, dear Master, speak to my brother

and this is 12 verse Luke 12 verse 13, and that he may divide

Luke 12:13

the inheritance with me. And Jesus said, man, who made me

a judge or a divider over you. He said unto them, take heed and

beware of covetousness. For a man's life does not

consist of the abundance of the things he possesses.

So Jesus telling us right now that our life is not to be

measured by how successful we are in the arena of money, in

the arena of marketing, in the arena.

He said, that doesn't count. Listen to this.

He spake A parable unto them and said, the ground of a certain

man brought forth plentifully. And he thought within himself,

saying, what shall I do? Because I have no room where to

bestow my fruits. And he said, this will I do, I

will pull down my barns, I'll build greater, and there, there

will I bestow all the fruit and my goods, and I will save my

soul. So you have much goods laid up

for many years. Take thine knees, eat, drink,

and be merry. But God said unto him, You're a

fool this night your soul shall be required of you, and whose

things will they be that you have provided?

But then he says in there he said, So is he that layeth up

treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.

Verse 21. I retranslated that after I dug

it out in the Greek, which reiterates what is God

interested in building and how is it that what we do helps us

get that building done. And I'm not even really talking

about a building building. Jesus said I will build my

church. He didn't say I'm going to build

another building. He's going to build and grow his

church. The reason I translated that he

said so is the man that lays up treasure for himself and is not,

and here's the translation, becoming rich for God.

That's the translation. If you look it up in the Greek,

you can you pull that out. God says I want you to become

rich for what I'm building, not what you can personally build

for you. This is the perfect parable for

that to let us know. So when we began, when we begin,

you know, casting a vision and that is in our hearts for the

business that God has given us, we need to realize that we are

stewards or caretakers of that. We should learn from the parable

above, There is no room for selfishness in the Kingdom.

There's no room for another plan in the Kingdom.

It's His plan. Jesus went with His plan,

encouraged us. Go with God's plan.

Change your mindset on why you want a business that is making a

lot of money. You're wanting it to be able to

what? Help God build the church.

Think about it. None of us are building anything

we're taking with us. There's only one thing we're

taking with us and that's the church and there will probably

be some in the church might be surprised that they didn't make

it because they didn't answer the simple question of lordship.

They like him as Savior, but they don't understand Lord.

OK, all right now when you know one of the the primary parts of

your vision for the Kingdom should be a simply based on one

word. Very simple.

Write this word down. It's the word service.

Jesus gave a vision of what being the greatest in the

Kingdom of God would look like. All right, Matthew chapter 20,

Matthew 20 · chapter mention

jot this one down verses 25 through 28.

When we talk about when we talk about our business, when we talk

about what we, what we're going to do in our business, what the

business, you know, most businesses are service

businesses now. We've all been to places where

people that worked for this service business didn't have a

clue. That's what kind of business it

was, OK, By the way they treated you, the way they talked to you,

the way they didn't take care of what your needs were when you

came in there. Mostly in restaurants, you see

it OK, but you can see it in, you know, a store you're going

shopping for clothes. They're over there, you know.

OK, well, thank you. I'll see if I can't find them.

All right, But look at what Jesus said.

He said He called to them and said, you know, that the

Princess of the Gentiles exercise dominion over those

that they are over. And he said, And they that they

are great, exercise that authority upon them.

He said, And it shall not be so among you, but whosoever will be

great among you, let him be your minister.

That word is the diaconos in the Greek, and it just means a

waiter. And whosoever will be chief

among you, And notice what he said, Whoever will be great

among you, let him be the minister.

But then he said, But whosoever will be chief among you, let him

be your servant. And the word servant there is

the Greek word dulos and it means slave.

And it usually the connotation is bond slave.

It is a slave by choice, not slave beat into submission.

OK, he said, even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered

unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many.

So Jesus saying the higher you go up, the lower you must

actually go. You want to be great in the

Kingdom, you need to be a waiter, you need to be somebody

servant. But if he says you want to be

the chief, you've got to become the slave.

And I don't think a lot of people understand that, you

know, when it comes to business. Why?

Because they're selfish. There's selfishness in there.

Why did you start the company? Well, we saw a need and we

wanted to meet that need. And you know what?

You can tell by the way they operate in that company.

Are they really meeting needs or are they really making just

money? That's all they want to make.

You know, I wrote an article years ago and, and what's funny,

I was digging through some little, you know, thumb drives

and I'm popping those thumb drives in the, in, in the

computer, just see what's on them.

And I found my entire collection of the articles that I'd written

for a business magazine and the very first one I ever wrote.

And you guys have heard the story where I want, I wanted to

write, you know, business business articles.

And there was a a magazine called Oklahoma Business Monthly

and I had a little questionnaire in there for entrepreneurs and I

thought that was pretty cool. So I just called them, you know,

main editor and phone number was in the front of the magazine.

I said, how do you get chosen for, you know, entrepreneur Q&A?

And they said, well, we send you an outline and you fill out all

the answers on the outline and, and we sent it to editorial

board and if they like it, we'll use it.

And I said, OK, that's easy to send it.

I sent it back the the same day. They sent it to me in the

morning. I sent it back the same day.

And then they called me immediately and said we're going

to run yours in. It was a month or two down the

road. And I said, well before you send

your photographer, because they always had a picture of the the

people, I said let have them come by and visit with me before

they come to actually take the picture.

OK, well, we usually don't do that.

Just please do that. Would you just do that?

OK. And they did.

And basically what I wanted, I had a set made of everything

that I talked about in the article.

They, you know, ask how did you get started or who's your mentor

or whatever. And I had a picture of

everything that I discussed in there and, and everybody noticed

it. It was interesting.

Usually they just put a plan up by somebody, you know, or have

them sitting in a director's chair, whatever.

But everything that you talked about was in the photograph.

I said, I, I plan that. Well, I wanted to let the, the

magazine, the owner. And I said, I, I so, so thrilled

to be able to get this article. I said, I want to take you guys

to lunch and I thought I want to see if they are open to an idea

of doing articles and having a local business guy do the

articles because they were based out of Tulsa.

And so I had my briefcase with me and they all came in and, and

the owner's name was Jim. Jim says he said, Randy, what do

you, what do you think of the magazine?

I said, I, I love it. I think it's a great magazine.

I mean, it's about local businesses and how people got

started and, and different. I said, you know, one thing

though, I think that would be really good for that magazine is

that you had some locals give different tips and things about,

you know, what, what they have experienced in business, stuff

like that and they go, well, that's a good idea.

Do you have you have you have a sample of anything like that?

As a matter of fact, I do opened up the briefcase, pulled out my

first article called Can I get some help over here?

That was the title of it. And, and, and I just found them

the other day because it was the mock up of what it was going to

look like in the magazine. And they had sent it to me every

month and I wrote for them for over a year.

And as a matter of fact, my book that that I wrote was all of

those articles trans into a book.

And so one of the things in there that I talked about was,

you know, we've all had the experience, you know, sitting at

a restaurant waiting for somebody to come over there, at

least greet ya. OK.

So, you know, or, you know, you you you've gone into a, you

know, a home improvement store and you're looking around and

you're looking for somebody in a colored vest that matches the

logo. And you can't find nobody, you

know, And so you just you just look at her and, you know,

around. And so I talked about the fact

of customer service has to equate to the word servant.

You have to be a servant, all right, And understand the role

of a servant. You're not here just to make a

buck. You're here to, you know, help

them grow their company. But that's by providing the

service that is going to be people that is very easy for

them to part with their money. OK, well, you know, when we take

a look at we take a look at, at at what Jesus said, he said,

listen, you have got to have the servant mentality.

He he let him know when he washed their feet in John 13, he

said, do you all know what I've done?

And they said, you know, they yeah, yeah, yeah.

Think so. Yeah.

He goes, well, here's what you need to understand.

You need to do what I've done. In other words, look for the

opportunity to take care of people and the Lord can bless

that. All right now when we talk

about, you know, when we talk about vision and we go to, you

know, Matthew 16, I want you to jot down Matthew 16 because that

is the particular passage that I wrote to you about, you know,

the Kingdom of heaven and and telling him that, listen, I am

going to build my church. So when we talk about the

building of, you know, Jesus Church, we found out it's going

to take money like any other enterprise that you want to get

involved in. All right.

And I think it's interesting that, you know, pastor has the

longest offering time speech that we've experienced in a

while on Sunday morning. What was he talking about?

He was talking about again, the story of Jehoash was one of

them. Josiah was another one that they

wanted to raise money to do the temple, right.

The temple had fallen into disarray.

It needed some repairs, you know, some different things.

So he says in there, he said, you know, start collecting that

money, you know, from the Levites and the different

things, part of the money that the people are giving them for

the tithe and the offering and everything else.

And he said, and we're going to give this money to those that'll

fix everything. All right.

Well, it didn't happen, all right in the time frame that the

king thought. So he said, OK, enough of this

and he said the priest went and made a little box and carved a

hole in the top of it and had people put money in it when they

came. Finally the box got full and

they pulled all the money out, gave it to the exchanger.

So I was kind of curious where that first bits of money went.

All right, But he was talking to us about, again, what is Jesus

building? Is he building our companies or

is he still building the church and asking us to come and join

him and that everything that we have to do?

Is going to be based upon our involvement in his vision and he

will give us vision. That's where it comes from.

That's why we read those four things at the very beginning.

You know that we don't want to have the greatest failure.

We don't want to have the greatest mistakes.

We don't want to have, you know, opportunities and not knowing

what to do. You know, when I hear people

say, well, the Lord told me to do this and it doesn't come to

pass. And I'm thinking, OK, Lord, are

we being patient? Is there something you need us

to know? Did we just jump out and do it?

Did you really say it or did I just see a need?

And, and you know, we ask questions a lot as far do you

have the ability to hear God? And I found that true because

when I was in Oklahoma and I was on staff, you know, people would

come in and they'd say, you know, you talk about hearing God

all the time. I've never heard him say

nothing, you know, and I'm trying to figure out that's

weirder than me saying I hear God.

But I know this, that until we become people of the Word, we

won't recognize his voice. We've got to know what the word

says. We've got to know what his will

is. We got to know what his vision

is, you know, and, and we were talking about the two main

passages, you know, in the Bible that talk about vision.

And he said, you know, write the vision, make it plain.

All right. And, and basically it was

talking about the vision that we get from God.

It's not our own vision. It's not what we come up

thinking. This is great.

This might be a good idea. What do you think of this?

It was the vision because he said that.

He said don't worry about it If it doesn't show up tomorrow.

He said, wait on it because it'll surely come to pass.

Well, that's not my vision. That's got to be his vision.

And then when he said without a vision, the people perish.

Both of those words, vision is is defined as the word

revelation. OK.

And in the word revelation means something that was previously

hidden, but now you can see it. See, I think sometimes in

business there are things hidden from our vision.

But if we spend time like he wants us to spend time, he has

the ability to move the curtain. You know, I love that that

picture that Apocalypto is the Greek word for revelation.

We get the word apocalypse from it.

That's what the book revelation, the revelation.

And it's not a revelation of John like some print.

It's the revelation of Jesus Christ.

But that word is apocalypsis and it means a drawing back of the

curtain. And they paints a picture that,

you know, if you're in your kitchen and you're doing dishes

and you got a window there, but it's got a curtain, it's got a

nice curtain or some mini blinds or something like that.

He said when you turn the mini blinds or you move the curtains,

you can see what's always been there out in the yard.

He said it's the same thing as we spend time with God, that

we're the vision we're looking for is his revelation of what

we're supposed to be doing. Because, you know, any business

we have landscaping, you know, robotics, you know, whatever it

is, chiropractic, all right, cleaning houses, real estate,

whatever it is. I'm pretty sure he knows about

it, more about it than the rest of us.

He knows the right way to do it. He knows the right ideas.

I've had him speak to me and show me paths that I needed to

take where everybody else is, you know, trying to figure out

the marketing plan or what's a vision for marketing, What's a

vision? And I just just say, listen, it

ain't nobody knows more about this kind of company than the

father. I need to spend time with him.

And he has given me some of the ideas that may have made me 10s

of millions of dollars. And it's by listening.

The only time I get into problems is when I'm listening

to me and I'm losing 10s of millions of dollars.

All right. I don't want to be a loser of

millions. I want to be a investor of

millions and, and, and I'm I'm so convinced that, you know,

when I talk to people, when we visit one-on-one with people

and, and they're so focused on what they're not doing, the

money they're not making, the business is not there.

There's got to be an answer to that.

But the question is, what are you looking at?

Are you looking at the things God told us to look at?

Because it's pretty clear all the scriptures I gave to you

tonight, if you'll focus and observe on what God says is

important to him. And you look at it because I've

said this for years and then a friend of mine puts it in one of

his books. I said, man, you stole that from

me. But we hadn't talked in a long

time. You know, as far as so he may

have got that on himself because I'm sure that, you know, God

doesn't have a stipulation on who he gives it to and they

never, nobody else gets it. But I've often said this.

I said God told me that if I'll take care of his business, he'll

take care of mine. But you know, my problem is I've

been worse at taking his care of his business then he has taken

care of mine. Because every time I have a

need, you know, I just back up a second and I sit there and

listen and I want to know. Sometimes I say, Melanie, I

ain't going here because I'm staying here.

You know, I've got some things I want to get done, some things

that I want to visit with the Lord.

That's why for me, everybody else is out shopping on Black

Fridays. I just kind of get alone in the

house on the Black Friday when everybody's gone, the grandkids

are gone, everybody's gone. And and I just say, you know,

Lord, what is it that you need me to know from that I didn't

get done this year? Anything that can get me on a

better path going into next year, you know, and finding that

out because that's all he all he wants is you.

He doesn't need how smart we are or how, you know, business savvy

we are. All he wants is us.

That's what he sent his son to die for us.

That's all that's going is US, you know, and The funny thing

about it is he thinks he's getting a good deal with us, you

know. So when we talk about that, and

I just want to encourage you, here's the bottom line about

vision is that if your vision and goals don't align with God's

vision for this church and what he's called you to help him

build the church, you will labor in vain.

You'll be more than likely you'll more than likely

experience unnecessary struggles and challenges.

If your heart is to build the Kingdom and his church, your

business and your with your business and you listen to God

on how to do it, you will be successful.

Anybody say Amen, Amen. That's what we're going to do

Amen. All right, let me pray.

Father, we just thank and praise you for the opportunity just to

get a reminder a little bit of of what it is that you need from

us to be able to get the same eyesight that you have to

accomplish what you want in the earth.

Father, I pledge myself even as going through this lesson that I

pledge myself that in the mornings when I get up, I want

to know what is it that you need from me?

I want to know what you need me to be looking at, what you want

me to be focusing on and being able to translate at the proper

time of what you're giving me and what needs to come to you

and the building of your church. I know at the first of the year

you told me when I asked what do I need to be investing in.

You told me this year that I need to be investing in the

maturity of the Saints. So Father, give me those

opportunities. Show me where we will get the

best amount of success from the money that we invest in that,

the time that we invest in that, the ideas that you give us to

invest in that. Father, we want to thank you in

advance because we know you are all about the church and so are

we and we want to thank you for it.

In Jesus name, Amen. Amen.

The.