January 29, 2025 • 32 mins
This episode invites listeners to explore the integration of faith and business, emphasizing the concept of 'Business as Ministry.' Matt discusses personal insights gleaned from Scripture, particularly Genesis 12-15, which underscores the importance of trusting God's guidance and pursuing a life aligned with His will.
• Exploring the definition of Kingdom Business
• Personal health journey impacting spiritual clarity
• God as our partner in business decisions
• The significance of prioritizing time with God
• Lessons from Abram's journey in Genesis
• Trusting God's timing and direction
• The transformative power of obedience and faith
• Encouraging deeper engagement with Scripture
"Join us next time for more insights and continued discussions!"
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What's up, guys?
This is Matt with Avoda Talk,or the real Matt Walton.
This is your hub for all thingsKingdom Business Business as
Ministry Business Strategy.
My goal is to provide as muchvalue, minute by minute, each
podcast that you listen to.
So let's get to it.
God has given me a special wordthis morning for everybody, and
(00:21):
so I am just fired up.
Man, I woke up early today, gotto exercising, I'm spending a
lot of time with the Lord, I'mreally working on dialing in my
eating, and so I've been eatinglike this animal-based lifestyle
.
That has dramatically increasedmy mood.
It's increased my clarity, I'vedropped a lot of weight, my
energy is through the roof, andso it's incredible.
(00:42):
So, no, I'm not trying to getyou guys to do that, but, man,
it is awesome to really take anexpert ownership over your life,
and I have never really been amorning person, but I am
changing to be a morning person,waking up a little bit earlier
than four sometimes, but 4.30 ismy target to where I wake up,
and I immediately will just getinto what I got to get into.
I lay out my stuff the daybefore I lay out my stuff the
(01:05):
day before I lay out my clothes.
I put out all of my morningroutine in the morning so that
when I wake up I don't have tomake those decisions.
I just go in there and runthrough the motions, complete
the task and then I'm out thedoor to start exercising.
Then I get back inside and bythat time I am just fired up,
ready to go, and I spend a lotof time with the Lord in the
morning and that looks likestudying the word, worshiping in
(01:26):
the traditional sense withmusic, and then obviously just
worshiping with listening,prayer, listening to what the
Lord has to say and worshipingthrough reading his words.
I am just fired up.
I pray that every single personthat is out there is pursuing
the life that you want to haveand, most importantly, it's a
life that God wants you to have,because there's so many times
when we can come up with thislife that we want to have that's
(01:47):
so different than the life thatGod wants us to have.
So number one thing that Iwould say is man, I hope that
you are in the will of the Lordand if you're not, you know it
and you make the necessarydecisions to get into the will
of the Lord and partake in hisrest as you're conquering your
days, so let's get right into it.
Today's going to look a littledifferent than it normally does
in the past.
I'm going to talk specificallyabout scripture today.
(02:08):
Obviously, that's all going tobe tied to business, because
that's what we do, but this isliterally meant to challenge you
.
This may frustrate some of you.
Please understand that I amtaking a hundred thousand foot
overview over the scripturesthat we're going to go through
today.
I am not at all trying to getinto all the depths of it,
although I will mention certainthings that you may hear and be
like hmm, and these are allmeant to go out and study and to
(02:31):
find out for yourself.
Don't take my word Go out andfind out for yourself.
We're going to focus on Genesis12 through 15.
And I started a journey a whileago, several months ago, about
figuring out who God is.
But first it started withfiguring out who God says that I
am.
And the reason why I startedthat journey is because my
business is my ministry and it'srun in a certain way in order
to glorify God.
(02:52):
God is the owner.
I'm a steward.
God is the CEO.
I am a steward.
The reason why is because Ihave a ministry called Reach the
Streets where we go out and weevangelize.
We do tent revivals out here inLas Vegas, and it's something
we do just about every singleTuesday.
We have worship and preaching,evangelism, resources, food.
All of that and the questionsthat kept coming up was just hey
(03:14):
, have you ever heard of this?
Have you ever heard of that?
Have you ever heard of the bookof the Gospel of Thomas?
Have you ever heard of thesedifferent things?
Have you ever heard of this Godover here, or why do y'all call
him this name?
And so it just started me onthis journey of figuring out
number one, who God says that weare.
But that launched me intofiguring out who God says that
he is and who is God.
So I started studying fromGenesis 1, and I would encourage
(03:35):
everybody to start from thevery beginning.
This is the foundation of ourfaith.
I started in Genesis 1, and atthe end, if I've got some time,
I'll give y'all some resources.
But this led me to who God is.
These are three of the thingsthat we're going to talk about
here.
But who is God?
We're going to talk about whatGod desires, and it's made
evident in the first severalchapters of Genesis.
(03:56):
And then we'll talk about whyGod said that you are very good.
Because when God created man,he said that you were very good.
And so why is that?
Because we have this idea thatGod is up there just waiting to
smite you.
The second that you make onewrong move, he's waiting to
smite you, condemn you, leaveyou feeling just discombobulated
, and that's not God at all.
(04:17):
And so it doesn't mean thatthere's not consequences.
It doesn't mean that God doesnot like teach through those
consequences.
But man God is not a God thatis sitting there just trying to
smite you, condemn you, waitingfor you to trip up.
He is a God that is so good tohis children, that wants to
bless us and see us prosper.
But he's so much more than that.
He's so much more than just aGod up there that wants us to
prosper and live in a life ofabundance.
(04:38):
He is somebody that is lookingto partner with us.
And how incredible is that,like God of the universe, the
God that created you and thatcreated me is the very same God
that wants to partner with you.
But why did God say that we arevery good?
Now, before I really get into it, I'm going to skip over Genesis
1 through 11.
I'll do a 500,000 foot overviewof these.
(04:59):
I believe that a lot of thosestories the bulk of those
stories there's so many lessonsto learn in there.
But a lot of them are pointingto man.
God wants to partner with us.
You know we continue to takethings into our own hand.
God will literally say, yes,this is the way that it's going
to be or this is what I don'twant you to do, and then our
desires take over and we dothose things and we go against
(05:19):
the direct commands of God.
So hopefully this will encourageyou to start being hyper aware
to these things.
It will encourage you to studyscripture like you never had
before, to really understand whoGod is.
That is the intention of this.
Find out on your own.
Start studying the word of God.
Do more than just word studies.
Study the culture.
Just watch how God will expandyour knowledge of who exactly he
is.
But I'll give you one thingGenesis, the bulk of Genesis and
(05:41):
a lot of the Bible, is a chiasm.
So I'll just leave it at that.
Study that.
Study what a chiasm is.
Study the significance of that,because when we start to
understand that and weunderstand the chiasm and how it
has these different bookendsthroughout the scripture and it
leads you to this treasureIncredible.
It will literally expand theBible, expand your mind in ways
that it's hard for me todescribe.
I can't even begin to describeto you how fired up I get
(06:03):
whenever I just get filled withthis knowledge and this power
that comes from God, and Godalone.
First, before I want to add thisto it as well when you do not
have clarity in your business,there's obviously a reason why
God continues to invite us, notjust in Scripture, but
throughout our day-to-day life.
He invites us to partner withHim and so many times God will
(06:23):
literally look at us, whisper tous or tell us through his word
exactly what he wants us to do.
And then we say, okay, we go onand we do it our way.
There are so many times whenwe're pursuing clarity and we
pursue clarity through, maybe, apodcast or through a different
book or through an individual,and no, there is nothing wrong
with those things.
There's nothing wrong with themat all.
And in fact, if you're notdoing those things, I encourage
(06:44):
you to do those things, unlessGod has you in a season to where
he just wants you diving intothe word, because I am coming
off of a season where God waslike I don't want you listening
to anything except studying myword and uh, and be obedient to
those things and be aware ofwhat God is trying to tell you
to do.
There's a few things that Ithink about.
A lot is we can do all of thesethings to make our business our
(07:04):
ministry.
And before I get into that,like, if you have never heard
this term, business as ministryjust think about that for a
second.
And how.
Ministry isn't confined to apreacher on Sundays, a four-wall
church building, a non-profitdown the street.
Like ministry is who you are,where you're at.
It could be where you're at ina grocery store line, where
you're at in business, whereyou're at in the marketplace
(07:26):
that is your ministry.
And your home, your family,that is your ministry.
So we as human beings can doall of these things to make our
businesses and to make our livesoperate out of this ministry
mentality, and yet we're missinglike foundational peace and our
relationship with God can besuffering.
So a question is like how doesyour time with the Lord look?
And are you listening to anhour long podcast but spending
(07:50):
15 minutes with the Lord.
If you are, that's a little bitlopsided, quit doing that.
We need to spend more time withthe Lord than we're spending in
podcasts and books and allthese other things on a
consistent basis, right?
It doesn't mean that you're notgoing to have days to where you
spend, you know, hour and ahalf, two hours, three hours
reading a book or watching apodcast and you spend an hour in
the word.
But if it's consistently likethat, I encourage you to change
that and God will honor thosethings and he starts to give you
(08:13):
this desire to pursue him thatmaybe you're missing right now.
And that starts with pursuinghim and understanding that that
motivation precedes the action.
So as soon as you start doingit, that motivation will come.
So if you're waiting formotivation to start doing
something, then start doing thatthing and the motivation will
come, because that's one waythat the enemy will continue to
push your progress and willcontinue to push your growth
(08:35):
down the road, because you'rewaiting for something that's not
going to come until youactually act on something.
And I'm speaking to myselfright now.
I've got a couple of questionswritten down here.
One of the questions is we saythat we're kingdom, but do we
know what God is and who Godsays that we are?
How many times do we say okay,god, only to take it into our
hands and do it our way insteadof being patient and waiting on
(08:57):
God?
Man, I am guilty of that, and Idid that maybe four months ago
and it came back to bite mereally quick.
So I pursued the money onsomething and it came back to
bite me really quick.
God taught me a very valuablelesson that I need to be patient
and not just bite on the shinyobject and wait for the Lord,
because as soon as the Lordprovided what was needed, there
(09:17):
was no toil associated with itat all.
And that reminds me of Psalm127, verses 1 through 2.
Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in
vain.
Same thing for business Unlessthe Lord's building your
business, you're laboring invain.
You're going to experiencestress and anxiety like never
before.
It's going to weigh down on you, it's going to deplete your
(09:37):
motivation and you're going tofind yourself just in this
hamster wheel and just repeatingthis loop cycle that is
creating a void between you andGod and a void between the rest.
That only comes from God and avoid between the visions and all
the things that God is tryingto speak to, a void between the
voice of God speaking to you Godis trying to speak to somebody
(09:59):
out there, whoever is listening,and you're doing something that
is hindering you from hearingfrom the Lord.
It's so awesome whenever youbecome exposed to these things
and like speaking to me rightnow.
I hear from God directly, likesometimes it comes through an
Instagram post, like this is achannel that God has established
in my life.
It's like I'm going to speakthrough Facebook and I'm going
to speak through Instagram andI'm going to speak through
(10:19):
YouTube and I'm going to speakthrough titles and I'm going to
speak through just littlesnippets of videos and it's
going to be directly related toyou and that's how I'm going to
speak to you.
If you're not hearing me in theword, if you're not hearing me
in the morning time, wheneveryou're going on walks in the
afternoon, I'm going to startspeaking to you whenever you're
not spending time with me andwhenever you're pursuing
something else.
God made me aware of that and Iwept and I sent myself these
(10:43):
videos because God, video aftervideo after video, it had three
videos consistently where Godsaid what, what I don't want you
to do anymore.
And here's why let's get intoit.
When I say kingdom business, Iam not well, I am, of course,
talking about how you operateyour business and like the
programs that you develop andhow you're helping people, how
you're developing humans, howyou're taking care of your
clients, how you're setting thestandard for how business is
(11:03):
done and customer service.
All of that is incredible.
But I'm also talking about thestate that we operate in,
because if we operate in thestate of just a tizzy, we're
hair on fire, we're alwaysoverreacting.
That's not kingdom and itcertainly can be fixed.
If that's you, man, it justtakes.
You know, repenting,recognizing that, getting on
your face before the Lord,asking God to take that over
from you.
Biggest things for kingdombusiness is how you operate and
(11:28):
your relationship with God,because then you can then go in
and do some incredible thingswithout the anxiety, without the
stress, without all of that,because your partner is God and
he's got you.
Let's start on our, on ouroverview.
I'm going to go through Genesis12.
Again, I'm just going to hitthe high points real quick.
I'm going to Genesis 12 through15.
And before I get into that, I'mgoing to skim very briefly over
(11:53):
this.
So Genesis 1 through 2, they'reincredible creation stories.
It's multiple creation storiesbuilt into what I would have
thought before I studied this asone creation story.
I think you're going to see thechiasms in here.
If you study chiasms, you'regoing to start to see these and
then just understand this.
The Aramaic, hebrew and theGreek they're all alphanumeric
languages.
So don't build your theology onnumbers.
(12:14):
But it's incredible how Goduses numbers to confirm things.
So God will literally, if he'strying to start a new thing in
you, start paying attention tolicense plates.
God will speak to you throughlicense plates.
Like I started to see 777, andthen I started to see 333.
This is very recent.
I told my wife whenever we weredriving.
I was like God is about to dosomething brand new.
This is finished.
He's about to do somethingbrand new and we're about to
start seeing 333 everywhere.
(12:34):
And sure enough, we did so.
Then we get into the fall.
We get into the fall of man andwe get into God.
Literally told them what to doand or, excuse me, told them
what not to do.
They ended up and took thedesires back into their hands
and they went against what Godhad told them to do.
There's so many fascinatingthings in here, like there's the
tree of knowledge and the treeof life, which one is in the
middle?
You know, we see it would seemto be a contradiction, but the
(12:58):
word of God is inerrant, meaningthat there's no errors found in
the word of God.
And in fact, if there'ssomething that you don't
understand, then it seems likeokay, that's off, that's an
error.
I promise you it is not.
And when you study those thingsthat we perceive as errors, you
ask like this is a problem thatI see in scripture.
It becomes apparent to you andGod blows open the doors of
(13:20):
revelation with the scripture.
So now we get into Cain and Abel.
Again, we have another story ofCain and Abel had a.
Specifically, cain had a greatopportunity to not overreact, to
trust that God had a purposeand a plan in this.
Some things in this story,whenever you first read it, just
don't make sense, becauseyou're like you didn't tell them
what to bring, they broughtwhat they Anyway.
So there's a lot of questionswhen you're reading this ask
(13:41):
yourself like what are theproblems in the story?
And then God will reveal that?
No, there is none.
I'll give depth of theknowledge that you're that
you're seeking searching forwhen we get to noah.
Noah was obedient to what godhad called him to do.
Noah, as soon as he came out ofthe ark, we know what happened
with his sons there was.
Noah took it into his own handsat that point and we see noah
over react.
No, we ended up and cursed hisgrandson.
(14:01):
That is a fascinating story.
If you haven't got into it.
God creates a covenant withnoah and then we get into the
tower of babel.
Again, I'm skipping over a lotof stuff, but we get into the
Tower of Babel and how, again,we as human beings were trying
to build a great name forourselves, all disguised within,
trying to get closer to God.
And how many times do we dothat?
Then we get to Haraz,descendants, which is where we
(14:23):
meet Abram for the first time,and I know y'all know Abram.
Abraham is what he was laterrenamed through God and he is
the father of our faith.
There's so much that comes fromAbram.
So when we get to Genesis 12,this is where we see the call of
Abram.
So I want to talk about culturereally quick.
So this is a patriarchal styleof culture within family.
(14:44):
If we study the Eastern family,they have a patriarchal
structure to where you, as thekids, had to come underneath the
wing of the, the patriarch, orthe father of the grandfather of
the family, and until you,until he passes, you had to help
him accomplish his vision andthe goal that god had given over
his life.
And so for god to call abramaway from his family was a huge
(15:08):
deal.
And so now the lord said toAbram go from your country and
your kindred and your father'shouse to the land that I will
show you and I will make of youa great nation and I will bless
you so that you will be ablessing, and he will make your
name great, so that you will bea blessing.
And then this is I'm skipping.
So Abram, when has the Lord toldhim?
And this is where they departed?
It says he departed from Haranand Abram took Sarai, his wife,
(15:31):
which?
Study Sarai, his wife, andstudy Isca.
It's fascinating.
There's a lot of theologiansthat believe something
fascinating about them.
I don't want to give you alltoo much there, but study who
they are.
Then we see here he took Enlot,his brother's son, and all
their possessions that they hadgathered.
So Abram departed.
He was acting out of obedienceto God.
He had departed, and it saysdown here Then the Lord appeared
(15:52):
to Abram and said To youroffspring I will give this land.
So he built an altar to the Lord.
So where we see in previousstories of how man would build
towers and how man took it intotheir own hands and went against
what God had called them to dowithin Adam and Eve, and we see
this with Cain and Abel.
We see this with Cain and Abel.
(16:15):
We see here Abram has adifferent heart posture.
He did not go try to build atower.
He was not trying to gratifyhis flesh just yet and, believe
me, abram is not perfect, but hebuilt an altar to the Lord.
We're going to see that beingconsistent throughout scripture,
or throughout the story withAbram.
Now they're heading to Egypt andthey get to Egypt, and this is
where Abram, when you study this, abram seemingly lied, right.
We know a lot of theologiansare saying that Sarai was his
half-sister, but Abram told ahalf-truth, if you will, so told
(16:36):
a lie in order to be blessedfor her sake.
And so this is what he said Saythat you are my sister.
So again he's coming to Egypt.
They had departed from wherethey were at.
They built an altar out ofobedience to what God said.
He had departed from his family.
They get to Egypt.
There was a great famine in theland, so they had been traveling
.
So he is thinking like man, Iam in, needed some resources
(16:57):
here.
There's a famine in the land.
We've been traveling for awhile.
We are without.
So, sarai, why don't you what?
Let's just tell them thatyou're my sister, so that it may
go well with me because of youand that my life may be spared
for your sake.
And so because Abram,selflessly, I know we human
beings in our Western world wesee Abram marrying Sarai as
something that can be a veryperverted thing.
But when we study this, we seethat Abram taking Sarai was
(17:21):
actually a very.
He was like killing his fleshand he was saying listen, I will
take, I will be the patriarchof you.
I will show you the way I willprovide the patriarch of you.
I will show you the way I willprovide for you.
I will show you what it's liketo be taken care of.
So fast forward now.
We have a famine in the land.
They're in Egypt and he'stelling her hey, do this so that
you're spared or I'm spared foryour sake.
So now we get to the idea of.
(17:44):
He was very concerned becauseSarai was very beautiful and so
he was thinking if they believethat you're my sister, they will
want to court you, and becausethey won't want to marry you,
they will then give me a bunchof possessions and they will
want to woo me so that I willgive your hand over in marriage
and we then will escape by nightinto the wilderness and we'll
(18:07):
leave with all the riches thatwe accumulate because they just
want to bless us.
And it goes south becausePharaoh actually Sarai catches
Pharaoh's eye and Pharaohanswers to nobody, pharaoh is
not trying to court anybody.
Pharaoh's like yeah, I want youto be mine, you're going to be
mine and I don't care about theway that our culture is.
And so Abram's plan backfiredhere and we see Abram or we see
(18:28):
Pharaoh then.
So I'm going to say I'm goingto skip down here and for her
sake, he dealt well with Abram,so his plan seemingly going well
at this point.
And he had sheep, oxen, maledonkeys and camels.
So Pharaoh had blessed Abramabundantly.
But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh.
This is where we start to seethings go south.
This is where we start to learn, like we take things into our
(18:49):
own hand and we quit believingGod and the story and the
scriptures and we take thingsinto our own hand and we see God
here say, okay, he afflictedPharaoh and his house with great
plagues because of Sarai,abram's wife.
So Pharaoh called Abram andsaid what is this you have done
to me?
Why did you not tell me thatshe was your wife?
And so, to skip forward, heended up and told Abram and
(19:09):
Sarai to go and he allowed forthem to keep all of their riches
.
So Abrai went up from Egypt, sothey had to depart and he and
his wife and all that they hadand Lot went with him to Najib.
Now, abram was very rich, so Iwant to park there for a second.
Abram was very rich.
This is not a worldly term.
So for those that are believersout there that have a problem
whenever you see anotherbeliever passing by in a
(19:31):
Mercedes or another believerpassing by and they've got a
Rolex on, abram was very, veryrich.
That's not a worldly term.
This is a biblical term and,yes, those possessions can have
your heart, and that's where theproblem is.
But the possessions and all ofthat is not the problem.
And so God again wants to blessus.
See that here.
He was very rich in livestockand silver and in gold, and he
journeyed from the nijiv as faras bethel.
(19:52):
So this is where we see abramand loth.
They had to separate.
Abram was like look, listen,you go this way or you go that
way.
Whichever way, you don't go, Iwill go.
And so they ended up andseparated.
Loth went to the jordan valley,abram settled in the land of
canaan.
So then this is, uh, genesis 13.
Then we we see Lot ended up andwas taken.
Then we see Abram, or we see allof these kings of this time,
(20:14):
enter into a battle or enterinto a war, and we quickly get
down to verses 13, where westart to learn how Abram heard
that his kinsmen had been takencaptive and he led forth his
trained men born in his house,318 of them.
So he has already accumulatedall the wealth and all the
people, all the servants, all ofthat to the tune of having
(20:35):
trained 318 men.
So they went out and heconquered all of those kings and
he ended up and got all of thespoils of the war and ended up
and was able to get Lot back.
So God literally had promisedAbram that his offspring was
going to fill the earth and theywere going to bless the earth.
And Abram took a wife in Saraiand she was barren.
So he literally is hearing thepromise from God, takes Sarai
(20:59):
and is like how in the world isthis going to happen?
Because my wife is barren?
And so he starts to believethat Lot is going to be the heir
right.
He's going to be where all ofhis descendants come from is
through Lot.
And we see here that, or we seein the verse before how
literally Abram let Lot go andtold him to go this way.
And then we see Abram fights toget Lot back and through
(21:21):
fighting to get Lot back he gotthat promise back and there were
some of that security that camewith that.
He got the spoils of the warbut he ended up and gave this to
Melchizedek.
But we see in the king of Saddamsaid to Abram this is after he
collected all the people, allthe spoils of the war and he had
conquered all the kings.
He said this is the kingtalking.
Give me the persons, but takethe goods for yourself.
(21:41):
And Abram said to the king ofSodom I have lifted my hand to
the Lord, god most highpossessor of heaven and earth
that I would not take a threador a sandal strap or anything
that is yours, lest you shouldsay I have made Abram rich.
So this is where we see Abramliterally let go to all the
goods that they had gotten inthe sense of food.
Abram literally let go to allthe goods that they had gotten
(22:02):
in the sense of food.
I will take nothing but whatthe young men have eaten and the
share of the men who went withme.
He literally gave back Lot andhe gave back all the spoils that
they had gotten.
So Abram went and risked all ofhis life, risked his men's life
.
They ended up and conqueredthem to get the promise back
from the Lord, aka Lot, andthrough that he ended up and had
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to give Lot back.
And so Abram, when we get toGenesis 15, we see Abram be like
very curious or very concernedand express a lot of fears.
So Genesis 15 in these things,the word of the Lord came to
Abram in a vision.
Fear not, abram, I am yourshield.
Your reward shall be very great.
But Abram said oh Lord, God,what will you give me, for?
I continue childless and theheir of my house is Eleazar of
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Damascus.
So again, he had to give up Lotagain and he's thinking like
how in the world is God going toprovide a child?
That is then going to be theprovision for the vision that
God had given him that's goingto bless all nations.
Because he doesn't have Lot,his wife is barren, so he cannot
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see how God is going to do this.
And abram said and we don't seegod.
Reply to that, by the way, sothat when you study the culture
and the context of this time mystudies have led me to, there
was a whole lot longer pausethere than just I didn't hear
from you, and then I'm going tocontinue with the conversation
like this, almost as if there'stwo conversations going on here
at two different times.
And it says and Abram saidbehold, you have given me no
offspring and a member of myhousehold will be my heir.
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And behold, the word of theLord came to him this man shall
not be your heir, your very ownson shall be your heir.
And he brought him outside andsaid look toward heaven and
number the stars, if you are.
If you are able to number them,then he said to him so shall
your offspring be.
And he believed the Lord.
And he counted it to him asrighteousness.
Let's study that, by the way.
He counted it to him asrighteousness.
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That's fascinating.
And he said to him I am the Lordwho brought you out of Ur of
the Chaldeans, to give you thisland to possess.
But he said, oh Lord, god, howam I to know that I shall
possess it?
And literally, because I justtold you is what my mind is
thinking, I shall possess it.
And literally, because I justtold you is what my mind is
thinking, like, literally justtold you that you were going to
have this, yet Abraham is stillquestioning these things.
So how often do we questionthings when God is like here it
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is, here's exactly what it is.
And yet we're like well,because I can't tangibly touch
this thing, I don't believe it.
But he said, oh Lord, how am Ito know that I shall possess it?
He said to him bring me aheifer three years old, a female
goat three years old, a ramthree years old, a turtle, dove
and a young pigeon.
And he brought him all these,cut them in half and laid each
of them against the other.
But he did not cut the birds inhalf and when the birds of prey
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came down on the carcass, abramdrove them away.
So it's fascinating, becauseGod did not tell him make a
covenant right now.
And I want you to do this.
And here's how the covenant isgoing to look like.
So this is actually considered ablood path covenant and Abram
was very familiar because takethese animals here, cut them in
half and what that resembled.
And so that resembled a bloodpath covenant.
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Abram just went kind of his way, if you will not really out of
his way.
Abram acted out of what hebelieved.
God was trying to say cut themin half.
Just imagine if this was like amountain and there was a little
crevice there.
Maybe we're at the top of themountain and you put all the
animals on either side and thendrains the blood right down the
middle, to where you have thisblood path going down the middle
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.
And what happened is, if youwere the one that initiated the
covenant, if you're trying totake somebody's hand in marriage
or whatever it was, and youentered into that covenant with
the patriarch of the family,then you would be the one to
walk through that first, beforethe other individual would that
you were entering into thatcovenant and you were basically
saying that, hey, I promise todo these things.
Here is our covenant,punishable by death if I don't
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hold up my end of the deal.
So I'm going to skip throughthis.
But God had made the sun godown and this is where God told
him Know for certain that youroffspring will be sojourners in
a land that is not theirs andwill be servants there, and they
will be afflicted for 400 years.
That's incredible becausethat's pointing to Israel, but I
will bring judgment on thenation that they serve, and
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afterward they shall come outwith a great possessions.
As for you, you shall back toyour studies within Scripture.
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How was God represented over thecourse of numerous times?
Smoke and fire.
So what God is saying here,when the sun had gone down and
it was dark, behold a smokingfire pot and a flaming torch
passed between the pieces.
So when it talks about thepieces there, it's talking about
the blood path of the animalsthat Abram had laid out.
And what God was saying here isis God revealed himself in that
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moment, passed through thepieces there saying Abram, you
are going to fail every singletime, and I know that.
So I will not enter into thetraditional blood covenant with
you to where you're the one thatis going to have to pay with
your life because you're notgoing to uphold this.
Rather, I will.
I'm speaking as God.
I will take the fullresponsibility for this covenant
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and I, as God, will literallytake, because I know you're
going to fail every single time.
I will take the consequencesfor that.
I will take all of that onmyself.
And so what a better partnerthan that that we have a God
that wants to partner with us,that wants to provide the
provision for the visions, thatwants to provide a way of
operating business it doesn'tmean we're not going to have a
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season or a moment, but a way ofrelying on God to provide
everything and entering into hisrest.
Like what a better partner thanthat that says I know you're
going to fail, so I'm going totake all that on my own and I'm
going to be the one that's goingto take the brunt of that
covenant and I'm going to ensurethat this covenant is upheld,
because God is a God of his word.
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The things that are fascinatinghere is I'm a little bit, but
Hagar Hagar, one of the servantsthat came from when we were in
Egypt with Pharaoh.
So it's just fascinating whenwe start thinking about Islam
and the father and mother ofIslam and all of that.
It's fascinating.
So what God is saying I'll wrapthis up but what God is saying
over and over again, we readGenesis 12, 1, and it's a call
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that is different.
We see there being anuncomfortable call.
When God calls you to dosomething, it looks different
than how it looks for anybodyelse to be called to do things.
God's gonna call you to dosomething that's uncomfortable.
God's gonna call you to dothings that are going to hurt,
are going to be painful.
You're going to have lack, orseemingly lack, throughout that
God's trying to speak to youabout.
Like, let me be your everything.
Don't allow for finances or forany of those things to be what
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sustains you.
Let me sustain you.
So the call is different.
We learned that in Genesis 12.1that when God calls you, just
know he has called all of us tosomething really incredible and
it is going to be uncomfortable.
Nowhere in Scripture does itsay that things get easy when we
give our life over to God.
The second thing is in Genesis12.10, we see trust and learn to
not take it back into our ownhands.
So this is where so many timeswe hear from God, yet we choose
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to take it back into our ownhands.
We have to be willing to giveit back.
This is what we learned inGenesis 14.
God was willing to seeminglygive the vision that God had
given him and giving Lope back.
After fighting to get Lope back, he gave Lope back, which was
an incredible gesture at thattime and it just showed the
heart of Abram that he trustedGod.
It doesn't mean that Abram wasperfect, but he trusted God.
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And then we read in Genesis 15,god's mercy and his goodness
and how God knows that you'regoing to fail.
He understands these things, heknows these things, yet he
still wants to partner with youand come alongside you and he
still wants you to enter intohis rest.
And he still gives usopportunity after opportunity to
partner with him.
And when we partner with him,he is so good to give us
everything that we need.
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And in those moments when wedon't have everything,
everything we need, and it'sjust a perspective shift and
it's and it's incredible onewhen we actually get to that
point.
Last thing is, I want for everysingle person out there to
really considered are youpartner with God?
Because I know there's a lot ofpeople that talk about business
as ministry or God's businessor kingdom business.
But how is your relationshipwith God and partner with God?
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There's no better partner thanpartner with God.
Use your business as yourministry.
Serve your people.
Create programs around this.
Hire people from prison or outthe streets, if you have the
ability to do that.
Train your people properly todevelop the human being.
Grow as a leader.
Study leadership and grow as aleader and really start to move
from being a positional leaderto being a leader that operates
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out of influence and is aboutserving others and puts others
above yourself.
Grow with God, man.
Grow in your relationship withGod, man.
Spend time with God, man.
Take care of your health, likewe were talking about at the
beginning, and start to do thesethings.
Start to work on thesedisciplines and train your body,
like it says in 1 Corinthiansand how we need to train
ourselves so that we're notdisqualified when we're sharing
scriptures or whenever we'repreaching or teaching.
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Spend time with your kids, man.
Spend more time, present timewith your kids, intentional time
with your kids.
You know to them, loving onthem, and if you overreact on
something you know, make itright with them.
But you are literally meant topartner with God and we're meant
for some incredible things.
So just think through some ofthese questions that we've
talked through today and thinkam I partner with God or am I
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doing what I want to do?
Am I really listening to whatGod wants me to do and what God
is speaking to me to do, or am Igoing and I'm trying to take
things into my own hands?
You are made in the image ofGod.
Like this is one of the mostincredible things throughout
scripture is you are made in theimage of God.
You study Matthew 6.
You read all of these thingswhere he says do this, do this.
So that's just kind of asnippet.
Exercise Matthew 6 within yourbusiness and it'll really teach
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you how to give through yourbusiness, how to not give and
how to do a number of things.
I'll leave it at that.
So hopefully you guys enjoyedthis.
I am going to do some videoswhere I go through breaking down
Scripture.
Just know this.
I give a 50,000-foot overview.
Eventually I will start divingin even deeper on some of these
things.
I know some of you heard somethings and it frustrated you.
Maybe you haven't heard some ofthese things before.
So study them, study the wordof God, study scripture, look at
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midrashes, study commentaries.
But the most important thingyou can do is study the Bible
inductively because that, like,alleviates you from having a
re-commentary, midrash or any ofthat stuff, and God will give
you a direct revelation rightthere and then confirm it with
two or three or four or fivedifferent commentaries or people
that you know.
I promise you, if he's givenyou a revelation and you're the
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only one with that revelation,it's a fake revelation.
We see the cult of Mormonismthat God gave Joseph Smith, I
believe, is his name gave him arevelation, and that is a cult
that still plagues our societyto today.
Y'all are awesome.
Thank you so much for tuning inand we will.
What's up, guys?
This is Matt with Avoda Talk,or the real Matt Walton.
This is your hub for all thingsKingdom Business Business as
Ministry Business Strategy.
My goal is to provide as muchvalue, minute by minute, each
podcast that you listen to.
So let's get to it.
God has given me a special wordthis morning for everybody, and
(00:21):
so I am just fired up.
Man, I woke up early today, gotto exercising, I'm spending a
lot of time with the Lord, I'mreally working on dialing in my
eating, and so I've been eatinglike this animal-based lifestyle
.
That has dramatically increasedmy mood.
It's increased my clarity, I'vedropped a lot of weight, my
energy is through the roof, andso it's incredible.
(00:42):
So, no, I'm not trying to getyou guys to do that, but, man,
it is awesome to really take anexpert ownership over your life,
and I have never really been amorning person, but I am
changing to be a morning person,waking up a little bit earlier
than four sometimes, but 4.30 ismy target to where I wake up,
and I immediately will just getinto what I got to get into.
I lay out my stuff the daybefore I lay out my stuff the
(01:05):
day before I lay out my clothes.
I put out all of my morningroutine in the morning so that
when I wake up I don't have tomake those decisions.
I just go in there and runthrough the motions, complete
the task and then I'm out thedoor to start exercising.
Then I get back inside and bythat time I am just fired up,
ready to go, and I spend a lotof time with the Lord in the
morning and that looks likestudying the word, worshiping in
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the traditional sense withmusic, and then obviously just
worshiping with listening,prayer, listening to what the
Lord has to say and worshipingthrough reading his words.
I am just fired up.
I pray that every single personthat is out there is pursuing
the life that you want to haveand, most importantly, it's a
life that God wants you to have,because there's so many times
when we can come up with thislife that we want to have that's
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so different than the life thatGod wants us to have.
So number one thing that Iwould say is man, I hope that
you are in the will of the Lordand if you're not, you know it
and you make the necessarydecisions to get into the will
of the Lord and partake in hisrest as you're conquering your
days, so let's get right into it.
Today's going to look a littledifferent than it normally does
in the past.
I'm going to talk specificallyabout scripture today.
(02:08):
Obviously, that's all going tobe tied to business, because
that's what we do, but this isliterally meant to challenge you
.
This may frustrate some of you.
Please understand that I amtaking a hundred thousand foot
overview over the scripturesthat we're going to go through
today.
I am not at all trying to getinto all the depths of it,
although I will mention certainthings that you may hear and be
like hmm, and these are allmeant to go out and study and to
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find out for yourself.
Don't take my word Go out andfind out for yourself.
We're going to focus on Genesis12 through 15.
And I started a journey a whileago, several months ago, about
figuring out who God is.
But first it started withfiguring out who God says that I
am.
And the reason why I startedthat journey is because my
business is my ministry and it'srun in a certain way in order
to glorify God.
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God is the owner.
I'm a steward.
God is the CEO.
I am a steward.
The reason why is because Ihave a ministry called Reach the
Streets where we go out and weevangelize.
We do tent revivals out here inLas Vegas, and it's something
we do just about every singleTuesday.
We have worship and preaching,evangelism, resources, food.
All of that and the questionsthat kept coming up was just hey
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, have you ever heard of this?
Have you ever heard of that?
Have you ever heard of the bookof the Gospel of Thomas?
Have you ever heard of thesedifferent things?
Have you ever heard of this Godover here, or why do y'all call
him this name?
And so it just started me onthis journey of figuring out
number one, who God says that weare.
But that launched me intofiguring out who God says that
he is and who is God.
So I started studying fromGenesis 1, and I would encourage
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everybody to start from thevery beginning.
This is the foundation of ourfaith.
I started in Genesis 1, and atthe end, if I've got some time,
I'll give y'all some resources.
But this led me to who God is.
These are three of the thingsthat we're going to talk about
here.
But who is God?
We're going to talk about whatGod desires, and it's made
evident in the first severalchapters of Genesis.
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And then we'll talk about whyGod said that you are very good.
Because when God created man,he said that you were very good.
And so why is that?
Because we have this idea thatGod is up there just waiting to
smite you.
The second that you make onewrong move, he's waiting to
smite you, condemn you, leaveyou feeling just discombobulated
, and that's not God at all.
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And so it doesn't mean thatthere's not consequences.
It doesn't mean that God doesnot like teach through those
consequences.
But man God is not a God thatis sitting there just trying to
smite you, condemn you, waitingfor you to trip up.
He is a God that is so good tohis children, that wants to
bless us and see us prosper.
But he's so much more than that.
He's so much more than just aGod up there that wants us to
prosper and live in a life ofabundance.
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He is somebody that is lookingto partner with us.
And how incredible is that,like God of the universe, the
God that created you and thatcreated me is the very same God
that wants to partner with you.
But why did God say that we arevery good?
Now, before I really get into it, I'm going to skip over Genesis
1 through 11.
I'll do a 500,000 foot overviewof these.
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I believe that a lot of thosestories the bulk of those
stories there's so many lessonsto learn in there.
But a lot of them are pointingto man.
God wants to partner with us.
You know we continue to takethings into our own hand.
God will literally say, yes,this is the way that it's going
to be or this is what I don'twant you to do, and then our
desires take over and we dothose things and we go against
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the direct commands of God.
So hopefully this will encourageyou to start being hyper aware
to these things.
It will encourage you to studyscripture like you never had
before, to really understand whoGod is.
That is the intention of this.
Find out on your own.
Start studying the word of God.
Do more than just word studies.
Study the culture.
Just watch how God will expandyour knowledge of who exactly he
is.
But I'll give you one thingGenesis, the bulk of Genesis and
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a lot of the Bible, is a chiasm.
So I'll just leave it at that.
Study that.
Study what a chiasm is.
Study the significance of that,because when we start to
understand that and weunderstand the chiasm and how it
has these different bookendsthroughout the scripture and it
leads you to this treasureIncredible.
It will literally expand theBible, expand your mind in ways
that it's hard for me todescribe.
I can't even begin to describeto you how fired up I get
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whenever I just get filled withthis knowledge and this power
that comes from God, and Godalone.
First, before I want to add thisto it as well when you do not
have clarity in your business,there's obviously a reason why
God continues to invite us, notjust in Scripture, but
throughout our day-to-day life.
He invites us to partner withHim and so many times God will
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literally look at us, whisper tous or tell us through his word
exactly what he wants us to do.
And then we say, okay, we go onand we do it our way.
There are so many times whenwe're pursuing clarity and we
pursue clarity through, maybe, apodcast or through a different
book or through an individual,and no, there is nothing wrong
with those things.
There's nothing wrong with themat all.
And in fact, if you're notdoing those things, I encourage
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you to do those things, unlessGod has you in a season to where
he just wants you diving intothe word, because I am coming
off of a season where God waslike I don't want you listening
to anything except studying myword and uh, and be obedient to
those things and be aware ofwhat God is trying to tell you
to do.
There's a few things that Ithink about.
A lot is we can do all of thesethings to make our business our
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ministry.
And before I get into that,like, if you have never heard
this term, business as ministryjust think about that for a
second.
And how.
Ministry isn't confined to apreacher on Sundays, a four-wall
church building, a non-profitdown the street.
Like ministry is who you are,where you're at.
It could be where you're at ina grocery store line, where
you're at in business, whereyou're at in the marketplace
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that is your ministry.
And your home, your family,that is your ministry.
So we as human beings can doall of these things to make our
businesses and to make our livesoperate out of this ministry
mentality, and yet we're missinglike foundational peace and our
relationship with God can besuffering.
So a question is like how doesyour time with the Lord look?
And are you listening to anhour long podcast but spending
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15 minutes with the Lord.
If you are, that's a little bitlopsided, quit doing that.
We need to spend more time withthe Lord than we're spending in
podcasts and books and allthese other things on a
consistent basis, right?
It doesn't mean that you're notgoing to have days to where you
spend, you know, hour and ahalf, two hours, three hours
reading a book or watching apodcast and you spend an hour in
the word.
But if it's consistently likethat, I encourage you to change
that and God will honor thosethings and he starts to give you
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this desire to pursue him thatmaybe you're missing right now.
And that starts with pursuinghim and understanding that that
motivation precedes the action.
So as soon as you start doingit, that motivation will come.
So if you're waiting formotivation to start doing
something, then start doing thatthing and the motivation will
come, because that's one waythat the enemy will continue to
push your progress and willcontinue to push your growth
(08:35):
down the road, because you'rewaiting for something that's not
going to come until youactually act on something.
And I'm speaking to myselfright now.
I've got a couple of questionswritten down here.
One of the questions is we saythat we're kingdom, but do we
know what God is and who Godsays that we are?
How many times do we say okay,god, only to take it into our
hands and do it our way insteadof being patient and waiting on
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God?
Man, I am guilty of that, and Idid that maybe four months ago
and it came back to bite mereally quick.
So I pursued the money onsomething and it came back to
bite me really quick.
God taught me a very valuablelesson that I need to be patient
and not just bite on the shinyobject and wait for the Lord,
because as soon as the Lordprovided what was needed, there
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was no toil associated with itat all.
And that reminds me of Psalm127, verses 1 through 2.
Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in
vain.
Same thing for business Unlessthe Lord's building your
business, you're laboring invain.
You're going to experiencestress and anxiety like never
before.
It's going to weigh down on you, it's going to deplete your
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motivation and you're going tofind yourself just in this
hamster wheel and just repeatingthis loop cycle that is
creating a void between you andGod and a void between the rest.
That only comes from God and avoid between the visions and all
the things that God is tryingto speak to, a void between the
voice of God speaking to you Godis trying to speak to somebody
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out there, whoever is listening,and you're doing something that
is hindering you from hearingfrom the Lord.
It's so awesome whenever youbecome exposed to these things
and like speaking to me rightnow.
I hear from God directly, likesometimes it comes through an
Instagram post, like this is achannel that God has established
in my life.
It's like I'm going to speakthrough Facebook and I'm going
to speak through Instagram andI'm going to speak through
(10:19):
YouTube and I'm going to speakthrough titles and I'm going to
speak through just littlesnippets of videos and it's
going to be directly related toyou and that's how I'm going to
speak to you.
If you're not hearing me in theword, if you're not hearing me
in the morning time, wheneveryou're going on walks in the
afternoon, I'm going to startspeaking to you whenever you're
not spending time with me andwhenever you're pursuing
something else.
God made me aware of that and Iwept and I sent myself these
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videos because God, video aftervideo after video, it had three
videos consistently where Godsaid what, what I don't want you
to do anymore.
And here's why let's get intoit.
When I say kingdom business, Iam not well, I am, of course,
talking about how you operateyour business and like the
programs that you develop andhow you're helping people, how
you're developing humans, howyou're taking care of your
clients, how you're setting thestandard for how business is
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done and customer service.
All of that is incredible.
But I'm also talking about thestate that we operate in,
because if we operate in thestate of just a tizzy, we're
hair on fire, we're alwaysoverreacting.
That's not kingdom and itcertainly can be fixed.
If that's you, man, it justtakes.
You know, repenting,recognizing that, getting on
your face before the Lord,asking God to take that over
from you.
Biggest things for kingdombusiness is how you operate and
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your relationship with God,because then you can then go in
and do some incredible thingswithout the anxiety, without the
stress, without all of that,because your partner is God and
he's got you.
Let's start on our, on ouroverview.
I'm going to go through Genesis12.
Again, I'm just going to hitthe high points real quick.
I'm going to Genesis 12 through15.
And before I get into that, I'mgoing to skim very briefly over
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this.
So Genesis 1 through 2, they'reincredible creation stories.
It's multiple creation storiesbuilt into what I would have
thought before I studied this asone creation story.
I think you're going to see thechiasms in here.
If you study chiasms, you'regoing to start to see these and
then just understand this.
The Aramaic, hebrew and theGreek they're all alphanumeric
languages.
So don't build your theology onnumbers.
(12:14):
But it's incredible how Goduses numbers to confirm things.
So God will literally, if he'strying to start a new thing in
you, start paying attention tolicense plates.
God will speak to you throughlicense plates.
Like I started to see 777, andthen I started to see 333.
This is very recent.
I told my wife whenever we weredriving.
I was like God is about to dosomething brand new.
This is finished.
He's about to do somethingbrand new and we're about to
start seeing 333 everywhere.
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And sure enough, we did so.
Then we get into the fall.
We get into the fall of man andwe get into God.
Literally told them what to doand or, excuse me, told them
what not to do.
They ended up and took thedesires back into their hands
and they went against what Godhad told them to do.
There's so many fascinatingthings in here, like there's the
tree of knowledge and the treeof life, which one is in the
middle?
You know, we see it would seemto be a contradiction, but the
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word of God is inerrant, meaningthat there's no errors found in
the word of God.
And in fact, if there'ssomething that you don't
understand, then it seems likeokay, that's off, that's an
error.
I promise you it is not.
And when you study those thingsthat we perceive as errors, you
ask like this is a problem thatI see in scripture.
It becomes apparent to you andGod blows open the doors of
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revelation with the scripture.
So now we get into Cain and Abel.
Again, we have another story ofCain and Abel had a.
Specifically, cain had a greatopportunity to not overreact, to
trust that God had a purposeand a plan in this.
Some things in this story,whenever you first read it, just
don't make sense, becauseyou're like you didn't tell them
what to bring, they broughtwhat they Anyway.
So there's a lot of questionswhen you're reading this ask
(13:41):
yourself like what are theproblems in the story?
And then God will reveal that?
No, there is none.
I'll give depth of theknowledge that you're that
you're seeking searching forwhen we get to noah.
Noah was obedient to what godhad called him to do.
Noah, as soon as he came out ofthe ark, we know what happened
with his sons there was.
Noah took it into his own handsat that point and we see noah
over react.
No, we ended up and cursed hisgrandson.
(14:01):
That is a fascinating story.
If you haven't got into it.
God creates a covenant withnoah and then we get into the
tower of babel.
Again, I'm skipping over a lotof stuff, but we get into the
Tower of Babel and how, again,we as human beings were trying
to build a great name forourselves, all disguised within,
trying to get closer to God.
And how many times do we dothat?
Then we get to Haraz,descendants, which is where we
(14:23):
meet Abram for the first time,and I know y'all know Abram.
Abraham is what he was laterrenamed through God and he is
the father of our faith.
There's so much that comes fromAbram.
So when we get to Genesis 12,this is where we see the call of
Abram.
So I want to talk about culturereally quick.
So this is a patriarchal styleof culture within family.
(14:44):
If we study the Eastern family,they have a patriarchal
structure to where you, as thekids, had to come underneath the
wing of the, the patriarch, orthe father of the grandfather of
the family, and until you,until he passes, you had to help
him accomplish his vision andthe goal that god had given over
his life.
And so for god to call abramaway from his family was a huge
(15:08):
deal.
And so now the lord said toAbram go from your country and
your kindred and your father'shouse to the land that I will
show you and I will make of youa great nation and I will bless
you so that you will be ablessing, and he will make your
name great, so that you will bea blessing.
And then this is I'm skipping.
So Abram, when has the Lord toldhim?
And this is where they departed?
It says he departed from Haranand Abram took Sarai, his wife,
(15:31):
which?
Study Sarai, his wife, andstudy Isca.
It's fascinating.
There's a lot of theologiansthat believe something
fascinating about them.
I don't want to give you alltoo much there, but study who
they are.
Then we see here he took Enlot,his brother's son, and all
their possessions that they hadgathered.
So Abram departed.
He was acting out of obedienceto God.
He had departed, and it saysdown here Then the Lord appeared
(15:52):
to Abram and said To youroffspring I will give this land.
So he built an altar to the Lord.
So where we see in previousstories of how man would build
towers and how man took it intotheir own hands and went against
what God had called them to dowithin Adam and Eve, and we see
this with Cain and Abel.
We see this with Cain and Abel.
(16:15):
We see here Abram has adifferent heart posture.
He did not go try to build atower.
He was not trying to gratifyhis flesh just yet and, believe
me, abram is not perfect, but hebuilt an altar to the Lord.
We're going to see that beingconsistent throughout scripture,
or throughout the story withAbram.
Now they're heading to Egypt andthey get to Egypt, and this is
where Abram, when you study this, abram seemingly lied, right.
We know a lot of theologiansare saying that Sarai was his
half-sister, but Abram told ahalf-truth, if you will, so told
(16:36):
a lie in order to be blessedfor her sake.
And so this is what he said Saythat you are my sister.
So again he's coming to Egypt.
They had departed from wherethey were at.
They built an altar out ofobedience to what God said.
He had departed from his family.
They get to Egypt.
There was a great famine in theland, so they had been traveling
.
So he is thinking like man, Iam in, needed some resources
(16:57):
here.
There's a famine in the land.
We've been traveling for awhile.
We are without.
So, sarai, why don't you what?
Let's just tell them thatyou're my sister, so that it may
go well with me because of youand that my life may be spared
for your sake.
And so because Abram,selflessly, I know we human
beings in our Western world wesee Abram marrying Sarai as
something that can be a veryperverted thing.
But when we study this, we seethat Abram taking Sarai was
(17:21):
actually a very.
He was like killing his fleshand he was saying listen, I will
take, I will be the patriarchof you.
I will show you the way I willprovide the patriarch of you.
I will show you the way I willprovide for you.
I will show you what it's liketo be taken care of.
So fast forward now.
We have a famine in the land.
They're in Egypt and he'stelling her hey, do this so that
you're spared or I'm spared foryour sake.
So now we get to the idea of.
(17:44):
He was very concerned becauseSarai was very beautiful and so
he was thinking if they believethat you're my sister, they will
want to court you, and becausethey won't want to marry you,
they will then give me a bunchof possessions and they will
want to woo me so that I willgive your hand over in marriage
and we then will escape by nightinto the wilderness and we'll
(18:07):
leave with all the riches thatwe accumulate because they just
want to bless us.
And it goes south becausePharaoh actually Sarai catches
Pharaoh's eye and Pharaohanswers to nobody, pharaoh is
not trying to court anybody.
Pharaoh's like yeah, I want youto be mine, you're going to be
mine and I don't care about theway that our culture is.
And so Abram's plan backfiredhere and we see Abram or we see
(18:28):
Pharaoh then.
So I'm going to say I'm goingto skip down here and for her
sake, he dealt well with Abram,so his plan seemingly going well
at this point.
And he had sheep, oxen, maledonkeys and camels.
So Pharaoh had blessed Abramabundantly.
But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh.
This is where we start to seethings go south.
This is where we start to learn, like we take things into our
(18:49):
own hand and we quit believingGod and the story and the
scriptures and we take thingsinto our own hand and we see God
here say, okay, he afflictedPharaoh and his house with great
plagues because of Sarai,abram's wife.
So Pharaoh called Abram andsaid what is this you have done
to me?
Why did you not tell me thatshe was your wife?
And so, to skip forward, heended up and told Abram and
(19:09):
Sarai to go and he allowed forthem to keep all of their riches
.
So Abrai went up from Egypt, sothey had to depart and he and
his wife and all that they hadand Lot went with him to Najib.
Now, abram was very rich, so Iwant to park there for a second.
Abram was very rich.
This is not a worldly term.
So for those that are believersout there that have a problem
whenever you see anotherbeliever passing by in a
(19:31):
Mercedes or another believerpassing by and they've got a
Rolex on, abram was very, veryrich.
That's not a worldly term.
This is a biblical term and,yes, those possessions can have
your heart, and that's where theproblem is.
But the possessions and all ofthat is not the problem.
And so God again wants to blessus.
See that here.
He was very rich in livestockand silver and in gold, and he
journeyed from the nijiv as faras bethel.
(19:52):
So this is where we see abramand loth.
They had to separate.
Abram was like look, listen,you go this way or you go that
way.
Whichever way, you don't go, Iwill go.
And so they ended up andseparated.
Loth went to the jordan valley,abram settled in the land of
canaan.
So then this is, uh, genesis 13.
Then we we see Lot ended up andwas taken.
Then we see Abram, or we see allof these kings of this time,
(20:14):
enter into a battle or enterinto a war, and we quickly get
down to verses 13, where westart to learn how Abram heard
that his kinsmen had been takencaptive and he led forth his
trained men born in his house,318 of them.
So he has already accumulatedall the wealth and all the
people, all the servants, all ofthat to the tune of having
(20:35):
trained 318 men.
So they went out and heconquered all of those kings and
he ended up and got all of thespoils of the war and ended up
and was able to get Lot back.
So God literally had promisedAbram that his offspring was
going to fill the earth and theywere going to bless the earth.
And Abram took a wife in Saraiand she was barren.
So he literally is hearing thepromise from God, takes Sarai
(20:59):
and is like how in the world isthis going to happen?
Because my wife is barren?
And so he starts to believethat Lot is going to be the heir
right.
He's going to be where all ofhis descendants come from is
through Lot.
And we see here that, or we seein the verse before how
literally Abram let Lot go andtold him to go this way.
And then we see Abram fights toget Lot back and through
(21:21):
fighting to get Lot back he gotthat promise back and there were
some of that security that camewith that.
He got the spoils of the warbut he ended up and gave this to
Melchizedek.
But we see in the king of Saddamsaid to Abram this is after he
collected all the people, allthe spoils of the war and he had
conquered all the kings.
He said this is the kingtalking.
Give me the persons, but takethe goods for yourself.
(21:41):
And Abram said to the king ofSodom I have lifted my hand to
the Lord, god most highpossessor of heaven and earth
that I would not take a threador a sandal strap or anything
that is yours, lest you shouldsay I have made Abram rich.
So this is where we see Abramliterally let go to all the
goods that they had gotten inthe sense of food.
Abram literally let go to allthe goods that they had gotten
(22:02):
in the sense of food.
I will take nothing but whatthe young men have eaten and the
share of the men who went withme.
He literally gave back Lot andhe gave back all the spoils that
they had gotten.
So Abram went and risked all ofhis life, risked his men's life
.
They ended up and conqueredthem to get the promise back
from the Lord, aka Lot, andthrough that he ended up and had
(22:23):
to give Lot back.
And so Abram, when we get toGenesis 15, we see Abram be like
very curious or very concernedand express a lot of fears.
So Genesis 15 in these things,the word of the Lord came to
Abram in a vision.
Fear not, abram, I am yourshield.
Your reward shall be very great.
But Abram said oh Lord, God,what will you give me, for?
I continue childless and theheir of my house is Eleazar of
(22:43):
Damascus.
So again, he had to give up Lotagain and he's thinking like
how in the world is God going toprovide a child?
That is then going to be theprovision for the vision that
God had given him that's goingto bless all nations.
Because he doesn't have Lot,his wife is barren, so he cannot
(23:04):
see how God is going to do this.
And abram said and we don't seegod.
Reply to that, by the way, sothat when you study the culture
and the context of this time mystudies have led me to, there
was a whole lot longer pausethere than just I didn't hear
from you, and then I'm going tocontinue with the conversation
like this, almost as if there'stwo conversations going on here
at two different times.
And it says and Abram saidbehold, you have given me no
offspring and a member of myhousehold will be my heir.
(23:25):
And behold, the word of theLord came to him this man shall
not be your heir, your very ownson shall be your heir.
And he brought him outside andsaid look toward heaven and
number the stars, if you are.
If you are able to number them,then he said to him so shall
your offspring be.
And he believed the Lord.
And he counted it to him asrighteousness.
Let's study that, by the way.
He counted it to him asrighteousness.
(23:45):
That's fascinating.
And he said to him I am the Lordwho brought you out of Ur of
the Chaldeans, to give you thisland to possess.
But he said, oh Lord, god, howam I to know that I shall
possess it?
And literally, because I justtold you is what my mind is
thinking, I shall possess it.
And literally, because I justtold you is what my mind is
thinking, like, literally justtold you that you were going to
have this, yet Abraham is stillquestioning these things.
So how often do we questionthings when God is like here it
(24:08):
is, here's exactly what it is.
And yet we're like well,because I can't tangibly touch
this thing, I don't believe it.
But he said, oh Lord, how am Ito know that I shall possess it?
He said to him bring me aheifer three years old, a female
goat three years old, a ramthree years old, a turtle, dove
and a young pigeon.
And he brought him all these,cut them in half and laid each
of them against the other.
But he did not cut the birds inhalf and when the birds of prey
(24:30):
came down on the carcass, abramdrove them away.
So it's fascinating, becauseGod did not tell him make a
covenant right now.
And I want you to do this.
And here's how the covenant isgoing to look like.
So this is actually considered ablood path covenant and Abram
was very familiar because takethese animals here, cut them in
half and what that resembled.
And so that resembled a bloodpath covenant.
(24:51):
Abram just went kind of his way, if you will not really out of
his way.
Abram acted out of what hebelieved.
God was trying to say cut themin half.
Just imagine if this was like amountain and there was a little
crevice there.
Maybe we're at the top of themountain and you put all the
animals on either side and thendrains the blood right down the
middle, to where you have thisblood path going down the middle
(25:11):
.
And what happened is, if youwere the one that initiated the
covenant, if you're trying totake somebody's hand in marriage
or whatever it was, and youentered into that covenant with
the patriarch of the family,then you would be the one to
walk through that first, beforethe other individual would that
you were entering into thatcovenant and you were basically
saying that, hey, I promise todo these things.
Here is our covenant,punishable by death if I don't
(25:32):
hold up my end of the deal.
So I'm going to skip throughthis.
But God had made the sun godown and this is where God told
him Know for certain that youroffspring will be sojourners in
a land that is not theirs andwill be servants there, and they
will be afflicted for 400 years.
That's incredible becausethat's pointing to Israel, but I
will bring judgment on thenation that they serve, and
(25:55):
afterward they shall come outwith a great possessions.
As for you, you shall back toyour studies within Scripture.
(26:20):
How was God represented over thecourse of numerous times?
Smoke and fire.
So what God is saying here,when the sun had gone down and
it was dark, behold a smokingfire pot and a flaming torch
passed between the pieces.
So when it talks about thepieces there, it's talking about
the blood path of the animalsthat Abram had laid out.
And what God was saying here isis God revealed himself in that
(26:42):
moment, passed through thepieces there saying Abram, you
are going to fail every singletime, and I know that.
So I will not enter into thetraditional blood covenant with
you to where you're the one thatis going to have to pay with
your life because you're notgoing to uphold this.
Rather, I will.
I'm speaking as God.
I will take the fullresponsibility for this covenant
(27:03):
and I, as God, will literallytake, because I know you're
going to fail every single time.
I will take the consequencesfor that.
I will take all of that onmyself.
And so what a better partnerthan that that we have a God
that wants to partner with us,that wants to provide the
provision for the visions, thatwants to provide a way of
operating business it doesn'tmean we're not going to have a
(27:24):
season or a moment, but a way ofrelying on God to provide
everything and entering into hisrest.
Like what a better partner thanthat that says I know you're
going to fail, so I'm going totake all that on my own and I'm
going to be the one that's goingto take the brunt of that
covenant and I'm going to ensurethat this covenant is upheld,
because God is a God of his word.
(27:45):
The things that are fascinatinghere is I'm a little bit, but
Hagar Hagar, one of the servantsthat came from when we were in
Egypt with Pharaoh.
So it's just fascinating whenwe start thinking about Islam
and the father and mother ofIslam and all of that.
It's fascinating.
So what God is saying I'll wrapthis up but what God is saying
over and over again, we readGenesis 12, 1, and it's a call
(28:07):
that is different.
We see there being anuncomfortable call.
When God calls you to dosomething, it looks different
than how it looks for anybodyelse to be called to do things.
God's gonna call you to dosomething that's uncomfortable.
God's gonna call you to dothings that are going to hurt,
are going to be painful.
You're going to have lack, orseemingly lack, throughout that
God's trying to speak to youabout.
Like, let me be your everything.
Don't allow for finances or forany of those things to be what
(28:31):
sustains you.
Let me sustain you.
So the call is different.
We learned that in Genesis 12.1that when God calls you, just
know he has called all of us tosomething really incredible and
it is going to be uncomfortable.
Nowhere in Scripture does itsay that things get easy when we
give our life over to God.
The second thing is in Genesis12.10, we see trust and learn to
not take it back into our ownhands.
So this is where so many timeswe hear from God, yet we choose
(28:54):
to take it back into our ownhands.
We have to be willing to giveit back.
This is what we learned inGenesis 14.
God was willing to seeminglygive the vision that God had
given him and giving Lope back.
After fighting to get Lope back, he gave Lope back, which was
an incredible gesture at thattime and it just showed the
heart of Abram that he trustedGod.
It doesn't mean that Abram wasperfect, but he trusted God.
(29:15):
And then we read in Genesis 15,god's mercy and his goodness
and how God knows that you'regoing to fail.
He understands these things, heknows these things, yet he
still wants to partner with youand come alongside you and he
still wants you to enter intohis rest.
And he still gives usopportunity after opportunity to
partner with him.
And when we partner with him,he is so good to give us
everything that we need.
(29:35):
And in those moments when wedon't have everything,
everything we need, and it'sjust a perspective shift and
it's and it's incredible onewhen we actually get to that
point.
Last thing is, I want for everysingle person out there to
really considered are youpartner with God?
Because I know there's a lot ofpeople that talk about business
as ministry or God's businessor kingdom business.
But how is your relationshipwith God and partner with God?
(29:56):
There's no better partner thanpartner with God.
Use your business as yourministry.
Serve your people.
Create programs around this.
Hire people from prison or outthe streets, if you have the
ability to do that.
Train your people properly todevelop the human being.
Grow as a leader.
Study leadership and grow as aleader and really start to move
from being a positional leaderto being a leader that operates
(30:17):
out of influence and is aboutserving others and puts others
above yourself.
Grow with God, man.
Grow in your relationship withGod, man.
Spend time with God, man.
Take care of your health, likewe were talking about at the
beginning, and start to do thesethings.
Start to work on thesedisciplines and train your body,
like it says in 1 Corinthiansand how we need to train
ourselves so that we're notdisqualified when we're sharing
scriptures or whenever we'repreaching or teaching.
(30:38):
Spend time with your kids, man.
Spend more time, present timewith your kids, intentional time
with your kids.
You know to them, loving onthem, and if you overreact on
something you know, make itright with them.
But you are literally meant topartner with God and we're meant
for some incredible things.
So just think through some ofthese questions that we've
talked through today and thinkam I partner with God or am I
(30:59):
doing what I want to do?
Am I really listening to whatGod wants me to do and what God
is speaking to me to do, or am Igoing and I'm trying to take
things into my own hands?
You are made in the image ofGod.
Like this is one of the mostincredible things throughout
scripture is you are made in theimage of God.
You study Matthew 6.
You read all of these thingswhere he says do this, do this.
So that's just kind of asnippet.
Exercise Matthew 6 within yourbusiness and it'll really teach
(31:21):
you how to give through yourbusiness, how to not give and
how to do a number of things.
I'll leave it at that.
So hopefully you guys enjoyedthis.
I am going to do some videoswhere I go through breaking down
Scripture.
Just know this.
I give a 50,000-foot overview.
Eventually I will start divingin even deeper on some of these
things.
I know some of you heard somethings and it frustrated you.
Maybe you haven't heard some ofthese things before.
So study them, study the wordof God, study scripture, look at
(31:44):
midrashes, study commentaries.
But the most important thingyou can do is study the Bible
inductively because that, like,alleviates you from having a
re-commentary, midrash or any ofthat stuff, and God will give
you a direct revelation rightthere and then confirm it with
two or three or four or fivedifferent commentaries or people
that you know.
I promise you, if he's givenyou a revelation and you're the
(32:05):
only one with that revelation,it's a fake revelation.
We see the cult of Mormonismthat God gave Joseph Smith, I
believe, is his name gave him arevelation, and that is a cult
that still plagues our societyto today.
Y'all are awesome.
Thank you so much for tuning inand we will.
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