How to Glorify God in Business Success

00:00:04.000 | Well, we talk often about glorifying God when things are hard.

00:00:09.000 | Glorifying God in suffering and in loss and even in death.

00:00:14.000 | Philippians 1:20 is a key text for us, one that we've addressed now over 30 times on the podcast, and for good reason.

00:00:21.000 | But what about glorifying God when things in life are good, and especially when your business is flourishing?

00:00:29.000 | That's our question today from a listener named Matt.

00:00:32.000 | Hello, Pastor John. Thank you for this podcast.

00:00:35.000 | How should a Christian hedonist who is successful in business and a prominent leader speak in front of others about their story?

00:00:43.000 | It seems like many "Christian business leaders" make their success story all about themselves and then mask it all in a thin Christian wrapper.

00:00:54.000 | So what is the best way to authentically and humbly recognize a position of leadership and success, but to speak of it in a way that makes God look great?

00:01:05.000 | I really appreciate this question, especially the way it's phrased there at the end, because I think that is the goal of everything in life, is to make God, Christ, look great.

00:01:15.000 | But I am going to push it back one step.

00:01:19.000 | Matt asks about how a successful person in a leadership position may speak so as to make God look great.

00:01:29.000 | And I'm going to push it back and say that almost everything hangs on how a successful person in a leadership position thinks and feels about his success in leadership.

00:01:46.000 | I really do believe that if a person's thinking and feeling about his success and his work and his relationships and his leadership is deeply biblical and spiritual,

00:02:02.000 | then the speaking and all the more or less subtle forms of communication will take care of themselves.

00:02:12.000 | So let me try to explain what I mean by right thinking and right feeling when it comes to one's success and leadership.

00:02:26.000 | Five ways to think and I think five ways to feel about our life's achievements if God has given us success and given us, therefore, leadership.

00:02:40.000 | Number one, so I'm talking about thinking first.

00:02:43.000 | Number one, you will think rightly about the nature of what success is.

00:02:49.000 | You will not assume the world's definition of success, though there will be overlaps.

00:02:57.000 | Essential to your definition of success will be your goals in life.

00:03:04.000 | And these will not be identical with the world's goals.

00:03:08.000 | Success is reaching goals.

00:03:11.000 | That's what success is.

00:03:12.000 | And so choosing life goals is prior to seeking success.

00:03:18.000 | Yours will include pleasing your Creator and the Lord of your life, getting in sync with his goals in the world.

00:03:28.000 | This will involve doing good for people in the hope of showing Christ's supreme worth.

00:03:35.000 | This will imply pervasive integrity, honesty, justice, generosity, the true good of clients and customers and employees and community.

00:03:46.000 | Number two, you will think rightly about the fact that absolutely everything that makes this business flourish is a free and undeserved gift of God,

00:04:00.000 | including the raw materials, the skill of employees, the social conditions, the weather, the managerial successes and processes, and your own life, abilities, disciplines.

00:04:17.000 | Acts 13.25 says, "God is not served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything."

00:04:31.000 | So life and breath and everything are a gift of God.

00:04:37.000 | You will think rightly about that.

00:04:40.000 | Number three, you will think rightly about the relationship between hard work and divine blessing.

00:04:46.000 | You will know God is decisive in all blessing, but you will not make the mistake of thinking that he does not use human means and human giftedness.

00:04:57.000 | The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but victory belongs to the Lord, Proverbs 21.31.

00:05:06.000 | Both your preparations are essential, but God is decisive.

00:05:13.000 | Or 1 Corinthians 15.10, "By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain.

00:05:19.000 | On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that was with me."

00:05:30.000 | So yes, you worked. Yes, you are gifted. Yes, that's crucial.

00:05:37.000 | But all of it, all of it is owing to grace.

00:05:43.000 | Number four, you will remember that God is sovereign and governs the world for his wise purposes.

00:05:49.000 | The smallest turn of affairs is ordered by God.

00:05:54.000 | Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?

00:05:57.000 | And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your father, Matthew 10.29.

00:06:03.000 | Every sparrow dies, and it dies by God's will.

00:06:07.000 | The lot is cast in the lap, every decision is from the Lord, Proverbs 16.33.

00:06:13.000 | This conviction is essential to right thinking about success.

00:06:18.000 | And finally, number five on thinking.

00:06:20.000 | You will think rightly about the fact that as an undeserving sinner,

00:06:26.000 | not only is every good thing that comes to you a gift of God,

00:06:30.000 | it comes to you as his child undeserved and owing to the purchase he made by the blood of Christ.

00:06:39.000 | Most Christians don't make this connection between the death of Christ

00:06:43.000 | and the blessings they receive in this life.

00:06:46.000 | They think only in terms of forgiveness.

00:06:48.000 | But consider Romans 8.32.

00:06:51.000 | "He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all,

00:06:56.000 | how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?"

00:07:02.000 | In other words, everything that comes to God's undeserving children

00:07:09.000 | is owing to God's not sparing his son, but giving him up for us.

00:07:16.000 | Every gift that we have from God in our business life, in our leadership,

00:07:22.000 | comes with a price tag, the blood of Jesus.

00:07:27.000 | We need to think rightly about that.

00:07:29.000 | Now, what about feeling?

00:07:32.000 | If you're going to speak about your successful business and your leadership

00:07:37.000 | in a way that makes Christ look great, you will need to be transformed

00:07:41.000 | into the kind of person from the inside out who actually feels the greatness of Christ.

00:07:48.000 | Not just knows it, but thinks it and feels it.

00:07:51.000 | And all the things that go with it.

00:07:53.000 | For example, number one, you will feel thankful for everything.

00:07:58.000 | Ephesians 5.20, "Give thanks always and for everything to God the Father

00:08:03.000 | in the name of our Lord Jesus."

00:08:05.000 | 1 Thessalonians 5.18, "Give thanks in all circumstances,

00:08:11.000 | for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."

00:08:14.000 | So if you take those two texts together, it says,

00:08:17.000 | "For all things and in all things.

00:08:21.000 | Few feelings are more winsome, humbling, other-oriented than thankfulness."

00:08:30.000 | This cannot be pretended.

00:08:33.000 | It is a feeling.

00:08:34.000 | It is a feeling before it is words.

00:08:38.000 | Do you really feel thankful?

00:08:42.000 | That will make a huge difference in how you talk.

00:08:45.000 | Number two, you will feel not just thankful for all good things.

00:08:53.000 | You will feel undeserving, really undeserving.

00:08:58.000 | This is huge.

00:08:59.000 | Do you?

00:09:01.000 | Your understanding of sin will be existential in your business life.

00:09:07.000 | You will know that every morning that you wake up

00:09:11.000 | and you don't wake up in hell is a good morning,

00:09:16.000 | an undeserved morning.

00:09:19.000 | If your doctrine of sin does not bring you to this point,

00:09:23.000 | you need to return to thinking rightly about the issue of sin

00:09:29.000 | and go deeper into Scripture.

00:09:31.000 | We must pray.

00:09:32.000 | This doesn't come naturally.

00:09:34.000 | We must plead with God that the truth of our own fallen nature

00:09:39.000 | as children of wrath, Ephesians 2, 3,

00:09:42.000 | children of wrath will cause us to feel undeserving

00:09:48.000 | of every single good that comes to us.

00:09:53.000 | Number three, you will feel amazed.

00:09:56.000 | This is the upside of undeserving

00:10:00.000 | when grace rises to meet every degree of guilt we feel.

00:10:05.000 | The feelings of thankfulness and being undeserving

00:10:10.000 | now overflow with amazement

00:10:14.000 | as if a million-dollar check landed in your mailbox

00:10:18.000 | every single morning.

00:10:21.000 | Only better.

00:10:22.000 | The grace of God is amazing.

00:10:26.000 | Number four, you will not feel proud but humble.

00:10:31.000 | Not just think it, feel it.

00:10:34.000 | This makes all the difference.

00:10:36.000 | 1 Corinthians 4, 7.

00:10:38.000 | What do you have that you did not receive?

00:10:41.000 | And if you received it, why do you boast

00:10:45.000 | as if you did not receive it?

00:10:47.000 | Or here's James 4, 15.

00:10:49.000 | This is spoken directly to businessmen and women.

00:10:53.000 | "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town

00:10:57.000 | and spend a year there and trade and make a profit.'

00:11:01.000 | Instead, you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills,

00:11:05.000 | we will live and do this or that.'

00:11:07.000 | As it is, you boast in your arrogance.

00:11:09.000 | All such boasting is evil."

00:11:11.000 | In other words, it's arrogant to say,

00:11:14.000 | "I'm going downtown today to do some business."

00:11:16.000 | You don't know if you're going to make it downtown.

00:11:19.000 | The sovereignty of God and the grace of God

00:11:22.000 | over every detail of your lives, James says,

00:11:26.000 | cancels boasting, causes us to feel humble,

00:11:30.000 | and finally, number five,

00:11:32.000 | you will feel an overflowing joy

00:11:36.000 | that inclines you to love other people

00:11:40.000 | and be generous with them.

00:11:42.000 | 2 Corinthians 8, verse 2.

00:11:45.000 | "In a severe test of affliction,

00:11:48.000 | their abundance of joy

00:11:51.000 | overflowed with a wealth of generosity."

00:11:56.000 | So if you have these five aspects of right thinking

00:12:01.000 | and these five aspects of right feeling

00:12:05.000 | about your success and leadership,

00:12:08.000 | there will be an overflow of right speaking

00:12:12.000 | to make Christ look great.

00:12:15.000 | Love this.

00:12:16.000 | So much of this episode resonates with me as an author, too,

00:12:19.000 | writing from the overflow.

00:12:21.000 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:12:22.000 | And I think this is the first time in an APJ episode

00:12:25.000 | we've applied James 4, 13 to 16 to a business context.

00:12:29.000 | I was just looking that up, and I think that's true.

00:12:32.000 | It's been applied in episodes on mortality, of course,

00:12:34.000 | but not business.

00:12:36.000 | Interesting to bring it into a commercial context

00:12:39.000 | because of how loaded it is with implications

00:12:42.000 | for business leaders.

00:12:43.000 | Thank you for joining us today.

00:12:45.000 | You can ask a question of your own,

00:12:46.000 | search our growing archive,

00:12:47.000 | or subscribe to the podcast, all at askpastorjohn.com.

00:12:52.000 | Well, Pastor John is a Christian.

00:12:54.000 | That's no secret.

00:12:56.000 | But how was he converted?

00:12:58.000 | When was he converted?

00:13:00.000 | Where was he converted?

00:13:02.000 | All questions you have wanted to know,

00:13:04.000 | and we'll get some answers to those questions next time.

00:13:07.000 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:13:09.000 | We'll see you on Wednesday.

00:13:10.000 | [end]

00:13:11.000 | [music]

00:13:13.000 | [music]

00:13:15.000 | [music]

00:13:16.000 | [BLANK_AUDIO]