Transcript 

Welcome to the Hundredfold Business Podcast, where Christian men learn the principles, strategies, and tactics to grow their businesses, top line, bottom line, and finish line. I want you to discover the secret to applying Biblical truth to business growth for the greatest kingdom impact, so in the end you hear from your Heavenly Father, well done. Welcome to the 100-Fold Business Podcast, where Christian men learn how to grow their businesses, top line, bottom line, and finish line.

I'm your host, Josh Fonger, founder of 4th Soil Ventures, and today we're talking about Essential 9 of 12, all about how you can grow your Hundredfold Business. During these 12 essentials, we'll be going to God's Word first, and then finding out the original design of a good business, and then taking the teaching and applying it to our businesses. Of course, if you need help along the way, you can always go to my website, 4thSoilVentures.com, and I can help you more there.

Today's Essential 9 is all about serving your customer, so providing your products and services in a good and profitable and excellent way, and above all, in a Biblical way. In Luke 18, verse 19, Jesus said, Why do you call me good? No one is good except for God alone. So in today's lesson, we'll be talking about that, good work.

How do you actually do good work, good God-glorifying work that actually truly helps your customer, and we'll be finding out that without God, it's impossible, and I hope this lesson will revolutionize the way you see work and you do your work towards your customer. While the world is working horizontally, I want you to be working vertically, producing a 100-Fold increase in God's economy, doing it faithfully, and therefore doing it fruitfully. The text we'll be working through today is going to be Titus 3, verse 8, so let me read it to you now.

The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people. So this section is towards the end of a letter that Paul wrote to Titus to instruct him on how to set up the church and put an order in Crete, so appointing elders, sound doctrine, and how to do good work.

Let's now start with the first section, which I'll just read it again. The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God. Now, to make sense of this, to find out what Paul is actually saying, what sayings he's insisting on, we need to go back a few verses, and we'll find that those verses are all about how to be saved.

The section right before this is all about how Jesus saves us because of his love, and his mercy, and his kindness, and it's not because of our works, but because, again, of his grace, and that we're now right in his sight. We have a new birth, we have the Holy Spirit, and we have the hope of eternal life in heaven. So Paul is telling Titus that he needs to insist on these trustworthy sayings, which is essentially the gospel of Jesus Christ, and that out of this will flow good works.

So the first point today, all about how to do good work to serve your customer, is that that work needs to start with the foundation of Jesus Christ. So if you're going to do good work, it's going to pass that final test. You need that as your foundation, and any work you do that doesn't have that foundation, whether it's in the office, or it's at home, or it's at the church, any work you do without the foundation is not going to pass that test.

So you need to be saved to do good work, and when you are saved, you will do good work. So as James says, faith without works is dead, and the inverse, works, or doing your work at the office without faith, is dead, or is not going to count. If you want to truly serve your customer in a way that's producing finish line, or kingdom, or eternal results, the key is to make sure that you are in the right kingdom, and that you are serving first the right king.

Earlier on in this letter, in Titus chapter 1 verse 15, the Bible reads, to the pure all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure, but both their minds and their consciences are defiled. They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.

So let me repeat from this section, they are unfit for any good work, and they deny Jesus by their works. Now, I'm stressing this first point a lot, and the reason why is I've spent so many years doing business coaching, consulting, advising, and what I've seen is that business owners, for the most part, believe they're doing pretty good work, or at least as good as anyone else, or maybe better than the guy next door. And the problem with that philosophy, or that way about going about life, is that their standard of measurement for good is off.

Since we know in the beginning God created the heavens, the earth, we know that he owns everything. He created everything, he made everything, and he sets the rules, right? He sustains everything, and in the end, he is going to be the judge, and the only measurement that actually matters is his word. We have our measurements for what good business is, but ultimately, he's the one that gets to define it, and for God, it's absolute perfection.

Perfection done to glorify his name, and none of us is doing work that good, and hence the need for a Savior, because without the Savior, all of our works are as filthy rags. Top line, bottom line, finish line. If you're not growing all three, we should talk.

Too many business owners are struggling alone, stuck in the same cycle, going nowhere fast. Scripture says that in an abundance of counselors, there is victory, and I want to be that resource for you. For over 15 years, I've helped hundreds of small business owners break through their limits, build a solid plan, and multiply their impact.

Go to 4thSoilVentures.com, schedule your free discovery call, and let's build your business by the book. Life is too short, and eternity is way too long to build it any other way. Now for the second point, let me read a part of the verse again, starting from the beginning.

The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. So once you are a child of God, you don't just go work like you used to. You now need to be careful, and you need to devote yourself to good works.

So what does that mean? Well, to do our work carefully, that means the opposite of carelessly. So carefully would be looking at God's Word to determine, how am I supposed to actually be doing this work? And you're going to find things like excellence, and integrity, and honesty, and doing things with quality, and not wastefully. There's a lot in God's Word about how to do good work, and it's our job to be careful about it, and look to God's Word, and to know that we're not going to reach perfection, but that's what we're pursuing, and we're going to need the Holy Spirit to convict us when we're wrong, and to guide us, and to empower us to do work like this.

We're called to test everything, and to hold fast to what is true. And so living in this world, in this sinful world, this fallen world, we need to be careful to actually take everything we're doing, hold up to God's Word, and see, are we actually doing things the right way, in a way that's biblical? The carelessness of so many industries is an opportunity for us as Christians to show the difference of what it means to follow God's ways, and what that means in terms of serving our customers. The second point in this section is all about being devoted.

So this means set apart, this means focus, this means not being half-hearted, but fully engaged in doing good work. Earlier in this letter, Paul writes to Titus about how we are purified by Jesus Christ, and we're his possession, and that we are to be zealous for good works. The Cretans, on the other hand, where Titus was setting up the church, were known as lazy, gluttonous, self-indulgent, known as evil beasts.

So the Christian is supposed to be doing work differently, of course. They're supposed to be set apart, careful, devoted, doing this good work, and it says later on the letter, so that the work can be used to help cases of urgent need. So the profits are not just for the business owner, but to help others.

The world, the market, your customers are going to be scrutinizing the way you produce and do your work. And so ultimately, you want it to be a reflection of God's ways, because you are an ambassador in the marketplace of the Kingdom of God. You don't want to be known as someone who is taking short-sighted, or immoral, or foolish shortcuts, thinking that the ends justify the means, or that just because they don't see how the sausage is made, it doesn't matter, because we know that in the end, God does, and he's the one who's ultimately giving out the rewards.

Now, before I go into point three, I need to add a qualifier about good work, because obviously in this lesson, we're talking about good work with regards to the business, but there's a lot of other spheres of good work that you don't want to neglect. Obviously, you're going to have good works happening in the home with your wife and kids, you're going to have good works happening at church with regards to prayer and preaching, and songs of praise, you're going to have good works in the political arena, you're going to have good works stewarding the environment, you're going to have good works just helping out in cases of need, those who are poor and needy, and those good works that are happening there. There are a lot of good places to do good works as a Christian, because whether we eat or we drink, we're doing our works, we want to do all those works for the glory of God.

And I want you to be inspired by this lesson that you have an opportunity to do those good works in the business realm. But what I don't want you to do is then spend 100 hours a week working, saying, well, I'm just trying to do all these good works, and neglect the other areas of your life where you're also commanded to do good works. Now I'm going to get on to the last point of the day.

Let me read the whole verse from start to finish. The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people.

So now that we're on the last part of this section, we find that when our customers actually receive our goods and services, we find that they are excellent and profitable, or another translation, they are good and beneficial. So now we need to do a little deep dive and find out what does it mean to provide products and services that actually help or serve our customers in this way. The first point in this section is that we need to be careful to actually produce products and services that actually help people, that actually serve them, that actually do good to them.

It might seem pretty obvious, but there are a lot of industries, and you just think of the entertainment industry, that are producing things that aren't actually helpful, that aren't actually good, that don't actually benefit people. Or if you are selling drugs, for instance, people, they want it, they're going to buy it, they're happy to take it, and they feel good for a little while, but we know that's ultimately not going to help them. It's not going to be a benefit, it's not going to be profitable, and so we as Christian business owners need to choose to provide goods and services that actually are helpful.

Many, many years ago, I had a discovery call with a potential client, and as these calls go, I always try to drill down and find out, you know, what do they do, who do they serve, what are the problems that they're currently facing. In this particular call, the potential customer was interested in scaling out their operation, and they had a writing company, and so I was asking, well, what do your writers write about? And I found out they wrote essays and academic essays, and I said, well, who are your customers? Well, the customers were university students, and so these college students, are they then paying to have essays written for them? And he's like, yeah, these customers really, they need this, they like it, our writers are very good, very proficient, and we have developed a system to scale out this writing service. And I said, well, it sounds like you're just helping people cheat, right? You're just helping them cheat their college.

He's like, well, you know, it's up to them how they use the writing, but we see this as a great service to help lots of people. Now, obviously, you probably understand the problem with this story is that, you know, we didn't work together, but he had found a way to provide a service people wanted and liked, but in the end, he was helping people cheat. He wasn't helping them, he was hurting them ultimately.

The next point I want to bring up is that beyond just doing the good you can to the customer with your product and service is you want to think about the experience, because you are having a human to human, a client interaction experience during the buying process. And so the brand, the marketing, the advertising, the sales process, the actual transaction, and then through, you know, actually receiving the product, enjoying the product, and serving them and customer support, that whole relationship is an opportunity for you to serve them at the highest level, and to do it with honesty, integrity, to do it in a way that's enjoyable, that's kind, and that, again, displays a love for them that is different than the world. And so that's kind of the second opportunity is to have an excellent client experience.

Which brings me to my last point in this section, because us as Christians, as we are serving our customer during this entire customer lifecycle, we are thinking longer term than the most, we're thinking eternally. And so if you are providing a good or product or service that is helping them physically, let's say you're selling them a roof, or you are helping them emotionally, helping them with some counseling, or you're helping them intellectually, you're helping them grow in certain skills and training, there's also a spiritual element to everything. And so throughout your work, you have an ability to be sowing seeds of grace and truth.

So as we're serving the various needs of our customer, we have the ability to serve them spiritually as well. And this doesn't mean that every client or interaction, we have to be sharing the gospel. But certainly, as we are doing our work, there's opportunities to share seeds of truth, whether that is in our company bio on the website, in our labeling, in our products, in our client interactions, verbally, the way we serve them, in the packaging, there's a lot of ways that we can make sure that the people that we serve, know who we serve, know that we have a master in heaven, his name is Jesus Christ, and that we can shine a light towards him and the way we work.

And this is important, because Jesus said, For whoever is ashamed of me, in my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory, and the glory of the Father, and of the holy angels. So as you're starting to think about how you can serve your customer spiritually, obviously, they are likely paying you for a physical product or service, maybe it has some emotional benefit or has some mental benefit as well. But beyond that, you can infuse again, the spiritual and this can be as simple as writing your testimony in the company bio, this can be asking your customers, you know, may I pray for you, giving them words of encouragement, inviting them to church, letting them know that after you close that transaction, that you want to make sure that they know that you want God's blessing on them and their business.

Lots of ways to communicate the hope that you have, to communicate the good news. And that's what your customers ultimately need. Because in the end, you want to care for not just the whole customer lifecycle, you want to think about the eternal customer lifecycle.

And you're a big part of that in those relationships at work. So let me end by reading the whole verse again from start to finish. The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works.

These things are excellent and profitable for people. So let's go serve our customers like we're serving Jesus Christ himself, with a heart of love and eternity on our mind. Now let's get to the application from today's session.

And the first point really is to test and see that you're in the faith, right? So if what I'm talking about today really doesn't match how you're working, why you're working, you know, this whole discussion on good works got you thinking, gosh, I don't think I'm doing work that way. I'm the Lord for his glory, then that's gonna be where you want to stop. You know, don't go to step two.

The first step is to make sure that you are saved, because anything you do that's not built on that foundation is not going to matter. And you know, the warning is that most people are going the broad way, and so to go the narrow way is something different. And so make sure you're on the narrow path, the path that leads to life.

The second question to ask yourself today, building on that good foundation, is are your works carefully devoted to being done God's ways? So have you looked at God's word, and are you doing your work in that way? And hopefully the Holy Spirit's bringing to mind areas where you possibly could change direction and be more aligned with God's ways, and hopefully it's inspiring you about how to work differently as you do good work. The last application question is to make sure that as you are doing work, it's truly good, and then as you do it, you do it in a good way. So it's good for the customer, and as you're serving them, you're serving them in a way that's excellent, and then most of all, that through it all, you are serving their spiritual needs.

Whether they know it or not, everyone has that need, and you can find creative ways to add those seeds of grace and truth into the product or service you're delivering. So instead of just delivering amazing customer value during that entire customer life cycle, you can think of the eternal customer life cycle and how you can be providing value in that way. So go serve your customers in the market.

It is ripe for the harvest, and the labors, those doing it in the name of Christ, are few. Finally, if you like this episode, make sure to like it, subscribe, leave a comment, share it with others. A lot of people know about this podcast channel where they can learn how to integrate their faith in their work, and as always, brothers, thank you for tuning in.

Until next time, grace be with you.