Some Friendly Advice

hey y'all i want to say before i get into this time in the word that i had i can't remember a year in all of my lifetime that people wanted to end like more than this year i've never heard this year people have canceled the whole year like i mean way back early in the year when some of our heroes and icons were dying like people just and before the pandemic people's like i'm done with 2020. 2020 canceled the whole thing 20. january canceled february canceled march is canceled april may june july canceled august september october november cancel but it ain't canceled november because of the election but december canceled and and i've never been a part of a year where people were just anxious and there are people right now who are just watching the clock saying i can't wait till the clock strikes midnight so we can get out of 2020. and and i've always been like this um not always but of late i've always been in always of late i've tried to be in this mode instead of trying to get out of something what was i supposed to get out of out of it like i don't want to get out of something without getting something out of it yeah and and i think that's very important so what i want to share tonight now now granted if god is gracious enough wherever you are in the world right now watching if you make it till to midnight then that's something to rejoice over to celebrate that we made it into another year that that is worth celebrating and we will but before we get there i want to share a message around some questions that came to me on social media and some praying and thinking i had been doing that and i'm going to just call this message some friendly advice that's what i'm gonna call it some friendly advice and so i wanna start and i'm gonna give you four things i'm gonna give you four points some friendly advice points and then i'm gonna ask you some questions and then we're gonna be done with it but here's some friendly advice so uh first of all i want to talk to people who have lost who have suffered loss death this year or recently and you're still hurting you're grieving somebody precious you're lost and you're grieving and i want to talk to you about that and i want to call this first piece of advice good grief good grief now in the bible in matthew chapter 5 verse 4 that's where i want to turn matthew chapter 5 verse 4 it says this in the beatitudes it says god blesses those who mourn well they will be comforted the lord blesses those who mourn for they will be comforted so mourning is not a bad thing in fact it is the it is the passageway to the comfort that comes from god we have to mourn so one of the things i want you to do right now with all the things you've been we've been putting in chat all night all the fun the pranks the jokes and all the things we've been doing i want you to do something right now in honor of who we lost this year i want you to just take a minute and just type their names into the chat right now who did you law who did you lose just begin to type their name like who do you miss it could be somebody this year could be somebody recently who's who the lost the pain of that loss is still fresh for you and i just want i just want us all to get a sense that we've all suffered loss and as you type their names into the chat just you begin to realize that we've lost parents and we've lost siblings and we've lost children and we've lost icons and we've lost celebrities and we we've lost political leaders and we've lost we've lost activists and we've lost colleagues and we've lost neighbors and we've lost coaches and we've lost friends and we've lost family members and there's been so much loss and and and as you type those names maybe even tears begin to flow as you as you type the names of those persons and and i want you to know that when you cry that's a good thing that your tears release pain they release pain through your body they they're allowed toxins and and emotional pain and distress that is housing our body to come out it's okay your tears are okay and as you write down those names and think about the people you lost that is a part of good grief it is mourning it is it is allowing your heart it is it is accepting the fact that your heart is broken but there's another side of good grief that that i want to talk to and i don't want to rush past the broken side how broken you may be but i also want you to know that when you have good grief it's not just about how broken you are it's about how blessed you were now what am i saying anybody that hurt you real bad when when you lost them it means they bless you real good while they were here i'll say that again for the people in the back anybody that hurt you real bad when you lost them that means they bless you real good while they were here which is saying this they were precious because we don't mourn things that we lose that aren't valuable we don't mourn things we don't mourn people that we lose that aren't valuable they had to be valuable they had to be precious they had to be special so why why should you be grateful for that that it's a blessing that god chose you to be in a relationship with that person it's a blessing that god chose you to be in their family it's a blessing that god allows your paths to cross you are blessed in that situation so don't just be don't just be sad about what you lost or who you lost but be grateful that god allows your paths to cross that god in his infinite wisdom chose you to be a part of their life and so here's what i want you to do right now here's what i want you to type in the chat right now instead of focusing on the fact that they're no longer here what i want you to do in the chat right now is type them type the length of time you were blessed to spend with them i don't care if it was two minutes or two hours or or two decades or 27 years or 57 years or 16 years or six weeks whatever the time was that god bless you start typing into the chat right now because some of you need to rejoice over the fact that you know what i miss that person so much but god gave me time with that person god gave me time and you need to be grateful for the time that you had that's good grief not just being broken over what you lost but being grateful and blessed for the time that you had it so here's a question here's my question i want to ask you around good grief here's a question here's a question what can you do to honor the memory of the person that you lost anybody that was that precious to you is maybe a part of your grieving process is discovering what is it you can do to honor their memory there are all kinds of things you can do to honor somebody's memory you can you could you could you they're people who've started annual events in the name of a person who's no longer with us people who started scholarships and and and started foundations in the name of somebody who's no longer with us people who name their children or grandchildren after somebody who's no longer with us people who've named buildings and and rooms and auditoriums and events it's it's what can you do to honor the memory of the person that you lost it's all a part of good grief here's a second piece of friendly advice i want to give you and it is around enterprise those of you around me enough know that at some point i must talk business with you and i'm going to challenge you to be business oriented in fact let me read a scripture to you before i get there in and and here's here's what i'm labeling this piece of advice i'm going to tell you what it's called first and this i'm calling this piece of advice let's get down to business let's get down to business in luke chapter 19 in luke chapter 19 i'm gonna need some help with this one and because i want to do it from a different translation the new american standard bible reads like this in verse 12 luke chapter 19. do we have that yeah thank you it says so he said a noble man went to a distant country to receive a kingdom for himself and then return watch what happens next and he called 10 of his slaves and gave them 10 miners and said to them do business with this until i come back do business with this until i come back the 10 minus was money he gave him money he says listen do business with this money till i come back do business with this resource till i come back do business with this opportunity i'm giving you until i come back now here's what i want to tell you covet 19 in my opinion was a tremendous opportunity to start and do business i i don't think the window of opportunity is closed but i think it's a tremendous opportunity to start enterprises in business that that can bless your family and yourself for generations i heard about a business that's here tonight here on campus with us tonight on new year's eve a catering business that that that a son who's now running the business that's been in the family for 15 20 years and it started with his mother bringing potato salad to work i think that's how i was told the story she brought potato salad to work and as a result of her bringing potato salad to work somebody asked her like in a week the next week to cater an event to fully cater an event for 30 people and she has not stopped catering since now the business has been passed on to her son and i'm saying that's that's seizing an opportunity and the reason why i say this is because so many people have have have not moved on opportunities to establish business because you think it's so hard and you're you're overwhelmed and intimidated by it and before i go into business i want to tell you that being an entrepreneur is it's a biblical thing there are people in the bible who are entrepreneurs for example abraham was an entrepreneur he had several businesses he he had a a cattle business and and he had a uh he had he had silver and gold and he had uh a a a tent making business as well uh there's of the apostle paul not only was he uh an author of over at least 12 books in the new testament he's written almost 50 50 of the new testament but he was also a trained jewish attorney and in addition to that he did what we would now call real estate construction work he built tents built homes for people that was his business there's a lady in proverbs 31 the proverbs 31 woman who's unnamed this woman had staff in her house by the way abraham also had over 300 staff the woman in proverbs 31 had a staff working for her she would make fashion materials fashion garments and sell it and then the bible says she would she would survey a land and she flipped property this is going on in the bible solomon one of the wisest men on earth had an international ship trading business merchant ships that he traded with in fact many people mocked solomon for all the wives he had but actually his wives most of the women that he married had nothing to do with intimate relationships it was all business he would marry people from other countries who pose a threat to his country and he would marry people to create to turn an enemy into an ally so he'd marry a woman from a nation to make that country an ally because he knew they wouldn't attack they wouldn't attack him in this country if he made one of his if he gave citizenship to one of their citizens it was all business for him and so i want to give you three things what i want to do is i want to show you three simple things you need to understand to actually move into a place of business because i think that one of the things we're missing as people as people of faith is is the opportunity for enterprise and the way it works is there are three the three foundational things you need that i believe are roads that lead to the intersection of a business and so it goes like this the first thing you need is a road on this road goes this way is a there must be a need or a problem a need that needs to be met and a problem that needs to be solved right so that that need a problem can be a a number of things it could be somebody needs uh somebody's busy they have dogs but they work all the time they don't have time to walk their dog so now there's a need it could be a need of somebody that needs to to commute to work but they don't like to drive it could be a need of somebody who wants to eat healthy meals but they don't have time to cook it it could be a need of somebody that likes a clean car or a clean house but they don't have the time to clean it so so so here's the thing somebody wants groceries but don't want to go to the grocery store that's a need that's a problem now watch this when there's a solution or resource to help solve that problem that is that is number two so here's the problem i live in the midwest and my heat went out right now in december december 31 if your heat went out and you're in the midwest right now you have a problem i know you need me to tell you that but i'm telling you if somebody if the solution is you you look up you look up hvac companies and the first one you come to is always comfy you the first people you saw was always comfy then and they're open 24 hours a day now you have a solution to the problem you have you have a resource to your need and if you have passion for that for that area and high skill to do it that is called the that is the intersection of your business one when i when it when there's a need or a problem and you have a solution or resource and number three you have the passion of skill people people minimize the importance of passion and skill when it comes to it because if you're only meeting a need and you're only providing a resource but you don't have passion about it the challenges of the business will make you quit see the challenges will will drown you or if you're not highly skilled in your products and services if your product i don't know if y'all can see that maybe they can zoom in on it if your products and services aren't highly skilled or at a high level then it won't be the challenges that drown you it'll be your competition to drown you because you can't be average in business and be successful unless your business is almost free and if your business is real cheap then you can have long lines but you'll still have empty pockets so even though there are a lot more components to it you got to market it right you can't put stuff in the yellow pages and think people are going to find you i said some of y'all old school know what the yellow pages is and about 2 000 people listening to us right now who have no idea what the yellow pages are and you'd be surprised how many people are marketing in places where people are not so you have to understand how to market your business and all that but at the at the core essential of it it comes down to these three things is there a need and a problem do you have a solution for that problem can you meet that need and are you passionate about this area so so here's how i want to do it i want to ask you some i want to ask you some questions and i want to ask the questions this way it's going to come up a little different here's what you do i'm going to ask you three questions the first question is put the first question up on the screen what are you passionate and about and highly skilled at this is how you find out what kind of business you should be what are you passionate what do you love and you're skilled at because you can love being a musician but you can't play see i'm now i'm preaching to myself it's a comment you had to laugh like that it's a combination it's a combination skill and passion right now whatever you when whatever you identify right there you're you're highly skilled and very passionate about you have just you have just identified an industry a sector now here's the next thing now that you know the industry or sector because of your skill and passion what are the problems and needs of people in that industry and in that sector right so now you know here's here's what people struggle with who who are in this industry that's question number two what are the problems and then here's question number three do you have the tools and the resources and the skills to meet those needs and solve those problems and if you can answer yes to that i got three words for you you're in business you're in business it's really that simple and i'm not even talking rhetoric this is stuff i've done i've done this i've started organizations and i've seen these three things work let me tell you one of the problems in my industry one of the problems was people wanted to come to church and didn't want to have to put on church clothes so guess what we created a church where they can come win whatever they got it's just that's just one simple thing you have to do and so and i've also started and been a part of building enterprises that didn't work because we didn't address these things here's the third area i want to give you i'm running out of time third arab advice is relationship rebounding i want to talk about relationship rebounding in matthew 18 it says in verse 15 it says if somebody has offended you you should go to that person and see if you can restore the relationship and and have a conversation with them and if they listen to you then you've won that person back but in verse 16 it says if that doesn't work then you take one or two other people with you to go back again to make sure that every word is established because you don't want to stop at a breach in a relationship because the two of you couldn't work it out you have to be willing to go the extra mile to say you're so important to me this relationship is too important to me to let us just sit so i'm going to get help so my question to you tonight here's a question what relationship pain are you experiencing where are you experiencing it and are you willing to go get help because any time you have relationship pain it is not just a relationship revelation that the relationship is in trouble it's also a revelation that you have an inadequacy because if you weren't inadequate the relationship wouldn't be wouldn't have unresolved issues for example anytime somebody drives a car if you drive a car you own a car whenever that car needs repairs it's your fault it's not that you did anything wrong but you've been the one driving it and driving and driving and then driving and then driving it and now the light is on in the car and now you you and now because the car is valuable to you you're going to make it a priority to get it repaired that's your priority you're going to get it repaired and 99 of us are going to take it somewhere somewhere to somebody other than ourselves to fix it because we don't know how to fix it we know how to drive it but we don't know how to fix it that's a fact what now and and the reason why we go take it somewhere to get it fixed because we know if we don't do anything it won't get better ooh that's so good i'm saying if your relationship is broken you got to care enough about it to not just let it sit it ain't going to fix itself it's like just like a car is not going to fix itself the relationship is not going to fix this fix itself you have to take it somewhere where somebody can help you now you can do little maintenance on the car you can study how to change tires how to rotate tires how to change your oil how to change the fluids in your car you should do stuff like that that's what i did people want to know how vicky and i survived a tough marriage and i'm saying because we got help we went to get help from somebody and we still do it whenever we need help but it's also because we both work on being a better husband and wife we study how to be a good spouse we study how to love each other you have to work on you have to work on yourself the quality of your relationship is an indication of the quality of how you present yourself in the relationship all right so that's what i'm going to do cause i know cause i don't even know what time it is right now but i know this i know y'all ain't playing about this i'mma hold off on my last one i'll share it another time or share next week or maybe post midnight or something like that but i want to i want to make sure that we respect this countdown because i see my clock is fast is flashing so you got your phone let me see exactly what time it is brother josh oh yeah i got five minutes what am i supposed to do i got five minutes i got four minutes let me give my last point let me get the last one i got one i got one my last piece of advice is that's a no for me that's a no for me this is a boundary piece of advice that's a no for me in mark in mark chapter six in in in the new testament there's a passage in mark chapter six in verses 30 to 32 where jesus tells his disciples he says he says listen i want you all to come verse 31 he says i want y'all to come get away with me we need to get away and we need to go somewhere by ourselves because the people were pressing up on them so much that they didn't have time to eat and they had so many ministry demands so many people were pressing up on their hands trying to eat and so jesus said let's get away in verse 32 he said let's get away by ourselves let's say no to the needs of the people not because the people are ready to hear or know but because we need to know right now that's a no for me see a noah is a boundary word i want you to get good at saying no which is very ironic one of the first three first three to seven words that a child ever learns is the word no and it's deep to me that one of the words that's easiest for a child to learn is hardest for an adult to say we are so committed to people pleasing that we don't know how to say no and i'm telling you stop saying yes to stuff that ain't you stop accepting assignments that you ain't anointed for stop agreeing to go places that's gonna make you miserable so you're so busy trying to make everybody else happy and you miserable the whole time learn how to say what you learn how to say one of the first three words you ever learned how to say was no get good at it get good at putting up boundaries because no creates order in your life and eliminates chaos and i'm gonna tell you if your life is chaotic and you can't keep up with things you need to keep up with if your life if you have trouble getting over colds see if you don't listen to the whispers of your body you'll have to listen to the screams of your body on the way to the emergency room and one of the signs that you need to learn how to say no more is you keep getting sick i know that happens to me all the time another sign of chaos is when i i don't eat properly i don't take care of myself you have to learn how to say no that's a no for me that's a no for me so here's my question for you the question is where do you need where do you need to stick your nose in at where do you need to stick your nose not the nose on your face to know that needs to come out of your mouth where do you need to put it who needs to hear no from you who's controlling you and manipulating you and making you feel guilty for not always saying yes i want to empower you to say that's a no for me that won't fit that i'm fitness i'm not interested in that i'm good with that before we go i hope that was helpful for you in some way i hate preaching on new year's eve because i'm looking at the clock and i'm doing all this stuff but i'm gonna respect this time is am i counting down mom was is tommy coming up here caisson did i say your name right come on over man you funny you know i wanted to be a comedian i really did you still got time i still got time yeah god is able i say go for it go for the comedian stuff yeah it's a problem huh come on it's a solution well you got the skill i got the skill i think so you think so you think i can make it out there you can do your first five minutes after in 2021 if you want wow we got 20 seconds maybe i can go somewhere with you where we can i can open up for you let's do it huh come on you jumped on me no i didn't yeah that hoodie huh huh ten nine eight siete six cinco three dose one happy new year [Music] you made it you made it

Channel: Keith Battle

Views: 3,049

Rating: 4.963964 out of 5

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Id: kskbG0cO45I

Length: 25min 46sec (1546 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 05 2021