Businessmen’s Breakfast

Pastor Peter Mortlock

I understand business people; I’ve been in business myself. By the time I was 20 I’d had about 40 different jobs, but I figured when I got saved that if I couldn’t beat the system I’d join it. I started selling as a career and God really blessed my life. Every sales company I worked for I broke every sales record which wasn’t bad for a kid who couldn’t speak English till the age he was seven. I became a top real estate salesman for six years running in new housing and had my own sales company and had my own businesses and everything else like that. But I always knew that the call of God was on me to preach the gospel and I gave it all up to pioneer a church some 20 years ago and I’m enjoying the journey. I won’t say that there haven’t been days when I’ve wanted to go back to selling Real Estate, I think it’s a lot easier but enough to say that I want to do what God’s called me to be and so therefore I really have got a desire to also encourage business people to be all that they are to be too in God. And something I share this morning I hope and pray will gel and make sense to that.

I really want to inspire you and your business and the purpose I want to do that is because I have such a heart to see people prosper but even more so to see the kingdom of God prosper. Most of you will be well aware that in the Old Testament you’ve got this dual role of kings and priests working together and you may have heard something about that in the past but I’d just love to introduce a thought to you today. Every time there was a Godly king and a Godly priest the nation prospered, God’s people prospered. Today we’re talking about the church prospering. Kings and priests worked together in the Old Testament, every time there wasn’t one of those roles functioning the nation went into decline. I believe the two roles have to function again today. Most of you will be well aware of the scripture where it says, there is a time for kings to go to war but David stayed behind. And that is the time he got into trouble with Bathsheba. He didn’t go, and the reason he was supposed to go is found in the following chapter and it says that David went to war and bought back great plunder and so kings in the Old Testament would go to war and basically bring back provision for the vision of the nation. You can read the story in 2 Sam 11 and 2 Sam 12. These kings and priests would work together. Now the interesting thing of course is every time a king tried to become a priest or a priest tried to become a king it didn’t work out. Myself knowing what it’s like now if I use a term to be a priest have endeavored over the years to go back and try to be a king when I’ve got frustrated there hasn’t been enough provision for the vision and so therefore I’ve endeavored to go out into the marketplace and I would do what I used to do but I found that the hand of God, the blessing of God was not there for that. And so often I would end up frustrated or burnt. Most pastors I find are very frustrated because there’s no provision for the vision. You can have all the vision in the world but if there’s no substance and nothing to bring it about, it’s not going to happen. I also find that a lot of kings (business people) those people who are supposed to go and get the provision for the vision often they want to take the role of a priest, they want to do spiritual things. If you look in the Old Testament, Isaiah of course he was a soldier he tried to put his hand out and touch the cart and he got struck dead, Saul was a king he got frustrated waiting for Samuel and he tried to do the sacrifice thing and he got the kingdom taken off him. And I often find that business people often in the church life, we kind of say well there’s a good business person they’ll make a great pastor or they’ll make a great cell group leader and even though they’re successful maybe in business they can’t even gather 15 people. It’s because they’re not operating in their anointing or in their function or in their gifting. And God has placed individual members in the body as He would see fit and so the whole thought is that we need to work together, pastors and business people need to team up together if the kingdom is going to prosper.

You’ve got a wonderful pastor and I’ll be talking more about that on Sunday as I was sharing with the core leaders last night, you may not realise how respected your pastor is, not only in this nation but in other nations, and I get the privilege to travel a lot. But the thing is that he is not going to see this church built by himself, obviously not. But he’s not going to see it built without some people bringing in some big finance to fund the vision. And as much as I love the widows mite because the principle there is sacrifice, not how little she gave but how much she gave. And so unless there are some people who are big thinkers, and that’s hard in Kiwi land, but who understand that to fund the kingdom doesn’t take thousands of dollars but takes millions of dollars and if it’s going to take millions of dollars then God’s going to have to entrust somebody with that sort of wealth. And He’s going to have to trust somebody with it who is able to bring it in for the provision for the vision. I often say to people that if you don’t have a pastor then you’re on your way to disaster. And so business people without a pastor or Godly man to speak vision into your life, wealthy people end up in ?????. Millionaires get caught in hotel rooms with hookers, rock stars hang themselves. People who have got a lot of money without Godly vision end up in ?????. But when people have a purpose in life and a vision that’s greater than themselves and they understand that there wealth can bring it about. Where did David get the billions, it was billions in today’s economy, to build the house of God that Solomon built? He got it from plundering, now when kings went out to war in the Old Testament the Bible says that the wealth of the world is laid up for the righteous. Now I know you don’t put on your swords and go out on Monday, but you take your computers and your diaries and you go out, the war today is in the market place. And the wealth of the world is laid up for the righteous but it’s not going to come in unless somebody goes and gets it. And that’s your privilege and your responsibility. If the church is not prospering it is not Pastor Mikes responsibility, it is yours, the business people of the church because as I said, as much as I love the widows mite that widows mite is not going to build the house, it is going to take millions of dollars to build the house. Business people, of course, are the people who’ve got the opportunity to do that. And so going out into the marketplace, going out into the battlefield on Monday morning is, and if you can get a hold of this that you are just as important and a business meeting like this is just as important as a Sunday service. Because if you can get the vision that you are in ministry on Monday to bring in the increase for the vision the house of God will prosper. And of course this is I believe the most important thing in your life, we are talking about God here, we are talking about the kingdom of God, extending the kingdom of God.

Kings and priests, when you don’t have a pastor or a Godly man to speak vision, instead of buying one Rolls Royce you buy five Rolls Royce’s. Godly people have something good to give to, ungodly people kind of just waste their wealth. What would happen in the Old Testament is that the kings would go out to war but the priests would come out and bless them. And I believe that’s the pastors role is to bless the business people, that’s one of his roles. It’s to pray for you and to believe God for you and to bless you as you go to battle. Now you may say that’s pretty Old Testament but in the New Testament in the book of Revelation the Bible says that Jesus has made us a kingdom of kings and priests. See a lot of things carry over, not everything kind of finishes at the book of Malachi. And in actual fact it is interesting from Malachi to the New Testament 400 years there was no priests there, no vision. Without a vision people dwell aimlessly, carelessly. And so we need to have kings and priests working together. And it’s a very, very important function I believe in the church that today is missing out. So can you get a grip of that? Mark 10:46 And they came to Jericho and he went out of Jericho with his disciples and a great multitude. Blind Bartimaeus sat by the road begging and when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth he began to cry out and say Jesus Son of David have mercy on me. I want to be straight up this morning, first of all, I believe for every person to get, as it were, on the road to life we’ve got to recognise the Lordship of Christ. If He’s not Lord of all, He’s not Lord at all. He’s got to be Lord of your finances, you’ve got to submit them to Him. We’ve got to recognise the Lordship, that we are stewards, that we are servants of God. In verse 48 as he is crying out many warned him to be quiet but he cried out all the more Son of David have mercy on me. It is true that often people are the biggest hindrances to the blessing of God, it is like people in church saying why do you have to play that loud music God’s not deaf. I just find that it is the radical that gets God’s attention. And so here was Blind Bartimaeus and you can imagine people saying just settle down, you don’t have to get so emotional about it, well the kingdom of God is quite an emotional thing to be honest, heaven or hell, you don’t get more emotional than that. In verse 49 it says Jesus stood still and commanded him to be called and then they called the blind man saying be of good cheer. Amazing how fickle the crowd is, I never trust a crowd, for God so loved the world he didn’t send a committee right? He’s got a plan, it’s called a Man and people can be one thing one day and one thing the next and so the crowd won’t win you any favors. And so throwing away his garment he arose and came to Jesus so Jesus answered and said to him, what do you want me to do for you? And the blind man said Rabboni I want to receive my sight. Then Jesus said go your way your faith has made you well. Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus on the road. I just want to give you this morning some thoughts to help you with your business, endeavoring to be a blessing to you and a blessing to the church because if you’re blessed then the church should be blessed. I want to give you ten thoughts this morning, ten decisions of a blind man who I believe had more vision than most people who can see.

1. Bartimaeus understood that his past did not disqualify him from a faith filled future. In other words friend I don’t really care where you’ve come from. I do care where you are going to. See the Gospel is come as you are but the Gospel is not stay as you are. And as much as God accepts you as you are right now, He loves you too much to leave you as you are. And so we’re all on a journey of growth and of change into Christ likeness and to become bigger people really. To become a people of capacity that don’t get upset when the pastor talks about money. Who don’t get upset when he doesn’t get to say hello to us or whatever it is. I’m amazed at how stinking thinking and small thinking some Christians are. And so we need to understand that your past no matter where you’ve come from, you might have come from a small town like I did, you might have come from a farming community, you might have come from a background of low education or low economics it doesn’t really matter. Your past does not disqualify you from a faith filled future. And Bartimaeus understood this. His name means the son of Timaeus, he did not even have a name, he wasn’t even named. It’s just like when he was born the mother kind of gave him to the father and said he’s yours I don’t want him. He didn’t even get a name and you can imagine the crowd because people can be very cruel and he would have been called the boy with no name, kids would have said you’re blind. It’s like as if he didn’t already know it. And you can imagine this crowd was saying well Jesus isn’t going to stop for you. Just sit down, shut up, be quiet this is your lot in life and so forth. But friend I want to tell you that if Jesus stopped for Blind Bartimaeus He’s going to stop for you. And so your past no matter where you’ve come from does not disqualify you from a faith filled future. You can become all that you and God decide you to be. I believe that.

2. Bartimaeus understood how you’ve got to stand out in a crowd. There was Bartimaeus and then there was a crowd. Only one person stood out that day and it was Bartimaeus. And so too many business or even too many churches just blend into the status quo, just another church just another business. And they don’t do anything to change and they just blindly carry on doing the same thing. In order to change we’ve got to be changing some things we do, we’ve got to change the seed that we sow. If you’re not happy with the crop that you’re reaping today, you’ve got to change the seed you’re sowing today. You can build your own destiny. That’s one of the things that I love about God. A farmer does not go out and think about well how much crop do I want next year, he plans it and prepares it and he sows for it. You know you can sow for your financial future. The thing is I believe that we understand the principles of God and we know them but do we do them? So if you want to prosper the only way to prosper is to sow. Jesus said give and it shall be given to you. So if you want more money you’ve got to give more. So Bartimaeus understood that you’ve got to stand out from the crowd, there’s got to be something different about you. There’s got to be a distinction about you.

3. Bartimaeus knew that you’ve got to seize your opportunity. Opportunities come and go all the time in life, normally in the form of hard work, normally if the form of overalls. That is why most people don’t see opportunities coming they only see them when they’re gone. Missed opportunities. But the opportunity of a lifetime only exists in the lifetime of that opportunity. I’ve had some wonderful opportunities in my life, some I’ve taken and some I’ve missed. All opportunities demand risk, faith demands risk. Now faith is not absolute risk but it demands risk you don’t get much by staying in the boat you’ve got to step out of the boat. They say that when people end up in a retirement village and their number one regret is that they didn’t take enough risk. Whether it is in property, whether it is in business, whether it is in church life. We have got to take more risk. And I believe that Bartimaeus did that, he seized his opportunity. See the fearful never really see the opportunities, a lot of people waste this life on the planet, they just sit by it’s incredible how people miss life really. You have to live life, you’ve got to live life to the max, you’ve got to enjoy the journey. So the fearful never see the opportunities they just complain about the ones that they missed. So you see most opportunities come in the form of hard work because it’s true that God is El Shaddai not El ShutEye and a lot of people sleep their life away. Bartimaeus in this story we never read of Jesus passing this way again and so was this his one and only opportunity to reach out and change his life forever.

4. You’ve got to shout louder than your opposition. You’ve got to outlast your critics in life. You will get critics, if nobody is talking about you you’re not doing too much in life. Notice that he didn’t listen to the negativity because it’s true that other people will steal your destiny if you allow them to, if you let them speak those things over you. But you’ve got to stay focused in life and chase your dreams. The crowd will pull you down and tell you to sit back, sit down, shut up, who do you think you are, don’t make a wave, why do you need a church that big for, why do you want to go on television for, who do you think you are putting your photo all over the place, do you think you’re some rock star or something like that. We just need to be bigger thinking, get on God’s page. God is an extravagant God, he has got mountains that no man has walked just filled with flowers that only He can see, He is an extravagant God, every snowflake is different every one that falls from the sky is different, He is a very creative God. And so often the majority is not right and so to shout louder than the opposition you’ve got to call the hard shots in life.

5. You’ve got to travel light. Bartimaeus he flung off his jacket which was basically his social security number, his security and he flung it off and he got up and so in business life and in church life don’t get into positions and titles just get on with the job, just do the job and if there’s a bit of paper on the floor pick it up. We’ve got a saying in our church excellence without extravagance and we need to do things with excellence because excellence honours God and inspires people. Excellence is doing the best you can with what you’ve got and I believe that is an important principle in life.

6. He left the past behind him. We’ve got to let go of the past. Too many people live in the past, they think the good old days were the good old days but I believe the best days are ahead. In fact today is the only day that I’ve got to live and so I want to enjoy this day because this is the day that the Lord has made and salvation is here today. And so we need to enjoy the moment.

7. Never lose sight of the big picture. It is amazing how poor visionless people eat their seed. I think a lot of business people unfortunately do eat their seed. The seed that God gives you to bring into the house of God they think I’ll start giving when I get this next employee, I’ll start giving when I get that new building, I’ll start giving when I get this increase and that increase. Friend if you’re not faithful with what you’ve got now you will never be given more. You’ve got to start from where you are today and start sowing for tomorrow. That’s just the way it works in the kingdom of God. The worlds idea of course is take and hold to yourself but God’s way is to give. So we need to get into that principle. So never lose sight of the bigger picture, it’s very important.

8. Bartimaeus knew what he wanted. You’ve got to know what you want in life, you’ve got to know what you want out of your business you’ve got to be clear and precise. When Jesus said to Bartimaeus what do you want, Bartimaeus didn’t ask for a Big Mac! He said I want to receive my sight he knew what he wanted. And I believe that if you don’t know what you want then you’ll just wander aimlessly in life and you won’t get what I believe is your dues as it were, because I believe that God has got good things in store for you. So what are you asking for, because one of the laws of answered prayer is ask and you shall receive. Half the time we are the answer to our own prayer and I do believe the miracle is in your mouth. And so we’ve got to speak to our mountain because the mountain knows your voice. Jesus said speak to your mountain and of course there will be problems and challenges that face you, but there is no problem or no challenge too big that we cannot overcome and as long as we are prepared to speak to the mountain. You see in everybody’s garden there is a serpent but you’ve got to name the animals that come towards you in the garden, like Adam named the animals. You know the devil is out to rob, destroy and kill you. If you are a business person and you’re bringing in finance for the kingdom you’ve got to understand that the devil is against you but God is for you and God has called you to be a God kind of person and do God kind of things and so you can speak to your mountain, you can speak to your challenges and problems and you can cast them into your sea and plough right on through. But you don’t have to leap over the mountain you’ve got to take it a step at a time.

9. Every step gained is an improvement. You don’t arrive while you’re alive, we’re on a journey together and so it’s a new starting point if you like it’s not a destination. When you reach one goal you’re on to another one and a lot of people have such a big thing about reaching goals and they reach it and they give up because they’ve got nothing else. You don’t have to die old you’ve just got to die finished. Jesus said He was finished. We need to be aggressive I believe in our purpose in God in our purpose in our business because it is like heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by storm. So there has got to be some tenacity, to get the purposes of God out and into you. I guess everybody has certain fears but God has not given us the spirit of fear but of power, love and a sound mind. A lot of people are afraid of failure, a lot of people are afraid of what other people will think of them and they have a go and it doesn’t work out. I believe that a lot of things that we’re afraid of Jesus Christ the Rock of all Ages has already walked the path that we are walking gone ahead of us and smashed the head of the serpent so we have nothing to be afraid of. So the devil wants to put all these what ifs into your life thoughts, what if this doesn’t work, what if I buy this property and the market goes down. People won’t step out and have a go on a what if. People miss opportunities because of what if this happens, well what if it doesn’t happen. As I say Christ has gone ahead of us and He’s made a way and I believe wiped out all the what ifs and we just need to embrace the future with faith and with hope because I believe the future is so bright for Christians we need to invest in a sunglass company.

10. It’s not a matter of falling on your feet it is a matter of getting up on to your feet. A lot of people of course live by chance; we need to live by choice. So many people are lining up by the Lotto shop hoping that something will come their way. Friend if those people’s ship came into the harbour you can guarantee they’d be out of town the day it came in. You don’t have to wait till your ship comes in, you’ve got to get out there and make it happen. It’s not a matter of falling on your feet, it is a matter of getting up on to your feet. So many people today they want hand outs and of course they get them from our government, many people today they want to kick it up in life and of course I always say sin is a real sucker, sin sucks the very life out of people, sin can make you look old at 40. It is so true that there is not one alcoholic in the world that wanted to end up an alcoholic it started with one glass. There is not one drug addict that when they were a little child said I want to be a drug addict, it started with one joint. No girl when she was two or three said Mummy I want to become a prostitute, no. And so all these things happen line upon line, precept upon precept. Likewise we can build a great future line upon line, precept upon precept. It all starts out with one decision, one choice today. And so we need to understand that the world can offer so much but deliver so little but when we’re in the kingdom of God when we’re born into the kingdom for such a time as this when we’ve got a purpose that’s bigger than ourselves to work for to get out of bed on a Monday morning to say hey today I’m going to go and get provision for the vision. And so decisions whether it is hard work or hard calls you know the thing is Bartimaeus could not see Jesus in the natural, he was blind we read the story but he could hear them, he could hear Him call his name. Faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible and receives the impossible. Bartimaeus had never had a miracle happen to him before he had only heard about what Jesus could do to others. But friend what He has done to others He can do for you. What He did for Bartimaeus He’ll do for you. If your eyes this morning are closed to the Gospel He can open up your eyes. This morning He can give you incredible keys to help you to flourish in your business because I know that God is interested in blessing you. You know a lot of Christians have a wrong mentality they think that poverty is next to holiness. Poverty and sickness go hand in hand with religion, that is why I’m not in to religion I’m into a relationship with God. Jesus came to give us life, and life abundantly. Prosperity is having enough for you and also having enough to help somebody else. We are called to be a blessing. Christianity is not about being blessed it is about being a blessing the lowest form of Christianity is being blessed, the highest form is being a blessing.