Transcript

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What is up, Faithful Agents?
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Welcome back to another episode of the Faithful Agent podcast.
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I'm so glad that you're here.
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A couple quick housekeeping announcements.
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Number one, the conference is so soon.
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If you haven't gotten your ticket, make sure you go to faithfulagent .com backslash conference to get your ticket today.
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It is going to be another incredible time together with brothers and sisters all around the country gathering together as real estate agents to grow our business and our faith.
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I genuinely hope you will come.
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you will not be disappointed.
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And it says on the website right there, but if funds are an issue, if you can't afford the ticket, whatever it is, please reach out to us.
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Reach out to me, garratt at faithfulagent .com.
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We want to figure out a way to get you there if that's what it takes.
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So we would love to see you there October 3rd and 4th in Greenville, South Carolina.
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As always, if you're not part of a local group, go check those out on the website as well, faithfulagent .com.
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and just excited that you all are part of this community.
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We want to continue to serve and love you as best we can.
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So thank you for being with us here today.
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So I'm going to dive into today's episode and today's conversation actually comes from a brother of mine who was teaching, a Christian brother, a good brother of mine, Tim Marr, who's one of the elders at our church was teaching just a few Sundays ago on Philippians 3.
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And I just want to share some thoughts.
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from that that he taught us and I thought they were really applicable to our business as well and so before I do that let's read one Christian chat GPT joke I actually think this one's kind of funny so you know don't mute it.
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Why was Goliath so surprised when David hit him with a slingshot?
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The thought had never entered his head before.
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That's kind of funny you got to know you know a teeny teeny teeny tiny bit if you've ever been.
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in Sunday school once you know what that means so I hope that you find that funny okay I feel like my humor is wearing off did I have it I don't even know if I had it before but you know anyways you're still here probably so let's let's dive into the good stuff today so he was talking on Philippians 3 and it's when Paul is talking about how he counts everything as loss compared to knowing Christ Philippians 3, 1 through 11 in particular is what my brother Tim was talking about, one of the elders in our church.
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And he gave this incredible example of assets and liabilities, right?
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We're business people, we know what that means, but an asset is something that is working for you.
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A liability is something that is taking from you, right?
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So if you've got credit card debt, that's a liability.
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It's a cost every single month that doesn't benefit you in any way.
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If you've got a rental property and that's making you money every month, that's on the asset column, right?
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It's actually producing money for you.
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It's not an expense.
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It's not a cost to you.
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And so he gives us great example of the assets and liabilities.
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And he asked us the question, is there anything in your assets column other than Christ?
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And then he said, have we moved everything out of the asset column except Christ?
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Or do we still hold on to some of what we have as assets?
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He made the point that when we read Philippians 3 and we hear Paul say that, count everything as loss, it means when Paul talks about counting everything as loss, he said, it means that we consider nothing we have done as worthy or counted in our favor apart from the work of Christ that he alone has done on the cross.
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and so as i started to think about this idea of assets and liabilities right when i look at my life and i think of everything i've done in everything i'm working on in and all the things i'm trying to do and and x y and z The reality is I look at those columns and I would look and say, yeah, I've got liabilities, right?
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I've got, you know, I'm prideful.
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I'm too ambitious sometimes and not obedient enough.
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I'm not as prayerful as I should be.
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Man, I don't need my family as well as I should.
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All of these things, right?
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And that's the gospel story is, hey, you're not going to be perfect.
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You're never going to even be remotely close to perfect.
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And yet Christ came and died for you anyways.
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But when he said that, thought, man, have I moved everything out of the asset column except Christ?
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Or do I still hold on to some of what I have as an asset?
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And I thought, man, if I'm honest, I would put some of the business things I built or am building in the asset column.
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I would put my, this book that I'm working on, it's an asset column.
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I would put my learning in the time I've spent investing and understanding how to...
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manage my finances, those are asset columns, all of those things.
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And it doesn't mean his intention here is that it doesn't mean those things aren't good.
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It means that apart from Christ, everything is considered rubbish, is what Paul says.
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Nothing is worthy of getting any praise or being...
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there's no asset apart from Christ.
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If we look at our spiritual health, our spiritual life, right?
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Ephesians 2 says we are dead.
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our trespasses and sins apart from Christ.
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And I'm paraphrasing, go read Ephesians 2.
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We are dead in our trespasses and sins, but God wanted to make us alive, and so He sent His Son who would die the death that we should have died after living the life that we never could and rose again from the dead to restore our relationship with the Father.
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When we look from a spiritual perspective in the eyes of the Lord, Do we have anything that we could hold up to the Lord and say, this is an asset?
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This is something Lord that should give me standing before you.
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Or is it only Christ and everything else is a liability?
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My pride, my sin, even all the good things I've done, all liabilities, because we all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
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And not one of us can earn our way back to the Father apart from Christ.
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He is the bridge that gets us back.
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He alone is the only one that can bridge that gap between us and our fallen humanity in the righteous holiness of God.
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And so when we think about this idea of access and liabilities, it doesn't mean that what we've built, right?
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Anyone listening to this, if you're building a real estate business or, you you're stay-at mom, whatever it is, that these things that you're doing aren't good.
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They are good.
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lot of them are good.
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Some of them aren't, right?
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Let's be honest, but a lot of these things are good.
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They're God -honoring.
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They are incredible things that hopefully are going to bring praise and glory to the Father or create wealth that we can give to those in our Christian community, that we can serve the Lord with the money or the knowledge that we have or whatever those are.
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Those are good things, but in comparison to knowing Christ, their liabilities.
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It's really easy for me and might be easy for you as you're listening to think that all of the things I'm doing, all of the stuff I built, all of the things I bought, all of, you know, being a dad for me, being a husband, all of those things, those are assets, right?
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Those should be in my asset column because look how good I'm doing or look how hard I'm working to whatever, X, Y, and Z to grow this or grow that or serve my kids or honor my wife or whatever it is.
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When we look at those things.
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It's easy for me, if I'm honest, it's easy for me to start holding up to some level the same power of Christ's redemption on my life.
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It's easy for me to look at that and say, Lord, I am grateful for what Christ did.
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And it is all things.
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It is the only reason I have life and breath and any hope for eternity.
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But also, God, look what I'm building here.
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And aren't you pleased with me?
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Aren't you excited about it?
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Aren't you happy with what I'm doing?
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And again, don't hear me say that he can't be pleased with the things that we're doing that are meant to bring him glory and honor.
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But it does mean, guys, we are sinful.
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And if you have dirty hands, right?
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Let's say you've gone outside, you put your hands in the mud and I don't know why you do that if you're an adult, but I have kids, right?
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That's what they do all the time.
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But if they go and they put their hands in the mud and then they go to touch something, No matter what they touch, no matter how good it is of whatever it is they're going to do, no matter what they touch, they leave a dirty handprint on whatever that is.
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We as sinners are the same way.
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I'm a sinner and you are a sinner and apart from Christ, everything, we have dirty hands in everything we touch.
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No matter how quote unquote good it is, we're going to leave an imprint of our sinful handprint.
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We're going to leave some dirt on it no matter what.
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So it will always be a liability.
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But Christ in His perfect righteous obedience, He alone before the Father is our one and only asset.
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So that struck me.
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I just was grateful that my brother Tim would share that and present it that way as business owners.
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thinking about assets and liabilities, think for us, here's my main takeaway for us.
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I think as us, as real estate agents, as business owners, whoever you are, and whatever your situation is as we're listening, it becomes very easy for us to start.
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thinking of the things that we're doing and believing that they are more important than they really are.
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Again, I'm not downplaying what we're doing.
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It's good if we're honoring the Lord, if we're trying to build something.
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Those things are good.
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Don't hear me say that.
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Paul didn't mean that everything is rubbish.
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He meant in comparison to knowing Christ, it's as if it's just the worst trash ever and should be burned and thrown away.
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You know, Jesus even talked about loving Him is as if we hate our own parents, right?
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He didn't mean we should actually hate our parents because one of the Ten Commandments is to honor your father and mother.
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He meant in comparison to knowing Christ.
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It's as if we hate our own family in comparison to knowing Christ.
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As Paul says, it's as if nothing else is good at all.
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The point is this, are you acting and working in your business trying to earn some sort of asset in the asset column?
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Are you spending extra time on the phones, cold calling, trying to do more deals than the person next to you, all while you miss time with your wife, your kids, your husband, whatever the scenario, while you're not serving in the church, while you're not doing whatever it is the Lord calls you to?
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because you're trying to put something in the asset column?
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Are you showing up around other people and putting on a face and pretending to be smarter and wiser than you are?
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Because if they look at you a certain way and they think a certain way about you, maybe that's an asset column.
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I'm certainly guilty of that.
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Elder Tim asks one more question, what am I not willing to count as loss?
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What am I not willing to sacrifice for the sake of knowing Christ?
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And I think as we think on that fellow Christian agent and whoever's listening, the reality is it would be really hard to let things go.
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It is totally easy to confess with my mouth that Christ alone is the asset.
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It is hard in practice to do that.
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Let us hold each other.
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accountable to that.
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If we understand that Christ alone is in the asset column and everything else is a liability, it will change the way we run our business because we will no longer be so obsessed with our identity, so obsessed with what the world around us thinks of us.
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We will no longer be so obsessed with more money, more homes, more stuff, whatever it is, a bigger team, whatever it is that we're trying to build.
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We will no longer be obsessed with those things.
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We will recognize that a Christ alone.
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is the asset in the asset column and therefore we as brothers and sisters in Christ running a business are freed up to say, Lord, what is it that you have for me?
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And I want to do just that with excellence.
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Maybe the Lord's calling you to something bigger.
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Maybe the Lord's calling you to something smaller.
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Maybe the Lord's calling you to fade into obscurity, into a life that is well -lived and obedient.
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But no one else outside your family and church know.
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Maybe the Lord is calling you to stop being afraid and act in the way that you know you should act.
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just too scared to do it.
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Whatever it is, your asset is Christ.
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And if you're in Christ, that is secure.
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So now we are freed up to say, Lord, what is it that you desire of me?
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How can I act in obedience?
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And brothers and sisters, that is hard.
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That's why we need one another.
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Everything is a liability apart from knowing Christ who is the only asset when it comes down to eternity It's not a comparison game of me versus you versus the number one agent in all of North America That doesn't matter.
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Those things are rubbish before the Lord when it comes to eternity The question is do you have Christ in your asset column or not?
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So brothers and sisters, I pray that we would be able to stay focused on the right thing and we would be encouraged and encouraging to one another to say, work hard, build big, be intentional with what you do.
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But at the end of the day, those things won't matter anymore.
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When time is gone, what will matter is did we love Christ and do we teach others to do the same?
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So I hope that our businesses will not only be successful, but ultimately will be missional and used to grow.
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the kingdom, build the gospel and share that with others.
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So I love you, faithful agents.
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I hope this was impactful to you.
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It certainly was to me to hear my brother preach this Philippians 3, 1 through 11.
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the gospel and Christ alone.
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That's what this is about.
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Pray for me as I pray for you that that would be how we live.
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I love you, faithful agents.
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I'll see you next week.