Audio Transcript

Brantley: How do we discern God’s will for our life and work?

Howard: Our theme for this year is transforming work, and at The Center we like to take the very best of what business leaders are saying and compare it with what God’s word says. And, it just so happens that Harvard Business Review’s theme for this year is transforming work. It’s amazing how stuff like this comes together.

Our theme verse for the year is Romans 12:2, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” This means that we can take what thought leaders are saying and test it and see if it conforms to God’s will.

A while back, I met with Katherine Leary Alsdorf — who co-authored Every Good Endeavor with Tim Keller — about helping people transform their work by setting redemptive goals and she said, “Why don’t you ask them what God is doing in their work? See what God is doing, and how they can come along.” So our group sessions this year have been about that.

Often, we get confused and become hyper-focused on what we want for our work that we overlook what God wants. To help refocus our attention we need the gospel told through the whole redemptive story of the bible. The story of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation.

Creation — God created everything good and gave us work.

Fall — We believed God was holding out on us so we took things into our own hands and blew it.

Redemption — God redeems us and loves us in spite of our sin.

Restoration — God is making all things perfect and new, and we will be with Him forever.

Brantley: Another thing we’ve talked about is how we complement what God is doing with why a specific industry exists, finding new opportunities within that industry, and creating products and services that serve others well. What we should do is discover the overlap between what God is doing and an industry that exists, then we can find opportunities to love and serve others by creating new things or transforming the industry where God has placed us.

Howard: You are on it. We are designed to be creative and seeing where God is working is an important first step.

So here is what we are going to do: We are going to walk through the four chapter gospel.

Creation

It all begins with creation. In the beginning God chose to make man in His image and gave man dominion over all the earth.

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. “So God created mankind in his own image,  in the image of God he created them;  male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” – Genesis 1:26-28

Right here, God made us in His image to be co-creators with God by placing all things under His Lordship. A great example of this is an accountant. An accountant puts things in order and that is co-creating with God.

Brantley, what is your industry?

Brantley: I lead marketing at a commerce company in Memphis called Wellaco. We primarily sell things on Amazon.

Howard: In your job how do you serve as a co-creator with God?

Brantley: One of our brands exists to help parents raise healthy kids and we help them create products to raise healthy kids in easier ways. In marketing we identify needs and see if there is an opportunity where we sell that other people are not filling.

Here is an example. If you are raising healthy kids you know they create a mess when they eat. So to help make life easier on parents we created silicone suction plates that stick to the table and you can put in the microwave or the fridge. We made this product and what we discovered is that most kids do not finish their food when they eat and it is inconvenient for parents to put that food in a separate container to store in the fridge. So we designed the plates to have a lid you can put on the top. This minor change made our product the best selling product of its kind on Amazon.

Howard: That sounds a lot like stewardship and is a great example of co-creating with God. Dan, what about you? What’s your business?

Dan: The biggest part of my business is finding houses, fixing blight, and making houses new. This goes downstream to provide affordable housing that is safe, clean, presentable, and desirable to live in. We want tenets to thrive and we do this by creating jobs and showing the people we hire how to care for tenets well. We don’t even like to call them tenets, we call them residents.

Brantley: I love that.

Howard: So even real estate can help people be fruitful and multiply by providing safety and order. On a daily basis, how do you do this personally? And, when you know you are a co-creator with God, how does that help you move forward in your work?

Dan: I look at it like this: I want us to love our residents. They are so much more than people who pay us rent. People will come in upset about something like a leaky faucet, and I try to coach people about getting to the need behind the need. Does the faucet need to be fixed? Yes, but there is more going on in their life than a leaky faucet and that is where we need to help them with empathy and compassion. We must love them well and operate as a business.

Howard: What about you Brantley?

Brantley: I think it's all about remaining people first.

Howard: God is all about putting people first. God loves people more than spreadsheets.

Brantley: I definitely do not love spreadsheets.

Fall

Howard: Work did not stay perfect. Adam and Eve believed God was holding out on them. Here’s what Genesis 3 says, “Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” The phrase ‘must not touch it’ is the first lie.

The serpent goes on, “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” You see, the devil gets them to disregard the abundance God has given them. He does this by getting them to think in terms of scarcity — there isn’t enough.

So they both ate and disobeyed God. Then God shows up, “Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it. Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.””

First they have shame and hide. Then Adam shifts the blame to Eve and indirectly blames God. Then Eve blames the serpent and God dishes out punishment with a promise of redemption. We all know the famous verse about pain in childbirth, but God says some important things for work.

“Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”

Work is not easy. Work is fallen. Sin has entered the garden, workplace, and world. Even today, we choose in the same way that Adam and Eve did.

So, Dan, what exists in your industry that is fallen and broken about work?

Dan: I think the most fallen part is putting dollars and profit over people. That’s where the term ‘slumlord’ comes from — putting the dollar over the person. We constantly fight that. People get stuck in thinking, “I have to get $200 from that house this month. I can’t get $100.” This line of thinking is very destructive.

Howard: What about you Brantley? What is fallen in your industry?

Brantley: Let’s use Amazon as an example. To win with a product on Amazon you have to have a number of things going for you. You must have the right product at the right price with a combination of marketing tactics. Some of these marketing tactics are fallen. So our company tries to focus on winning in the right way that is not fallen. Many people win on Amazon by bending the rules, but the leadership at our company has chosen to not fudge the rules and stick to marketing that does not use fallen tactics.

Howard: When it’s just about winning against other people and not actually helping others, we are off. And, as many theologians and business leaders have said, the biggest problem is not the industry we work in, it’s our own hearts. Often, what happens is a sin pattern of someone else we work with or within the industry gets us stirred up and then we react with sin. In your experience, how do the sin patterns within your industry affect you and the people you work with?

Brantley: The sin patterns feel like a burden. Here is an example. We had a leadership meeting where we chose to change some of our frontline efforts because things were not working out. So we made the changes and the issue was solved. Not only that but the people on the frontline told us how relieved they felt that they did not have to do what they were uncomfortable with doing.

Howard: That’s a great example. How about you, Dan?

Dan: In the real estate world there are endless amounts of podcasts, articles, books, and videos about getting rich quickly. Not only is most of it false teaching, but it's done for the wrong reasons. Real estate is more of a slow burn, not a get rich quick scheme. I try to coach people from the very start that real estate is not about being a millionaire. Even when it does work out, ok so I sold off a house. What’s next? It’s a little like when Tom Brady won the Super Bowl and asked, “Is this it?” There has to be a bigger purpose for what you are doing.

Howard: Harvard has recently been teaching about how we must have a purpose behind our purpose and Jesus has been teaching that for a long time.

Since you guys have been vulnerable, I’ll share one of mine. In teams when someone criticizes me or says something unfair, I tend to get defensive. I forget I’m created in the image of God and I want to tell them they aren’t. That’s wrong.

Redemption

Howard: But God does not leave us to be stuck in sin forever — He came to save us. In Colossians 1:15-21 it says this, “The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.”

God has done it, it’s finished. Everything is redeemed, we are His. In Galatians Paul writes that we have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us. At work we should live for the one who set us free from our bondage to sin, not our own selfish gain. Colossians 3:17 says it like this, “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” We stumble and fall every day, but we are called to redeem it with thanksgiving.

What do you guys see as a redemptive strategy that is working? How are you guys redeeming work?

Brantley: As a leader, it’s primarily a people first mindset. That gives you the ability to admit when you made the wrong decision — whether it was something that was actually wrong or just didn’t work.

Redemption does not happen if we are not broken. So we first have to admit we are broken and go forward from there.

Howard: For those who follow Jesus we know that when the world says there are winners and losers the world is wrong. What’s true is there are winners and learners.

Dan, what’s a strategy for redeeming things in real estate?

Dan: On the front end it's about educating people that real estate is not about getting rich quick. You want to weed that mindset out on the front end so that your company culture does not become infected with that mindset. If you say you are all about redeeming things and bring someone in who is only focused on getting lots of money for management, your team isn’t going to believe you are as redemptive as you say you are.

A second way is simply fixing things and taking care of the long term flourishing of residents. That is the number one priority, not the money.

Howard: Giving people a good place to live is foundational for flourishing. We need more property management firms in Memphis doing just that!

Restoration

To conclude, we have to remember that Jesus has done it, it is finished. Revelation 21:1-7 says this, “Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them.They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children.”

In our work, we are building this beautiful city with God and we get to know Him while we do it.