Avodah Talk w/ Matt Walton

Marketplace Ministry: Living Your Faith Through Business Leadership

• Matt Walton • Season 1 • Episode 20

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Kingdom business means operating with excellence while allowing God to be the true CEO. Discipleship happens naturally through how we conduct ourselves in business—your leadership style, decision-making processes, and treatment of others all communicate your values and faith to those around you.

• Discipleship isn't boxed into a program but happens through living like Jesus in your business
• Jesus said "Follow me and I will make you fishers of men" (Matthew 4:19)
• When employees see you operating with excellence as unto the Lord, that itself is discipleship
• Practical ways to enhance discipleship include team prayer, mentoring, and community service
• A true disciple is disciplined in relationship with God, involved with believers, Spirit-led, concerned for others, serving in their giftedness, prayerful, leading others, and enjoying God
• Unforgiveness and offense are major blockers to spiritual growth and effective discipleship
• Book recommendations: "Unaffendable" by Brant Hansen and "Bait of Satan" by John Bevere

Your business is your ministry. Go out and advance God's kingdom. Be creative, be obedient, and be different. Don't look like the world—bring God into every decision and let Him guide you.


Speaker 1:

What's up, guys? This is Matt with the Vota Talk or the Real Matt Walton. This is your hub for all things Kingdom business, business as ministry business strategy. My goal is to provide as much value, minute by minute, each podcast that you listen to. So let's get to it. What's up guys? This is Matt with the Vota Talk or at the Real Matt Walton, depending on how you found me, and thank you, guys, so much for joining me today.

Speaker 1:

I'm excited about today. Today's going to be a little bit shorter, a little bit more concise. I'm going to answer a comment that I got through YouTube and I believe that it goes hand in hand with the vision of this channel right here, and one of the topics that we consistently talk about is discipleship and specifically, discipleship in the marketplace. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. But first, man, things are just personally and in business, things are going incredible. We are in a really good season right now. It doesn't mean that we're trial free, because there's a lot of trials that are going on right now. I believe that God is consistently inviting us to a whole nother level, and so it's just exciting. We're experiencing a lot of increase in some areas and bringing on new team members, and so it's just exciting. We're experiencing a lot of increase in some areas and bringing on new team members, and so there's a lot of clarity that's starting to unfold or a lot of layers that are starting to be peeled back, which just aids in the clarity.

Speaker 1:

But, man, I've been running a lot, getting up to running about a K, just about. I'm getting to that point every single day of running a 5K and really excited about that, because I hate to run and, like this morning, I was battling that in my mind before I started running and then come about mile two, I started to get motivated to actually run. So just some encouragement Don't allow your emotions or your feelings to dictate your actions, because when we do, we find ourselves being way left behind or our growth has been stunted. So press through the lack of desire to do something. If you have something, a desire to do something, today, and you do it today, and then you wake up tomorrow and you don't have that same desire and you don't do it. That is the reason why you're not making the progress in life that you would like. That's the reason why I was not making the progress in life that I liked until I started to practice that, and it's been awesome Discipline. I've been working through that in a number of areas and I'm very grateful for those times. In the morning of running, I do some body weight exercises and do some walking and just feeling incredible, not to mention going on walks in the evening time after dinner with my whole entire family, with my wife and my daughter. So it's just. Life is looking really, really beautiful right now. Last night, my daughter was worshiping before she went to bed. We had some worship playing on the TV, and so she was worshiping, just singing, raising her hands, and so my wife and I came over there and we started worshiping with her as well, and it was just a beautiful moment. So God is doing some really incredible things within my business and family and I'm incredibly grateful for that and all the growth. So let's get into it.

Speaker 1:

Today I want to talk about this question that I got that has to do with discipline, and so the question is this Thank you for sharing your knowledge. This is very helpful as a starting entrepreneur. I just want to ask if you can make a video about how discipleship makes sense in doing business, for example, how discipleship happens when I just focus on managing my business, leading my employees, targeting the goals of the business. So that's the question right there, and I love it. I want to answer it with scripture and it's a Matthew 4, 19. This is red letter, jesus talking and he says follow me and I will make you fishers of men. So I don't know this individual's name that commented that, but you actually answered the question within the question, because when you are doing what you are led to do within your business, that is the very thing that is discipling your people.

Speaker 1:

So if you have people that are working alongside you and they see how you're working and you're pouring the Lord into them, you're doing everything as if you're working and you're pouring the Lord into them. You're doing everything as if you're working for the Lord. You're talking about God, maybe doing some prayer and some other things, or you're just operating out of excellence. That, in and of itself, is the definition of discipleship. People are coming alongside, they're following you because you are living a life like Jesus. The whole idea of me as a business owner, and you as well, is to live and to emulate the life of Jesus the best that you possibly can, and through that people are going to be paying attention and watching you, and that's where some of the best discipleship happens is whenever you have employees excuse me or partners, or people that come alongside you and you're all pursuing a goal and they're watching how you operate out of excellence and how you do things as if you're doing it unto the Lord, no matter what it is. So when I talk about, like you know, discipleship in the marketplace through programs, that's one aspect of it. That's not necessarily what I would define as discipleship, because it's not boxed into a program, but rather it's what happens before those programs ever get implemented. So some things that I do outside of just living that way and living the best way that I can in accordance with the way Jesus lived his life, is I do discipleship programs, I do mentoring programs. I do have a podcast actual, it's called a discipleship program. That's literally what it's called. I have a DCAP program that's a dream chaser, accountability program. That's more of a mentoring program.

Speaker 1:

I do prayer with my guys every single Monday and in that I do. I have like a. I just preach the gospel and we do serve days. The first Friday of every month we go serve our community. I'm like last Friday actually, we went and served, made 300 sandwiches, 300 lunches, and went and passed those out to those that are on the streets in downtown Las Vegas. So those are some of the ways. And then you disciple in that process. So, like I had some of my guys that were, you know, coming alongside me in that they were passing out the food, lunches, waters and and then I was going around and praying with people that needed prayer, that wanted prayer. People were coming up to me asking for prayer and that's where discipleship, that's where some of the best discipleship happens, is whenever they can see you live like Jesus to the best of your ability.

Speaker 1:

I saw this and I really liked this. It says a disciple is disciplined in his or her relationship with God. 2 Timothy 2.15 is where that's found. This is an acronym for disciple. The I is involved in a gathering of believers. Hebrews 10.25 is where that comes from. S is spirit-filled and spirit-led. Romans 8.14 and Ephesians 5.18. C is concerned for others rather than for self. Philippians 2.3-4. I is involved in serving in his or her area of giftedness. 1 Peter 4, 11. P is prayerful in all things. Philippians 4, 6-7. 1 Thessalonians 5, 17. L is leading others to become disciples 2 Timothy 2, 2. And E is enjoying God always Isaiah 61, 10,. 1 Thessalonians 5, 16. So I saw that acronym that is not something that I came up with and I really like that because I think it just better defines through scripture what a disciple and discipleship is. So I hope that encourages you.

Speaker 1:

I'm a big believer. I think that there's a rise in discipleship. I think there are Christians that are now starting to operate their businesses as their ministries and that are either converting their businesses to kingdom businesses or operating their business as a kingdom business, and some encouragement there is. It looks different than the world. God may tell you to do something that makes no sense, and your role in there is to be obedient to God because, after all, he is the true owner and the true CEO, the true operator everything within the business, and whenever we allow him to go before us rather the opposite direction of that, then, man, he gives us a blueprint for what we need to do and the key is is when you're I'm in a season right now of making some big decisions within my business that mean a lot for the future of the business, and the key is just waiting on the Lord to give you an answer. And for me, god had spoken to me about something with somebody that I was collaborating with, about not working with him, and I keep going back to God like, well, but what if we get the deal like this? Is that, would that be okay? And God continues to put it on my heart that, no, you know, this is that that was for a season and that season is over. So just listen to the Lord, be obedient to God. He's speaking. He's speaking to you. He desires a partnership and a collaboration with you. He desires to take you to another level. He's always inviting you to another level, and one of the big blockers to that and I'll finish with this is offense and unforgiveness. That and I'll finish with this is offense and unforgiveness, and so my encouragement there is read.

Speaker 1:

There's two books that I want to encourage everybody with and that's Unaffendable by Brant Hansen. I would start with that book, and then there's Bait of Satan by John Bevere. Those are two of the most impactful books that I've ever read outside of scripture in my life, and it has allowed for me to work through some unforgiveness that I had, because what Jesus talks about is, when you have not forgiven. There is no forgiveness for you, and what I believe is the many that Jesus is talking about when he says many, many will come to me saying, lord Lord, we cast out demons in your name and he will say depart from me, I never knew you. I believe that he's talking about believers, specifically quote unquote that have unforgiveness in their heart and that have not experienced nor lived out the transformative power of the gospel. So check out those two books. They are incredible.

Speaker 1:

I'd love to know your feedback. Please like, share, download this video and leave me a comment as well. We'd love to speak on your comments or to speak on some questions that you have, but, most importantly, your business is your ministry. So go out and advance God's kingdom. Be creative, be obedient and be different. Don't do not look like the world and ask God like what should I do here? You know where do you want me to make adjustments within this area? Are you okay with this? Just bring God in on every decision and let him be the one that guides you on everything. Thank you, guys.