On today's episode, Two Ways to Be a King in Business. Welcome back to the Theology of Business Podcast. I'm your host, Darren Shear, author of the book Marketing Like Jesus, and the forthcoming book, The Marketplace Christian, a practical guide to using your spiritual gifts in business. And this is a show that helps Christian leaders to partner with God in business to transform the marketplace and to make a difference in eternity. If you're keeping track, this is episode number 25. So I wanted to do something special today and also thank you, listeners. Thank you for taking the time out week after week to tune into this podcast. I hope that it's helping you. I hope that it's helping you to partner with God in your business and that it's making you more effective as a marketplace minister. So I wanted to do something special on this particular week. And in partnership with Theology of Business, our sponsor, High Bridge Books, is sponsoring a book proposal contest on the theme of doing business God's way. So if you have an idea for a book that will help marketplace professionals to do business God's way, you're going to want to enter into this contest. The prize is going to be a complimentary book publishing package through Hybridge Books, which is valued at $2,600. And you can visit theologyofbusiness.com forward slash book contest for details about this publishing package as well as details about the contest. And the winner will also be interviewed about the book on the Theology of Business podcast and we'll have the book promoted to the broader Theology of Business community, Marketplace Christians. So if you're interested in submitting an entry into this contest, then go ahead and do that at theologyofbusiness.com forward slash book contest no later than December the first. So you've got a couple of months to get your proposal ready. And you're also going to need to develop your book during this time as well, because if you are the winner, then your book has to be ready for publishing by March the first, 2016. So if for no other good reason to enter into this contest, it's going to motivate you to go ahead and finish that book that you've been needing to write to help your fellow marketplace Christians. And in your proposal, which it'll walk you through it there at theology of business.com forward slash book contest, but in 750 to a thousand words, write out a summary of your book and an explanation of how your book will help people to do business God's way. And the subgenres of books that are going to be accepted into this contest are leadership, marketing, finance, professional growth, and the theology of business and the theology of work. So if you have a book in any of those genres that's going to help marketplace Christians partner with God in business to do business God's way, definitely go ahead and enter your proposal. Again, that's theology of business.com forward slash book contest. You can also download the flyer that has all of the information and you can post that flyer around your organization, maybe your church or your school or the members of your your uh your mastermind group, and and you can get that flyer at the same length. Theology of business.com forward slash book contest. So I hope uh to get a lot of proposals from a lot of you because I know that many of you are leaders, thought leaders in this particular niche, if you will, and and that I've already heard from many of you that you have books that you're writing on this uh in this in this field. And so we definitely need more thinkers, we need more fresh ideas and practical strategies on how to partner with God in business in order to uh reclaim the marketplace for the glory of God. Now, on to this week's episode. I want to give a preface to this episode. As I mentioned just a moment ago, we're talking about two ways to be a king in business. If you remember a previous episode and also did a blog post on this titled Why Business is Full Time Ministry. In that uh episode, we export our callings to be royal priests in the business world, as it says in 1 Peter chapter 2, verse 9. And in that episode, I talked about the marketplace Christians' two primary duties as God's priests in the marketplace. And now I want to talk about two of our primary duties as God's kings, which is the royal aspect of being a royal priest. I talked about before being a royal priest means to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Christ Jesus. And then it says in verse 9 of 1 Peter 2 that the other duty is to proclaim the excellencies of Jesus. So we offer spiritual sacrifices through the work that we do, is an offering of worship to God, through the sacrifice of personal holiness, the sacrifice of forgiveness in business. Many of you have had to forgive people, sometimes with zeros on the end of it, financial sacrifices, sacrificing time at the office. So that's that's kind of how we have offered spiritual sacrifices as one duty of being a priest in the marketplace. And then the other is to proclaim the excellencies of Jesus, because uh it's said that uh this is a quote by D.L. Moody of a hundred men, one will read the Bible, the other 99 will read the Christian. And so, as Christians in the marketplace through our lifestyle, it should provoke questions about our faith. And and it says in 1 Peter that we are to always be ready to give a reason for the hope that is within us. And that's going to require, if somebody's going to ask us for a reason for that hope, then our life has to uh exhibit enough, it it has to elicit enough interest in our faith, in what we have that somebody would ask, and then we can proclaim the excellencies of Jesus. And we do that in the marketplace. So that that's kind of a a summary of what I shared about being a priest in the marketplace. Now let's talk about being a king, because you're not either a king or a priest, as if as if your pastor is the priest and and you're the king. No, we're we are all kings and priests, or as Peter says, royal priests. Not only did God call us to enter his kingdom, he called us to rule within his kingdom. And the first commandment given to humanity was to, quote, subdue the earth and rule, take dominion. That's in Genesis chapter 1, verse 20 28. And the word promised that, quote, those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one Jesus Christ. And that's from Romans chapter 5, verse 17. As a marketplace Christian, you are a king, and a massive part of your domain, because a king has a domain, a massive part of your domain is your sphere of influence in the marketplace, because that's where most of us spend the majority of our waking hours. While our royal authority as children of God transcends the authorities among the kingdoms of the world, it should be revealed through our professional lives in the marketplace. So today let's explore two of our primary duties as God's kings in the marketplace. That first duty of being a king, what do kings do? Kings are providers, so they provide for the people within their sphere of influence. So the first duty is to be a provider as a marketplace Christian. Kings have authority for the purpose of providing for those within their domains. And as kings, what are some practical ways that we can provide for the needs of those in our spheres of influence in the marketplace or our domains within God's kingdom? And I've I've got a couple that I want to share with you, and you probably could think of more, but these are just some of the ones that I've thought of. The first way that we can provide for those in our sphere of influence in the marketplace is to provide our spiritual gifts, to make our gifts available to those we come in contact with in the marketplace. So whether your gifts are teaching, discernment, administration, prophecy, uh I mean, there are many, many others, and I've done a couple of episodes on this as well that you can go and check out. No matter what your gift is, the marketplace needs your spiritual gifts to reflect the glory of God. And God's word promises that He has made a place for our gifts. You can read about that in the book of Proverbs. So it's our responsibility to make those gifts available to those who need them. The second way that we can be providers as kings in the marketplace, as royal priests, is to provide economic value. So if you're getting paid to do what you do, you most likely have provided an equivalent amount of economic value in your sphere of the marketplace. And in the process, you served at least one person by providing for at least one need. So that's another way that we provide as kings in the marketplace, is through the economic value. Also, is through providing economic opportunities. And whether you have hired people or not, as a business owner, uh maybe you have subcontractors or uh whatever the case, the economic value you provide for the marketplace creates opportunities for other people to offer value because when one need is met, new needs emerge, and that's just how the marketplace operates. The solution to one problem then creates new problems that people have the opportunity to solve. So we can provide economic opportunities as kings in the marketplace. And we can also, fourthly, here, we can also provide alms for the needy or financial support or material support for the poor. Do you have coworkers who are hurting financially? If you're a business owner, do you have customers who can't pay? I have had both of these situations where I've been an employee, I've had coworkers that were hurting financially, that were in just desperate times of need, and the only person that knew about that need was me. And and then on the other hand, I've been a business owner, I am a business owner, and have experienced times when the customer just could not pay. Obviously, that's not uh a great place to be into if you're a business owner, because you do need profit in order to stay in business so that you can help people, but inevitably as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, you're going to encounter opportunities where perhaps God is asking you to show mercy to that person through providing some financial relief. And maybe they don't owe you a thing, uh, but um, but maybe it's just an act of mercy, an act of generosity that God is calling us to do. We may be the only one who knows about these impossible financial situations that people are in that we come in contact with in the marketplace, because as we talked about on previous episodes, a lot of these people don't go to church. But that's why we are the hands and feet, the eyes, the ears, the mouth of Jesus in the marketplace to know what's happening, to be right there in the midst of the hurting and the suffering that's happening, and a lot of that is happening in the marketplace. So those were just four examples of how we can be providers as kings in the marketplace. So as God's appointed king in the marketplace, how is God calling you to provide for the people within your personal sphere of influence? The second duty of a king in the marketplace as a royal priest is to be a protector. Kings are called to protect those within their domains or within their spheres of influence. So, what are some practical ways that we can protect the people in our spheres of influence in the business world? Maybe co-workers, maybe colleagues, maybe clients, customers, uh you name it. How can we protect these people? Because if we are kings, then we are protectors. We first of all, we can protect through making righteous decisions. Many of the decisions that we make in business either will protect those in our spheres of influence or they will hurt them. By making decisions in a way that protects those around us from uh financially, professionally, emotionally, relationally, or even uh physically being harmed, rather than protecting our own selfish interests, then we can serve our coworkers, customers, and colleagues with the servants' attitude of Jesus. And you can go and read about the servant's attitude and how we need to take on, let the same mind be in us, it was also in Christ. That's in Philippians chapter two, verses five. So we can protect people through the decisions that we make, because especially in economies, the decisions that we make have they send ripple effects throughout the other people that are integrated into our economic system. Maybe it's our company, maybe it's our industry, maybe it's our community. Ultimately, it they do send a ripple effect. The second way that we can be protectors as God's kings in the marketplace is to protect through life-giving words. On every economic level, the marketplace is extremely vulnerable to negativity and fear. And as such, marketplace Christians have a significant opportunity and calling to protect those around us from this negativity and fear by speaking only, quote, and this is from Philippians 4.8, only what is true and honorable and right and pure and lovely and admirable, things that are excellent and worthy of praise. So if you've got a negative atmosphere at work, or maybe in your industry, or maybe the the you're you're exposed to some thinkers that are just very negative in the marketplace uh or related to uh your sphere of the marketplace, I would say you need to shift the the input so that you're you're receiving life-giving words so that you can then give those life-giving words. And again, those life-giving words protect the people from in our sphere of influence from negativity and fear as well. And then the third way that we can be protectors as God's kings in the marketplace is through prayer. Through our prayers, we can guard our companies against loss, theft, bad business partners, bad business deals, adverse market swings, and much more. Many of these things are beyond our control, but they're not beyond the control and intervention of the Holy Spirit. So through making righteous decisions, through life-giving words, and through prayer, we can be protectors of the people we come in contact with in the marketplace. I want to just leave you with this parting thought here that you are royalty. If you are a born-again Christian, you are not only a priest, but you are a royal priest. You were a king and a priest. When Queen Victoria was a child, she didn't realize that she was in line for the throne of England. Her instructors, who were trying to prepare her for leadership, were just frustrated perpetually because they couldn't motivate young Victoria to take her schoolwork seriously. They knew she wouldn't be able to lead others until she could lead herself. And finally, her teachers admonished her and said, One day, Victoria, you will be the Queen of England. And upon hearing this, young Victoria said quietly, Then I will be good. The realization that she had inherited this high calling gave her a sense of authority, responsibility, and accountability that profoundly affected her conduct from that day forward. And like Queen Victoria, we will always live in accordance with our understanding of who we are. As marketplace Christians, we are kings and priests who belong to God, and this revelation will transform the business world as we walk in the fullness of our callings as marketplace Christians. That's all for this week. I want to leave you with a discussion question that you can go and comment on this episode at theologyofbusiness.com. And that is how was God asking you to provide for and also to protect those and your sphere of influence in the marketplace? And what does it mean to be a king in the marketplace? I hope you've enjoyed this episode and hope to hear your feedback at theologyofbusiness.com, where you can get more information about businesses, ministry, spiritual gifts in the marketplace, marketing like Jesus, and Christ-centered leadership and entrepreneurship. And also want to remind you to go and check out that information about the book contest. If you have a book on the theme of helping marketplace Christians to partner with God in business, uh, to do business God's way, to do business according to the Bible, then go and check that out at theologyofbusiness.com forward slash book contest. And anytime you can always feel free to email me at Darren at highbridgebooks.com. If you have any questions or comments related to the theology of business, I would love to hear from you. In fact, I just heard from two of you this week saying that you would like to have an audio version of the Marketing Like Jesus book. And so, you know, when one person says it, that's one thing. But when two or more people begin to uh to voice something, you know you better act on it. So look out for an audio version of Marketing Like Jesus 25 Strategies to Change the World to be coming out here within the next couple of months. Thanks for listening and keep partnering with God in your business. And here's to another 25 episodes.