What should you do before you start a business, and what steps should to take to start one? Mike answers common questions and shares how business can be used for ministry.

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<p>What should you do before you start a business, and what steps should to take to start one? Mike answers common questions and shares how business can be used for ministry.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

GYC Northwest

Christian Business

Mike Tillay

Christian Business- Part 1

When I was 17 years old, I started a business.

And I didn't do it the way I'm going to tell you to start a startup.

I didn't know that Ellen White says, religion and business are not 2 different things.

Bible religion should be woven into all we do and say.

In Proverbs God says the Weights in the bag are gods.

And what that refers to, the big thing of commerce, was a scale.

You know, if they were bargaining over a fish, they had to know how much it weighed.

And so the weights that were on the other side of the balance scale were God's.

God is involved in business, and he wants to use business as an avenue to reach souls for the kingdom.

We'll be talking about 43 years in business and what I've learned in reaching others for Christ.

So when you're thinking about a startup, Ellen White has some counsel for us.

From Bible Echo, April 6, 1903, the first step in the path of obedience, and of course if you want to obey God, whether it's in business or anything else, you need to obey, the first step in the path of obedience is to surrender to the will of God.

George Miller, you know, was the great missionary and was just very devout and he said nine-tenths of all the problem in knowing God's will is in this 1 item and that's to have no will of my own And we seek Bible study through prayer and Bible study fellowship so that we can become acquainted with God and we can fold into His plan and his plan is supreme.

And we might have some idea of something that we really want to do really bad, but we've got to lay our plans at God's feet, all of them.

That's the first step, is getting my will in harmony with God's will.

And for those of you who are interested, George Miller has quite a bit to say on knowing God's will and I have a handout on that.

Also I have a handout on the major principles here for a startup.

And the first principle then is, not my will but thine be done.

You know, Jesus, we're told in the Desire of Ages, seemed to do little of the work that he came to do.

And there were a lot of sidetracks and a lot of distractions.

If you'd ask Joseph, you know, how's it going, Most of the time he'd say, well, you know, I know God had some dreams of grandeur early on, but I haven't seen much, but it's been pretty discouraging, really.

And when the 2 fellows came up to Joseph and told him, hey, we've had a dream, we hear that you can interpret dreams.

You know, you and I might have said, you can forget dreams.

We had a dream back when we were young and it didn't work out.

He still trusted that all things work together for good.

And so having no will of my own, bringing my will into harmony with God is the first step in a startup.

In the Desire of Ages, page 670, Ellen White says, Jesus had opened before his disciples a vast tract of truth.

But it was most difficult for them to keep his lessons distinct from the traditions and maxims of the Pharisees.

Earthly ideas, temporal things, had a large place in their thoughts.

You know, there was a feasibility study that was done in the Bible.

Remember, they sent out the spies to spy out the land?

And the feasibility study came back negative.

And so mixing worldly feasibility studies And God's plan may not work.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't, you know, assess the market, do market surveys, do, you know, focus groups, do those kinds of things.

But in the end, you need to do what God wants you to do, not what the world says you ought to do.

I had a business teacher, his name was Jim Weston.

And Jim Weston, his grandfather was the first person to bring private health insurance to America.

Penney and Conrad Hilton all lunched together.

They were brown bag it and they started an organization together called the Lehman's Foundation.

Anyway, Jim would always say to me, Mike, remember priorities.

And 1 day, 1 of the workers I had working had completed a feasibility study and he brought it in to me and I gave it to Jim.

And Jim looked at me and he was so disappointed.

He said, Mike, that is not a feasibility study.

And he held his hand, you know, about 2 inches apart.

You know, the world has a plan and has a way.

And even Koch, You know, when they came out with new coke, they got it wrong, even with their big, thick feasibility study.

So the main idea is, whatsoever He saith unto you, do it.

You know, that didn't seem like a very smart thing for all these guys to fill up all these big jars with water, you know?

But Mary said, because she knew Jesus, whatsoever he saith unto you, do it, even if it seems impossible.

A lot of times God asks us to do the seemingly impossible to test our faith.

And for a man of action, that was the hardest thing he could have possibly told Moses.

Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.

Many told him to go through the Red Sea, another impossible thing, but with God all things are possible.

So the first principle is no will of my own, not even your business school and your business training and all that kind of stuff.

People that go through business school at the university or any university versus people that go through a business incubation program, you're 5 to 7 times more likely to succeed just going through a business incubator rather than doing what the world says.

Now, the world says, You've got to have a business plan.

You've got to have a detailed business plan.

And the best business incubators find that it's the people that are more important than the plan.

But if the people are quality and they stick to it, you know, they've got determination.

Let's turn to Luke 14 verses 28 through 30.

And there's some principles that Jesus outlines on plans and starting.

Which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost.

Have you ever thought about what that might mean?

If you have a plan of something that you believe God wants you to do, Jesus says first sit down.

Ellen White used a phrase over and over again, she said make haste slowly.

And then whatever God says to do, you do it.

And you do it with dispatch, when God tells you what to do.

In the seventh volume of the Testimonies, page 284, and you don't need to write these quotations down.

I've got them in a handout here that you can have later on.

God is not the author of confusion, but of order and progress.

Let those who desire to advance his kingdom make haste slowly and build intelligently.

Christian Business- Part 2

It's fun to work with you and to be in your will.

Lord, the happiest person in the world is somebody who knows they're where you want them to be, doing what you want them to do.

Please fill us with your spirit today, we pray in Jesus' lovely name, amen.

See, we got another A student here, uh-huh, couple more.

Somebody came up to me at church, she was a nurse, and she said, do you know so and so, Frank?

The last person in the world that I wanted to go see was Frank.

Frank was gay, and he was interested in me.

I remember during an evangelistic series at this church, I'm sitting in the front row and along comes Frank and sits down right beside me.

He wasn't there because he wanted evangelism.

He was there because he wanted to sit next to me.

And I turned to my wife and I said these blasphemous words, I don't care if Frank goes to hell or not.

That Sabbath, many years later, I went and saw Frank.

He was in the hospital, excuse me, in the nursing home, and it didn't look like he was doing so well.

And I had taken a CD with me or some music, but he didn't have a player.

And I talked with him for a while and I knew he really liked a certain kind of music, Caruso, you know.

That's probably not the kind of music they play over the intercom in the nursing home.

And so I told him I'd bring back a player tomorrow.

Well, he kind of rested his eyes and he went to sleep.

And I had felt so, felt guilty about what I had said some years before, that I knelt down beside his bed and I just said, Lord, will you forgive me for what I said to Frank, or what I said about Frank?

You know, when God puts somebody in your path, God doesn't make mistakes.

You know, He wasn't afraid to touch the leper.

There are people that are different persuasion than you.

But before God can use us to work for someone else, He's got to do something to our heart.

You know, you can't give away something you don't have.

And the first step in reaching anyone for Christ is I've got to be Christ's holy and completely how do you know if you're converted well if you had asked Peter are you converted What do you think he might have said?

Well, he says, if I'm not converted, there's nobody that is converted.

I've left my hometown, I've left my family, I've left my business, I've left everything to follow Jesus.

But Jesus said to him some months later, when you're converted, strengthen the brother.

Peter was unconverted and didn't know it.

Do you know what the ratio is within Adventism?

Well, first of all, the time we spend with Jesus, with God the Father, will be a telling a tale.

Not the time you plan to spend, but the time you have spent with him.

Do you give him your best hour, your best hours?

Now, somebody says my best hours in the evening, then give it to him.

You know, you find Christ in the scripture, it says rising up a great while before dawn he went out and prayed.

But you'll find an equal number of times in Scripture where Jesus is spending morning time with his father and evening time with his father.

In fact, if you'll turn to Joshua 1 verse 8.

This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do all that which is written in it, for then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall have good success.

Mark Finley's secretary said to me, you know Mike, she says, I can start out and I'm doing great.

And then by afternoon, she says, I'm snapping turtle.

She's saying things she wished she could have back Well in the sanctuary Everything I need in my life you'll find in the sanctuary.

Once you go into the sanctuary, there were 3 articles of furniture in the holy place.

The candlestick, the table of red, table of incense, altar of incense, okay.

There was actually a fourth thing in there.

Because the curtain did not go all the way to the top.

And the Shekinah Glory was also very present in the Holy Place.

And those are the 4 things that I need in my life.

Bible study, that's the Word of God, prayer, you know, the altar of incense.

And then, when it comes to the candlestick, the Christian witness, You notice that the candlestick had to be filled up twice a day for it to be light?

Yeah, it had to be filled up twice a day.

Twice, you know, every 12 hours or whatever so that it would never go out.

And you know, that's what Joshua is telling us.

And it's such a blessing to, and it's very difficult to come apart, you know, I mean, if you get up early in the morning, I mean, you have that time, that's your own time, and probably not going to get too many phone calls.

But if you were to just say, I have an appointment from such and such a time to such and such a time in my office, you know, well who's that with?

If you had a new baby in your house, I've just come from our daughter who has a 10-week-old.

I don't care if the UPS man comes to the door, I don't care what happens.

We can't be a light to others Unless we're being filled up With Jesus every day and I think twice a day is the best Well, I shouldn't say that Daniel found that he needed to be filled up 3 times a day.

In fact, he would rather die than miss 1 of his spiritual infillings.

Rather die, rather be thrown to the, you know, you could say, well, you know, just do it in the morning or just do it in the evening when nobody could see, you know, it's dark or whatever.

First Corinthians 15 verse 5, first part.

Test and evaluate yourselves to see if you are in the faith and living your lives as committed believers.

If you are committed to Christ, you'll be spending time with him.

If you are committed to Christ, another word will summarize your life.

I don't know if you remember the Salvation Army at Booth that started that.

But he had missionaries all over the world and 1 year, to start the new year off right, he decided to just send out a telegram to all of his people.

It was a lot of money to send out that many telegrams.

And he figured he only had enough money to send out 1 word to all of his people.

Christian Business- Part 3

1 day I was going through the scriptures and in this particular Bible I Happen to look in the marginal reference To 1 of my favorite stories the story of Solomon when he got the wisdom, so let's turn to first Kings chapter 3 first Kings chapter 3 on your device or your Bible, whatever you have.

Everybody knows that Solomon asked for wisdom.

So that's, you know, I take it, take it, when God says wisdom, I believe that.

But we're going to discuss today the how of the wisdom.

And there's a, you know, I'm not a, I'm not a linguist and I don't know biblical languages, but I can read in a marginal reference of the Bible when it says T for translation, I can read that.

When it says, Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart, for the word understanding, an understanding heart, over at the margin it said literally hearing.

And of course the heart stands for the mind.

And so I looked the word up and it's the word shama or shama.

It's like, the A I think is like as in hat, Shema, Shema.

This word in Deuteronomy, I think it's Deuteronomy chapter 6, there is a prayer and it's called, I call it the Shema.

And the 3 most popular words in the Hebrew language are number 1, Shalom, number 2, Shabbat or Sabbath, and number 3, Shema.

700 and eighty-five times in the King James Bible.

So, I imagine Solomon with the Queen of Sheba.

And I've actually seen some of these fake flowers, you know, she tested them, we're told, this is from outside the Bible, with a fake flower, you know.

And I've actually seen some of these, and they make them out of a kind of wood that is so soft, and then they they dip them in oil and they scent them and you can pinch off a piece of this colored scented wood and you don't even know that it's wood you think it's a flower I mean it's perfect and I picture Solomon given you know the 2 flowers, which 1 is the real flower.

I just picture him sending up a little flare prayer.

He's got the gift of hearing and God just darts the thought of a bee into his mind.

So he puts them out at the window seal and waits and talks and whatever and eventually the bee lands on the right 1, of course.

And so I wondered, what were the conditions that enabled Solomon to hear?

And 1 of the key points is just a few verses back, verse 7, 1 Kings chapter 3, verse 7.

Now, O LORD my God, you have made your servant king instead of my father David, but I am a little child.

I do not know how to go out or come in." Now I want to ask you a question.

Did he not know how to go out or come in?

See, He didn't know how else to describe it to God, but his father normally would live out his life, and then after his father died, he would become king.

And he's had to do some awful things, and taking care of some people, that, you know, his dad said he wouldn't hands-off and whatever and it's horrible and He's king and he feels like a little child He really in comparison to being ready to be king.

He feels like a little child I don't I don't know Beans from Buckshot.

You know, we use expressions today and he was not trying to lie to God.

He was trying to give to God the way he really felt.

Now, in scripture, there's lots of things that we're told to go to God for.

But God says, with regards to humility, he says, humble yourselves.

I thought, man, why wouldn't God do that for us?

You know, we have to recognize our true power.

When Jesus said, all power is given to me on heaven and earth that means we have 0 you know Jesus even said even the words I speak are not my own so we have to recognize it ourselves that of ourselves we can do nothing, but through Christ we can do all things.

So humility is something that we have to recognize.

A Clydesdale horse, I mean, I don't know, maybe you think another horse is better or whatever, that's fine.

But this thing is so powerful that it doesn't have to prove who it is.

It can be very meek, it can step over things, it can be very gentle, it doesn't have to prove who it is.

It can be very meek, it can be, it can step over things, it can be very gentle, it doesn't have to prove who it is.

And we're told that Moses was the meekest man in all the earth, you know.

You know, there's a cartoon, it's called Eek and Make, and it's kind of a wimpy person, you know, and don't like to read it, it's just nothing.

But that's not what humility is all about, that's not what makeness is all about.

Makeness, humility, all what's talking about here is an assurance in God and what He is able to do.

And so Solomon at the beginning of his life, he had this meekness, he had this humility, and so God could give him this gift of hearing.

I Had a friend You know what they say about birds of a feather This friend was in prison up here at the Washington State Penitentiary.

He had robbed a liquor store and wanted to get drug money.

Every Sunday, I'd go up and see my friend Tim.

I'd say, Tim, you got to read the Bible with a different heart.

You've just got to say, God, what are you saying to me?

And I kept talking to him and talking to him.

6 months went by and he still wasn't reading scripture with a humble heart.

Well, Tim, unbeknownst to me, was using drugs up at the Washington State Penitentiary.

He continued to use drugs, and pretty soon the people who he was getting drugs from on credit, they said, no more, and you've got to raise some money.

You've got to call your friends, and you've got to have them send some money up here.

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Christian Business

Christian Business- Part 1

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Parts

Christian Business- Part 1

57m

Christian Business- Part 2

55m

Christian Business- Part 3

44m

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