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33 episodes with beatty carmichael
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2 episodes with beatty carmichael
Beatty Carmichael is a spiritual healer and the author of The Prayer of Freedom, a book dedicated to helping people break free from chronic pain, mental health struggles, addictions, and more. He teaches at the largest addiction recovery center in America, home to over 500 women.While working with these women, he developed a unique 3-step approach to prayer—one with an astounding 87% success rate in setting them free from their struggles. In this conversation with Beatty we discuss:How his upbringing shaped his journeyHow he took a scientific approach to applying Biblical truths to healingThe genesis of his Prayer of FreedomThe key differences between his approach to addiction and more mainstream approaches like AA, NA, etc.Why you do not need to believe in God for the prayer to workThe nature of the Spiritual War we are in...and more!Learn more about Beatty, his work, and his book at http://ThePrayerOfFreedomBook.com.Support Terrain Theory on Patreon! Our recently-launched member platform gives you access to a ton of free & exclusive content. Check it out: https://www.patreon.com/TerrainTheoryTerrain Theory episodes are not to be taken as medical advice. You are your own primary healthcare provider.If you have a Terrain Transformation story you would like to share, email us at ben@terraintheory.net.Learn more at www.terraintheory.netMusic by Chris Merenda
When I hear the word "Prayer": I immediately think of a catholic mass in a regal church, or a solemn beg for more time from a sick person. But our guest today says that it doesn't even need to be specific to any religion in order to heal what ails you. Welcome to the Just Dumb Enough Podcast. A show that acknowledges no one is always an expert, by dispelling misconceptions with real experts. My guest today is Beatty Carmichael. Coming from a medical family, Beatty wanted to find where science applied itself to what he saw as a higher power of the universe. Much like gravity, he found that prayer works on a set of principles with very specific vernacular that needed to be followed. Now he's here to show us how this scientific prayer has helped 90% of his consults to recover when everything else failed. In case you missed it: The Just Dumb Enough Japan Tour starts in just about two weeks, and I cannot wait to see everyone on the road! ( http://ThePrayerOfFreedomBook.com ) ( http://Overview.TPOFBook.com ) ( https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-prayer-of-freedom-beatty-carmichael/1144175305?ean=9798989059102 ) ( https://a.co/d/bnxmYRV will take you to: Www.Amazon.Com "The Prayer of Freedom: God's breakthrough approach to prayer that frees you from many forms of chronic pain, chronic health issues, anxiety, trauma, addictions, and other life challenges" ) ( https://www.youtube.com/@BeattyCarmichaelTeaching will take you to: Www.YouTube.Com - Where you can see all of his videos and testimonials ) Let's find the spiritual algorithm of the Gods. Feel Free to try for yourself: Step 1. “Dear God, I want to get rid of this _____; and if there is a spiritual root at the bottom of it: I ask that you reveal it to me now. Reveal any sin I need to repent of, or any person that I need to forgive.” Step 2. “I Repent of ____ with ____” or “I forgive ____ for _____” If your apology involved another person “I break all unholy soul ties with, and release all judgements against those people I named.” Step 3. “And now, God, I ask that you remove my ____. Take it to zero, right now.” Talking to the issue: “____, In God's Name: I command you to leave, go out now.” I find this fascinating that it comes from a nearly agnostic principle, and seems to work for anyone. I tried it with Beatty and found some temporary success in alleviating pain in my back. Maybe I need to work at it more to make it consistent? In ranking news... April is now over, and the monthly rankings are all set: 1. The United States, with California, Oregon, and Washington; now in that order. 2. England of the United Kingdom. 3. Australia, with Queensland just one listener over New South Wales and a handful over Victoria. 4. Canada, with Ontario almost losing to British Columbia right at the end. 5. Hong Kong, barely holding out against New Zealand. That's it for this week! Have a great week, a great weekend, and I'll see you all back here next week for another new episode! Until the next episode, pretty please do all the things to help the show: rate, review, like, and subscribe. Reach out to DumbEnoughPodcast@Gmail.Com or on any social media if you want to reach me personally. Most importantly, Stay Dumb! #Podcast #Education #ChronicPain #Prayer #God #Depression #Healing #StrategyGuide #Agnostic
Discover a proven 3-step prayer approach that's achieved 90% success in healing chronic pain, anxiety, and relationship conflicts. Learn from Beatty Carmichael's experience of helping over 700 people find freedom from physical and emotional challenges through a revolutionary prayer method that anyone can apply.===============================================
In episode 198, Beatty Carmichael challenges us to find freedom through healing prayer today. After being in environments that limited what prayer could look like, Beatty explored scripture and discovered that healing is not only possible, but within reach for us through repentance. In fact, toward the end of the conversation he will walk you through a process to invite healing today.Do you want to be healed?You can connect with Beatty and his content here:https://ThePrayerOfFreedomBook.comhttps://getradicalfaith.org/~Paul creates this as part of his full-time volunteer ministry.If you appreciate what God is doing through this podcast, you can help keep it going through financial support. Gifts can be processed at https://worldoutreach.org/707 ~Have a story to share? Hard questions to process? A desire for authentic, accessible space? You can leave a brief message at (804) 372-3836, or schedule a conversation (with a twist!) atwww.wheredidyouseegod.com/conversation-with-a-twist~Check out our website: www.WhereDidYouSeeGod.com ~One of these books will be relevant to your life right now:https://amazon.com/author/paulgranger~Wear an amazing conversation-starter!https://www.bonfire.com/store/where-did-you-see-god/~The music in this episode is "You'll walk, you'll run" by Urban Doxology, from their amazing album "Bread for the Journey."~Learn more about how God's calling us:Pray: tinyurl.com/GrangerPrayFollow: tinyurl.com/GrangerListGive: worldoutreach.org/707~#authenticspace #dialogue #Godstillspeaks #WDYSG #conversation #invitation #Riversidefm #PodMatch #faith #stories #healing #repent #repentance #bible #spirit #prayer #freedom
Josh Monday Christian and Conspiracy Podcast Ep. 239If you want to donate to the Ministry or Buy the Mug Here is our CashAPP: https://cash.app/$JoshmondaymusicNew affiliate: https://wsteif.com/ Sign up for Gold and Silver 7Kmetals: https://www.cocsilver.com/Flat Earth Books by Sakal Publishing Affiliate Link: https://booksonline.club/booksonlinecTiktok:Joshmonday_podcastInstagram: Joshmonday_podcast You tube: @joshmondaymusicandpodcast Tips for the show to Support our Ministry:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/joshmondayCoffee Mug Is Available email me your mailing address Joshmonday@rocketmail.com Please subscribe to our Spotify and You Tube Channel Joshmondaymusic and Podcast and help us grow so we can keep on spreading the good news. To all of our current and future subscribers thank you for your time, we appreciate you. Please do us a favor subscribe to our You Tube Channel, hit that bell, share, like and comment below on our You tube. Please leave us a 5-Star review on Apple and Spotify.Check out my new show Sunday Service and Wednesday Brought to you by Cult of Conspiracy Podcast. On Cult of Conspiracy Spotify, Patreon and Apple Podcast Channel. Stick around until the end, there is a surprising admission from Beatty about the 24 hour Sun in Antarctica during December. Beatty's Website: https://getradicalfaith.org/
Many believers are unknowingly giving demons legal permission to torment them—even while praying for freedom. In this eye-opening conversation, discover the hidden spiritual rules that determine whether your prayers get answered or fall flat. Beatty Carmichael is the author of the book, The Prayer of Freedom. He has developed a way of praying for healing where God actually answers those prayers around 87% of the time. With this process, he has seen God heal over 700 people — everything from relationship conflicts, all kinds of chronic pain, anxiety, glaucoma, and more.Check Out Beatty Carmichael's Website Here: https://getradicalfaith.org/tpof-booklink/ ✨ Download Our FREE Throne Room Meditation✨ ➡️ https://seer.school/meditations/throne-room/➡️ Support on Patreon! https://patreon.com/join/truthseekah✅ Get access to 40+ video lessons + Weekly LIVE calls!✅ Worldwide Online Community!✅ Courses, Monthly Webinars, Prayer, Meditation, Discussion✅ TruthSeekah's Meditation Library
Many believers are unknowingly giving demons legal permission to torment them—even while praying for freedom. In this eye-opening conversation, discover the hidden spiritual rules that determine whether your prayers get answered or fall flat. Beatty Carmichael is the author of the book, The Prayer of Freedom. He has developed a way of praying for healing where God actually answers those prayers around 87% of the time. With this process, he has seen God heal over 700 people — everything from relationship conflicts, all kinds of chronic pain, anxiety, glaucoma, and more.Check Out Beatty Carmichael's Website Here: https://getradicalfaith.org/tpof-booklink/ ✨ Download Our FREE Throne Room Meditation✨ ➡️ https://seer.school/meditations/throne-room/➡️ Support on Patreon! https://patreon.com/join/truthseekah✅ Get access to 40+ video lessons + Weekly LIVE calls!✅ Worldwide Online Community!✅ Courses, Monthly Webinars, Prayer, Meditation, Discussion✅ TruthSeekah's Meditation Library
Many believers are unknowingly giving demons legal permission to torment them—even while praying for freedom. In this eye-opening conversation, discover the hidden spiritual rules that determine whether your prayers get answered or fall flat. Beatty Carmichael is the author of the book, The Prayer of Freedom. He has developed a way of praying for healing where God actually answers those prayers around 87% of the time. With this process, he has seen God heal over 700 people — everything from relationship conflicts, all kinds of chronic pain, anxiety, glaucoma, and more.Check Out Beatty Carmichael's Website Here: https://getradicalfaith.org/tpof-booklink/ ✨ Download Our FREE Throne Room Meditation✨ ➡️ https://seer.school/meditations/throne-room/➡️ Support on Patreon! https://patreon.com/join/truthseekah✅ Get access to 40+ video lessons + Weekly LIVE calls!✅ Worldwide Online Community!✅ Courses, Monthly Webinars, Prayer, Meditation, Discussion✅ TruthSeekah's Meditation Library
Many believers are unknowingly giving demons legal permission to torment them—even while praying for freedom. In this eye-opening conversation, discover the hidden spiritual rules that determine whether your prayers get answered or fall flat. Beatty Carmichael is the author of the book, The Prayer of Freedom. He has developed a way of praying for healing where God actually answers those prayers around 87% of the time. With this process, he has seen God heal over 700 people — everything from relationship conflicts, all kinds of chronic pain, anxiety, glaucoma, and more.Check Out Beatty Carmichael's Website Here: https://getradicalfaith.org/tpof-booklink/ ✨ Download Our FREE Throne Room Meditation✨ ➡️ https://seer.school/meditations/throne-room/➡️ Support on Patreon! https://patreon.com/join/truthseekah✅ Get access to 40+ video lessons + Weekly LIVE calls!✅ Worldwide Online Community!✅ Courses, Monthly Webinars, Prayer, Meditation, Discussion✅ TruthSeekah's Meditation Library
Many believers are unknowingly giving demons legal permission to torment them—even while praying for freedom. In this eye-opening conversation, discover the hidden spiritual rules that determine whether your prayers get answered or fall flat. Beatty Carmichael is the author of the book, The Prayer of Freedom. He has developed a way of praying for healing where God actually answers those prayers around 87% of the time. With this process, he has seen God heal over 700 people — everything from relationship conflicts, all kinds of chronic pain, anxiety, glaucoma, and more.Check Out Beatty Carmichael's Website Here: https://getradicalfaith.org/tpof-booklink/ ✨ Download Our FREE Throne Room Meditation✨ ➡️ https://seer.school/meditations/throne-room/➡️ Support on Patreon! https://patreon.com/join/truthseekah✅ Get access to 40+ video lessons + Weekly LIVE calls!✅ Worldwide Online Community!✅ Courses, Monthly Webinars, Prayer, Meditation, Discussion✅ TruthSeekah's Meditation Library
Many believers are unknowingly giving demons legal permission to torment them—even while praying for freedom. In this eye-opening conversation, discover the hidden spiritual rules that determine whether your prayers get answered or fall flat. Beatty Carmichael is the author of the book, The Prayer of Freedom. He has developed a way of praying for healing where God actually answers those prayers around 87% of the time. With this process, he has seen God heal over 700 people — everything from relationship conflicts, all kinds of chronic pain, anxiety, glaucoma, and more.Check Out Beatty Carmichael's Website Here: https://getradicalfaith.org/tpof-booklink/ ✨ Download Our FREE Throne Room Meditation✨ ➡️ https://seer.school/meditations/throne-room/➡️ Support on Patreon! https://patreon.com/join/truthseekah✅ Get access to 40+ video lessons + Weekly LIVE calls!✅ Worldwide Online Community!✅ Courses, Monthly Webinars, Prayer, Meditation, Discussion✅ TruthSeekah's Meditation Library
The Prayer of Freedom: God's breakthrough approach to prayer that frees you from many forms of chronic pain, chronic health issues, anxiety, ... addictions and other life challenges by Beatty Carmichael Amazon.com Getradicalfaith.org Discover the Prayer of Freedom: A breakthrough approach to healing and restoration *** Watch our video overview at http://Overview.TPOFBook.com (copy/paste link to your browser)*** What if the solution to struggles in your life – be it addictions, chronic pain, anxiety, relationship conflicts, or more -- were within reach? In The Prayer of Freedom, you'll uncover a groundbreaking approach to prayer that unlocks God's power to heal, restore, and transform lives. Through real-life stories, compelling insights, and practical “hot-to” guidance, this book reveals how you can experience freedom from persistent life challenges. Take Rob and Lilly, for example. After ten years of constant fighting and five years of marriage counseling with no change, they felt hopeless. Then, they applied the Prayer of Freedom. Within 24 hours, their relationship was transformed—arguments ceased and peace filled their home for the first time in years. Today, they enjoy a peaceful, calm and joyful marriage, something they once thought impossible. But what is the secret behind this transformation? The Prayer of Freedom is rooted in spiritual laws found in the Bible—timeless principles that govern how God answers prayers. Author Beatty Carmichael shares his discovery of these laws and how applying them can bring miraculous results. Unlike conventional approaches to prayer, this method focuses on aligning with God's will and addressing the spiritual roots of the problems we face. Imagine seeing long-standing issues—chronic pain, broken relationships, addiction, depression—vanish almost instantly. That's what happened to Whitney, who had suffered from chronic pain for years. After praying using this approach, within one day her pain was gone, all the tension in her body disappeared, and a sense of peace and relaxation replaced years of discomfort. The book doesn't just stop at individual stories. Carmichael provides evidence from his work with students in an addiction recovery center. Of those who completed the Prayer of Freedom, nearly 90% experienced total and complete freedom from their problems, including chronic pain, bipolar disorder, arthritis, depression, anxiety, addictions and more. Even for those who didn't achieve complete freedom, the intensity of their issues dropped significantly. So, what makes this approach to prayer so powerful? Carmichael explains that it's not about magical formulas or special gifts. Instead, it's about understanding and applying spiritual laws that govern prayer. These laws, revealed in the Bible, show how repentance and righteousness open the door to answered prayer by God. The process is simple yet profound... and above all, proven effective! This book isn't about theory—it's a practical, “how-to” guide filled with step-by-step instructions and practical life applications. Whether you're dealing with personal struggles or helping a loved one find freedom, The Prayer of Freedom teaches you the process to see real and lasting change. If you're ready to experience the life-changing power of answered prayer, this book will show you how to turn spiritual laws into spiritual breakthroughs. If you are ready to unlock the freedom you've been searching for, then get The Prayer of Freedom today!
Welcome back to the Radical Health Rebel Podcast! In this episode, we dive into a fascinating and often overlooked aspect of healing—the power of prayer in reducing or even eliminating pain. My guest, Beatty Carmichael, brings a unique perspective on this topic, drawing from what he calls spiritual scientific laws.While there is plenty of scientific evidence supporting the role of prayer in healing, Beatty approaches this discussion from a more spiritual standpoint. He shares his insights on how prayer works, why it can be effective, and how aligning with divine principles may play a role in overcoming pain.Now, I'll be honest—we don't necessarily agree on all aspects of how and why prayer works. However, I do believe this is a powerful conversation that challenges conventional thinking and offers a fresh perspective on healing. Whether you're deeply spiritual, scientifically minded, or simply curious, I encourage you to listen with an open mind.Let's get into it!We discussed:0:00Miraculous Healing Through Prayer4:23From Doctor Dynasty to Prayer Doctor9:32Understanding Spiritual Laws and Prayer17:35Science of the Spiritual Realm27:15The Prayer of Freedom Approach41:38Healing Through Forgiveness56:58Why Try Prayer for Healing Pain1:08:25Spiritual Healing Success StoriesYou can find Beatty @:www.ThePrayerOfFreedomBook.comSend us a textSupport the showDon't forget to leave a Rating for the podcast!You can find Leigh @:Leigh's website - https://www.bodychek.co.uk/Leigh's books - https://www.bodychek.co.uk/books/ StickAbility - https://stickabilitycourse.com/Eliminate Adult Acne Programme - https://eliminateadultacne.com/Substack - https://substack.com/@radicalhealthrebelYouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@radicalhealthrebelpodcast Rumble Channel - https://rumble.com/user/RadicalHealthRebel
Beatty Carmichael is the author of the book, The Prayer of Freedom. He used to attend a cessationist church that did not believe in the gifts of healing, but when he saw God healing people his theology changed. In his book he describes a four step process that leads to supernatural healing. On today's episode of The Evangelism Podcast, we discuss the link between healing and salvation and how evangelists can use healing to bring people to Jesus.
Did you know that nearly two-thirds of adults face ongoing struggles with relationship conflicts, chronic pain, migraines, anxiety, or depression—and often feel like they're chasing healing without much success? Beatty Carmichael, from seven generations of doctors, discovered that many of these problems have a spiritual root. His unique, scientifically-backed approach to prayer addresses this root, leading to true and lasting healing.
http://www.LaunchYourFarm.com/Episode110 Welcome back to our 110th episode of the Launch Your Farm Show where I interview Beatty Carmichael who is the founder of www.AgentDominator.com Today Beatty shares how he took lessons from his marketing business in direct response marketing and applied it to his real estate marketing company helping agents reach six figures in under a year through direct response marketing and geographic farming. Beatty has a real passion for marketing and has built an amazing business that uses post cards to help agents become a dominant player in their farm with proven and trackable marketing strategies. In this episode, Beatty and I talk about: • Why tracking results in your marketing is one of the most important things you can do in your business. • Beatty shares how to shift your marketing from self-promotion, to marketing that actually generates leads and gets you in front of ACTUAL buyers and sellers. • What Beatty has learned from marketing strategies outside of the real estate industry that he's applied to our industry. • A SUPER easy way to leverage video AND post card marketing with his “video fusion” marketing strategy. • How Beatty has helped agents achieve total market share in their farms in under a year with extremely successful and targeted marketing. • Plus a ton of other ideas that you can use to grow geographic farm! Last Piece Of Advice: “Understand what drives results – Your List, Your Offer and How Your Write Your Offer“ YOUR BEST BOOK – Check out Beatty's favorite book at the moment. “The Millionaire Real Estate Agent” by Gary Keller To get a copy you can order it here: Canada – https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0071444041 USA - https://www.amazon.com/dp/0071444041 “Monopolize Your Marketplace” by Richard Harshaw To get a copy you can order it here: Canada – https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1930771045 USA - https://www.amazon.com/dp/1930771045 Connect with Beatty Carmichael on his site at www.AgentDominator.com and you can see the type of marketing he does and you can check out his podcast at www.GetSellersCallingYou.com . Be sure to like and subscribe to our online channels as well as check our website and other social channels. Your Friend In Farming, Ryan Smith Launch Your Farm Website - http://www.LaunchYourFarm.com Facebook - http://www.Facebook.com/LaunchYourFarm P.S. Want more help with your farm? Here are a few ways we can help. 1. Launch Your Farm Elite – Become an elite member by joining our monthly training program that's jam packed with training, systems, tools and ongoing content to crush it in your farm. This super affordable training will help you learn the skills and strategies you need to dominate your farm and community. Whether you are already crushing it in your farm or are just looking for great insights and ideas on how to become the go to hyper-local agent in your area, then look no further. http://www.LaunchYourFarmElite.com 2. 30 Day Launch - This course is designed to get your farm up and running in 30 days. Each day we release a new video with a new topic that builds off the last, plus we assign you daily homework broken down into actionable steps to get you into action. If you are ready to take action and looking to actually start your farm going, then this is the course for you! Sign up at http://www.TheFarmLaunch.com
Generating listings in a geographic farm is NO LONGER a mystery! Listings expert Beatty Carmichael teaches the TOP 6 ways to do it... and shares another 3 BONUS ways as well. These are "simple" methods any agent can do -- some take a little work, but they are all doable! == HOW TO GET MORE LISTINGS == https://AgentDominator.com/Home/?=podcast -- Agent Dominator provides turn-key, fully customized "video-infused" postcard marketing services that get up to 10x MORE listings than typical real estate postcards. Guaranteed listings or your money back. Learn more at our link above. == WHAT ELSE DO OUR PODCAST TOPIC COVER? We cover a range of topics. Subscribe to our podcast channel today and grow your real estate business... real estate lead generation, real estate marketing ideas, just sold postcards, real estate agent marketing, prime seller leads ,how to generate real estate leads, real estate referrals, real estate branding, just listed postcards, realtor postcards, how to get listings, real estate seller leads, cma real estate, real estate business cards ,real estate flyer template ,listings to leads ,real estate flyer ,bold leads ,find motivated sellers now ,listing to leads ,real estate cma ,Listingstoleads ,land voice ,real estate agent introduction letter ,prospecting letter ,Boldleads ,what is a cma in real estate , Just listed postcards, Just sold postcards, Marketing ideas for real estate agents, Marketing ideas of realtors, Motivated seller leads, Motivated seller, Real estate agent marketing, Real estate lead generation ideas, Real estate leads for realtors, Real estate marketing ideas, Real estate marketing products, Real estate marketing strategies, Real estate marketing tips, Real estate marketing tools, Real estate prospecting, Real estate seller leads, Realtor leads, Seller leads, Sphere of influence real estate, How to find motivated sellers, How to generate real estate leads, How to get leads in real estate, How to get listings, Real estate branding, Real estate farming letters, Real estate flyer template, Real estate introduction letter, Real estate letters, Real estate letters to clients samples, Real estate letters to get listings, Real estate mailers, Real estate postcard templates, Real estate prospecting letters, Real estate prospecting letters samples, Real estate referrals, Realtor letters to prospective sellers, Realtor postcards. Agent Dominator provides real estate marketing postcards for Just Sold postcards, geographic farming, past clients and sphere of influence, and commercial investment property. We help real estate agents do seller leads lead generation, identify sellers before they come on the market, and provide other real estate marketing ideas, products and strategies to help realtors generate more sales. Motivate seller leads is a part of real estate prospecting, and Agent Dominator helps you generate more real estate seller leads using postcards branding, flyer, letter and templates. Realtors who are looking for real estate postcards, and real estate marketing tools to grow their realtor business, we have the solution for you.
Welcome to our Marketing Mastermind series for real estate agents. Today's episode focuses on the foundational difference between marketing and branding when it comes to real estate. Most marketing agents do fails because they don't understand the keys behind successful marketing. In this episode, you'll start to learn those keys and how to apply them in your business. Hosted by Beatty Carmichael and Stuart Sutton. ==> WANT MORE LISTINGS? AgentDominator.com's marketing system is a turn-key, fully customized "video-infused" postcard marketing service that gets up to 10x MORE listings than typical real estate postcards. So successful, we guarantee your LISTINGS or your money back. Learn more at https://AgentDominator.com/Home/?=podcast ==> WHAT ELSE DO OUR PODCAST TOPIC COVER? We cover a range of topics. Subscribe to our podcast channel today and grow your real estate business... real estate lead generation, real estate marketing ideas, just sold postcards, real estate agent marketing, prime seller leads ,how to generate real estate leads, real estate referrals, real estate branding, just listed postcards, realtor postcards, how to get listings, real estate seller leads, cma real estate, real estate business cards ,real estate flyer template ,listings to leads ,real estate flyer ,bold leads ,find motivated sellers now ,listing to leads ,real estate cma ,Listingstoleads ,land voice ,real estate agent introduction letter ,prospecting letter ,Boldleads ,what is a cma in real estate , Just listed postcards, Just sold postcards, Marketing ideas for real estate agents, Marketing ideas of realtors, Motivated seller leads, Motivated seller, Real estate agent marketing, Real estate lead generation ideas, Real estate leads for realtors, Real estate marketing ideas, Real estate marketing products, Real estate marketing strategies, Real estate marketing tips, Real estate marketing tools, Real estate prospecting, Real estate seller leads, Realtor leads, Seller leads, Sphere of influence real estate, How to find motivated sellers, How to generate real estate leads, How to get leads in real estate, How to get listings, Real estate branding, Real estate farming letters, Real estate flyer template, Real estate introduction letter, Real estate letters, Real estate letters to clients samples, Real estate letters to get listings, Real estate mailers, Real estate postcard templates, Real estate prospecting letters, Real estate prospecting letters samples, Real estate referrals, Realtor letters to prospective sellers, Realtor postcards. Agent Dominator provides real estate marketing postcards for Just Sold postcards, geographic farming, past clients and sphere of influence, and commercial investment property. We help real estate agents do seller leads lead generation, identify sellers before they come on the market, and provide other real estate marketing ideas, products and strategies to help realtors generate more sales. Motivate seller leads is a part of real estate prospecting, and Agent Dominator helps you generate more real estate seller leads using postcards branding, flyer, letter and templates. Realtors who are looking for real estate postcards, and real estate marketing tools to grow their realtor business, we have the solution for you.
Visit https://AgentDominator.com/VIP?=podcast to learn about our Video-Infused Postcards How do you get more listings in the cold market? It starts with knowing the 4 BIGGEST drivers that get sellers choosing YOU! This is the second of a special, two-part training on the 4 biggest drivers -- the 4 most important marketing concepts -- responsible for getting listings in any type of marketing. All top-producing agents who consistently get new listings follow some or all of these marketing concepts -- whether they know it or not. But in this podcast Beatty Carmichael walks you through, step by step: what each of these drivers are why they are important what they do in terms of getting listings and how to implement them yourself This is a "must listen to" episode for any agent who wants to grow their business. ==> WANT MORE LISTINGS? AgentDominator.com's marketing system is a turn-key, fully customized postcard marketing service that gets up to 10x MORE listings than typical real estate postcards. So successful, we guarantee your LISTINGS or your money back. Learn more at https://AgentDominator.com/Home/?=podcast ==> WHAT ELSE DO OUR PODCAST TOPIC COVER? We cover a range of topics. Subscribe to our podcast channel today and grow your real estate business... real estate lead generation, real estate marketing ideas, just sold postcards, real estate agent marketing, prime seller leads ,how to generate real estate leads, real estate referrals, real estate branding, just listed postcards, realtor postcards, how to get listings, real estate seller leads, cma real estate, real estate business cards ,real estate flyer template ,listings to leads ,real estate flyer ,bold leads ,find motivated sellers now ,listing to leads ,real estate cma ,Listingstoleads ,land voice ,real estate agent introduction letter ,prospecting letter ,Boldleads ,what is a cma in real estate , Just listed postcards, Just sold postcards, Marketing ideas for real estate agents, Marketing ideas of realtors, Motivated seller leads, Motivated seller, Real estate agent marketing, Real estate lead generation ideas, Real estate leads for realtors, Real estate marketing ideas, Real estate marketing products, Real estate marketing strategies, Real estate marketing tips, Real estate marketing tools, Real estate prospecting, Real estate seller leads, Realtor leads, Seller leads, Sphere of influence real estate, How to find motivated sellers, How to generate real estate leads, How to get leads in real estate, How to get listings, Real estate branding, Real estate farming letters, Real estate flyer template, Real estate introduction letter, Real estate letters, Real estate letters to clients samples, Real estate letters to get listings, Real estate mailers, Real estate postcard templates, Real estate prospecting letters, Real estate prospecting letters samples, Real estate referrals, Realtor letters to prospective sellers, Realtor postcards. Agent Dominator provides real estate marketing postcards for Just Sold postcards, geographic farming, past clients and sphere of influence, and commercial investment property. We help real estate agents do seller leads lead generation, identify sellers before they come on the market, and provide other real estate marketing ideas, products and strategies to help realtors generate more sales. Motivate seller leads is a part of real estate prospecting, and Agent Dominator helps you generate more real estate seller leads using postcards branding, flyer, letter and templates. Realtors who are looking for real estate postcards, and real estate marketing tools to grow their realtor business, we have the solution for you.
How do you get more listings in the cold market? It starts with knowing the 4 BIGGEST drivers that get sellers choosing YOU! This is the first of a special, two-part training on the 4 biggest drivers -- the 4 most important marketing concepts -- responsible for getting listings in any type of marketing. All top-producing agents who consistently get new listings follow some or all of these marketing concepts -- whether they know it or not. But in this podcast Beatty Carmichael walks you through, step by step: what each of these drivers are why they are important what they do in terms of getting listings and how to implement them yourself This is a "must listen to" episode for any agent who wants to grow their business. Check out https://AgentDominator.com/VIP?=podcast to learn about our Video-Infused Postcards ==> WANT MORE LISTINGS? AgentDominator.com's marketing system is a turn-key, fully customized postcard marketing service that gets up to 10x MORE listings than typical real estate postcards. So successful, we guarantee your LISTINGS or your money back. Learn more at https://AgentDominator.com/Home/?=podcast ==> WHAT ELSE DO OUR PODCAST TOPIC COVER? We cover a range of topics. Subscribe to our podcast channel today and grow your real estate business... real estate lead generation, real estate marketing ideas, just sold postcards, real estate agent marketing, prime seller leads ,how to generate real estate leads, real estate referrals, real estate branding, just listed postcards, realtor postcards, how to get listings, real estate seller leads, cma real estate, real estate business cards ,real estate flyer template ,listings to leads ,real estate flyer ,bold leads ,find motivated sellers now ,listing to leads ,real estate cma ,Listingstoleads ,land voice ,real estate agent introduction letter ,prospecting letter ,Boldleads ,what is a cma in real estate , Just listed postcards, Just sold postcards, Marketing ideas for real estate agents, Marketing ideas of realtors, Motivated seller leads, Motivated seller, Real estate agent marketing, Real estate lead generation ideas, Real estate leads for realtors, Real estate marketing ideas, Real estate marketing products, Real estate marketing strategies, Real estate marketing tips, Real estate marketing tools, Real estate prospecting, Real estate seller leads, Realtor leads, Seller leads, Sphere of influence real estate, How to find motivated sellers, How to generate real estate leads, How to get leads in real estate, How to get listings, Real estate branding, Real estate farming letters, Real estate flyer template, Real estate introduction letter, Real estate letters, Real estate letters to clients samples, Real estate letters to get listings, Real estate mailers, Real estate postcard templates, Real estate prospecting letters, Real estate prospecting letters samples, Real estate referrals, Realtor letters to prospective sellers, Realtor postcards. Agent Dominator provides real estate marketing postcards for Just Sold postcards, geographic farming, past clients and sphere of influence, and commercial investment property. We help real estate agents do seller leads lead generation, identify sellers before they come on the market, and provide other real estate marketing ideas, products and strategies to help realtors generate more sales. Motivate seller leads is a part of real estate prospecting, and Agent Dominator helps you generate more real estate seller leads using postcards branding, flyer, letter and templates. Realtors who are looking for real estate postcards, and real estate marketing tools to grow their realtor business, we have the solution for you.
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How To Get 8 Out Of 10 Listings In Your Farm! – Beatty Carmichael http://www.LaunchYourFarm.com/Episode66 Welcome back to our 66th episode of the Launch Your Farm Show where I interview Beatty Carmichael who is the CEO of Agent Dominator. Today Beatty shares how he started in the marketing world in 1997 helping professionals get amazing results. He then shifted to helping real estate agents in 2012 teaching them how to build their farms using direct response marketing. Beatty's company helps agents become the dominate player in their farms by using postcard and other marketing strategies to build trust and get people to take action with proven marketing strategies. In this episode Beatty and I talk about: · Why agents need to learn the key fundamentals to choosing the right farm to ensure success. · Beatty shares how you can use some simple calculations to determine whether a farm is worthwhile for you to pursue or not. · What type of marketing you should use in your farm if you want to get actual results and get the phone to ring with qualified leads. · A SUPER easy to convert more deals from your farm by showing sellers that you are capable of doing 3 very specific things that matter to them. · How agents can get 8 out of 10 listings in their farm when they learn to apply the right approach, systems and marketing. · Plus a ton of other ideas that you can use to grow geographic farm! Connect with Beatty and follow his podcast at www.GetSellersCallingYou.com and you can check out some of his marketing services at www.AgentDominator.com You can get his free marketing guide with some of his best and tested tips for postcard marketing at www.GetSellersCallingYou.com YOUR BEST BOOK – Check out Beatty's favorite book at the moment. “Monopolize Your Marketplace” by Richard Harshaw To get a copy you can order it here: Canada – https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1930771045 USA - https://www.amazon.com/dp/1930771045 Be sure to like and subscribe to our Youtube Channel as well as check our website and other social channels. Your Friend In Farming, Ryan Smith Launch Your Farm Website - http://www.LaunchYourFarm.com Facebook - http://www.Facebook.com/LaunchYourFarm
[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent="no" equal_height_columns="no" menu_anchor="" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" class="" id="" background_color="" background_image="" background_position="center center" background_repeat="no-repeat" fade="no" background_parallax="none" parallax_speed="0.3" video_mp4="" video_webm="" video_ogv="" video_url="" video_aspect_ratio="16:9" video_loop="yes" video_mute="yes" overlay_color="" video_preview_image="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" padding_top="" padding_bottom="" padding_left="" padding_right=""][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type="1_1" layout="1_1" background_position="left top" background_color="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" border_position="all" spacing="yes" background_image="" background_repeat="no-repeat" padding_top="" padding_right="" padding_bottom="" padding_left="" margin_top="0px" margin_bottom="0px" class="" id="" animation_type="" animation_speed="0.3" animation_direction="left" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" center_content="no" last="no" min_height="" hover_type="none" link=""][fusion_text] Watch the live video below [/fusion_text][fusion_youtube id="https://youtu.be/GMnzpL8jyUE" alignment="center" width="" height="" autoplay="false" api_params="&rel=0" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" class="" /][fusion_text] Transcription (was completed by automated process. Please ignore any speech-to-text errors) Well, hi, everybody, welcome to this next episode of Get Sellers Calling You, and we're so excited that you're here. I'm joined again with Beatty Carmichael. Beatty is the CEO of Master Grabber and the creator of Agent Dominator. He's one of the top marketing experts in the real estate field. And Beatty, I'm super excited that you're joining me today. A little bit different than you for us, but what do you have for our listeners today? Yeah, so this is a little bit different, if you'll pardon me, while I remember to turn my phone off so it doesn't ring over there. This is actually a zoom meeting. So for those of you who are listening strictly online, then if you want to actually see what we're doing, see what Penny looks like, because most people say I’ve probably never seen Penny. You can watch this podcast online. But the most important part is we're going to be doing a training session on how to dominate a geographic farm, basically what we call geographic farming mastery. And this is the basics of getting into it. Everything on how do you market to it at a high level? What are the things that causes it to drive results all the way down to how do you pick a farm that gets you even more results? So this whole call and talk is to really take someone who's thinking about geographic farming or maybe haven't thought about it at all and say, here's how you do it and let's make it work. Well, great. [00:01:32] Oh, I'm excited. This this is going to be a really good topic for our listeners. [00:01:37] Yes. So I was doing a call recently, Penny, and doing actually this very same workshop. And it was real interesting because there were a lot of really high income earners, real estate agents on the call. And the couple the comments that came out of it was where were you four years ago? You know, as we start to explain, here's how you do marketing, OK? And then as I started to explain, how do you pick out a farm, it's like all these light bulbs started to go on because most people have never really understood the art of farming. And it's really not an art. It's a science. So I thought I'd walk us through it today. So, yeah, I'm excited. OK, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to share my screen. [00:02:29] Oh, the joys of technology, right? [00:02:31] Yes, absolutely. Now, can you can you see my screen OK? I can, yes. OK, this is blocking agent dominate our logo right there, but we'll move this around. OK, so let's get started. So what I want to do is, by the way, for you all who don't know, this is actually Penny, just a couple of years ago before she had her guide on TV. [00:02:56] Ok, so how do you dominate the geographic form? I want to first talk about how do you market for listings, because whether it is in a geographic farm or whether it's in your personal list or whether it's a expired list or whether it's any type of list, what you find is people respond the same. And so I want to walk you through this at a high level marketing for listings. [00:03:22] And because of that, I want to talk about beer. Penny, have you ever heard of Schlitz beer? [00:03:29] I have, yeah. I was asking someone recently, just a couple of months ago about that. [00:03:35] And they never had they were young, you know, more millennial type person. And so Pabst Blue Ribbon bought Schlitz, I think it was in the 90s. Wow. And so that's why the name went out to recognize it. [00:03:52] I think it's a Yankee beer. I was actually born in Massachusetts, so I recognize it as being one that was popular. [00:04:00] Yes, very much so. So it is sort of a Yankee beer. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was their home office area. And now here's the big question, Penny. What in the world does beer have to do with getting listings? [00:04:16] Oh, I don't know, you're going to have to tell me that one. [00:04:20] Well, you invite some friends over, you pop open a beer and you have a good time and you build relationships. [00:04:26] Is that it? Maybe that would be my my easy guess. [00:04:30] Because your easy guys. Well, that's a wrong answer. If that was the actual answer. So beer has a lot to do with it. Not just all beer, but in particular Schlitz beer. So so is in Milwaukee, used to be called the Milwaukee Brewing Company is one of the commercial agents up in Milwaukee told me. And what's real interesting is at the turn of the century and for our millennial friends, no, that's not the return of 2000. This is the chart of nineteen hundred. OK, but at the turn of the nineteen hundreds slits, beer was number eight and the nation number one was Budweiser. OK, wrong side No. One was Budweiser. And do you have any idea the difference between number one and number eight when you're talking about market share? I don't. OK, so just a real quick business lesson number one. And number two, control the vast majority of the market. So in any place, if you have number one and number two, they typically own and control 85, 90, 95 percent of the market. Wow. OK, then number three is way down from there. Number four is even further down. And by the time you get down to number eight, you're a nobody hears probably a good way to kind of understand this. [00:06:04] If you were to look at a geographic farm, for example, a large farm where maybe there are some really strong agents and and you got to look at a farm where you got some really strong agents, where they pretty much are dominating the market. You'll find that the number one agent, if they if they dominate the market, is probably like 50 percent. OK, I mean, I'm talking about a strong agent and then number two from there is probably going to be down at 15 percent by the time you get to number one, our number eight, that person probably has maybe one listing a year in that farm. So what we're talking about is a huge disparity. Sure. OK, and Slick's wanted to grow, so they hired a guy named Claude Hopkins and now the name probably doesn't ring a bell. But let me ask you a question. Um, let's talk about income for for a moment, Penny. OK, if if you were earning a hundred and eighty five thousand dollars a year today, is that a lot of money? [00:07:13] Today, yeah, I would consider that to be a pretty good, pretty good income. [00:07:21] Yeah, one hundred eighty five thousand dollars is more than most real estate agents make take home pay. OK, so now let's go back a hundred and ten years ago. If you were earning one hundred and eighty five thousand dollars and nineteen ten, would that be a big income? Yes. OK, yes, that's what this guy's salary was, a hundred and eighty five thousand dollars a year. And the only thing he did is he wrote marketing copy to get people to buy his client's brand name. So Schlitz Beer hired Claude Hopkins. And I wanted you to see the story because what he did with Solich is the same thing that if you do in your geographic farm or anywhere else, you're going to quickly dominate that area. OK, so so what Claude did is the first thing he did, by the way, let me also walk you through just a few more years, the Great Depression, 1930, 1931, 1933. In that time frame, a lot of people were unemployed, right? Yes. A lot of businesses out of business and a lot of incomes had dropped a lot because there's a lot of the market was gone. So would you like to take a guess of what Claude Hopkins salary was in the early 1930s during the peak of the depression? [00:08:54] Wow. OK, so is this is this before the one eighty five a year salary or after this is after. [00:09:02] So 185 was actually 1987, OK, when he was just getting started in marketing. OK, essentially. And then you fast forward, you have the stock market crash, the Great Depression and everyone's out of work, a lot of people. And he's still doing marketing copy. Would you like to guess what his salary was at that point? [00:09:27] I'm going to guess it was higher. I'm going to guess is higher than one eighty five. [00:09:31] Ok, good guess. Now the question is at what? What level? [00:09:36] Oh, gosh. Can I give you a percentage? Sure. [00:09:46] Ok, I'm going to go with I'm going to go with twenty five. I mean, Great Depression, 25, 30 percent higher. [00:09:53] Ok, so 25, 30 percent would put him about a quarter million dollars. His salary was over one million dollars a year during the Great Depression. [00:10:06] Wow, that's amazing. [00:10:08] And the reason I want to share that is I want you to understand that what he did was Schalit was so effective that when he did it with every single other company, company she would never have heard of, like Palmolive, Palmolive or what are those beans that come in a can do you remember? [00:10:28] I can't lay any beans. Yeah. [00:10:32] And anyway, Dove Soap, Palmolive, all of these brands that we have today, he was the guy that launched them. Wow. OK, so, um, so what happened with with with Claude is the first thing he did is he went through the slick brewery and took a tour and they showed him everything that happened through the process of making beer, because if you're going to market beer, you got to kind of understand the process. So they started with the fact that they have several 4000 foot deep wells that's almost a mile deep. They had several of those where they pumped up the very poorest of the pure water that they could get so that the beer was pure. Now, let me also share one other thing back in this time frame from all the beers for promoting, we have purity in our beer. Our beers are pure. But the question is, how do you define pure? Yeah, they most of our agents out there are saying, you know, I'm a great agent. But the question is, how do you define a great agent? OK, everyone's using the same verbiage here, but no one knows how to define it. Unless you can define it, then you can't really sell it. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. OK, so they showed him how they have these several four thousand foot wells to bring up only the purest of the pure water. Then they take it through this process and then when they are cooling the beer down, they had these huge plate glass windows that are protecting the cooling area from everything else. [00:12:20] And they use only filtered air so that there's no impurities to come involved. Then they showed him how they take their beer bottles and they clean them not only once or twice, but four times with superheated steam to make sure all of the bacteria is gone so that there could be nothing that would spoil the purity of the taste. And then they also showed them in their laboratory, the mother yeast cell, that they went through one thousand and eighteen different experiments developing this mother yeast cell to have the purest of the taste. And all of the yeast that the beer is made from comes from that mother you sell. Well, then they also show that the filters that they use to filter out the beer from all of the barley and everything else and clean it are made from a very expensive white oak. I believe I've got my story right, white oak, that they had to claim two or three times a day to keep it really pure. OK, then they would store the beer in a cask and the casks were made out of very special wood that were aged before they would put the beer in there. And so all of these very deliberate, very elaborate steps so that when the beer comes out on the other end, it's extremely pure to the standards of Schlitz beer. Does that make sense? [00:13:49] Well, yes. OK, so now as I'm describing this, you're going wow. And as I'm watching your expression, you're going, wow, OK, I'm just like, it's so it's so much like step after step. [00:14:00] And it's like I just kept expecting you to be like, finished. And then it was like, one more thing. [00:14:04] Yes. Well, now I truncated it as well. Obviously a lot more sets, but those are the key things. So when Claude finish coming through the tour, here's his reaction was just like yours and mine. My gosh, this is amazing. You do all of this just to make it pure. And then he asked the question. Why don't you tell the public about this man? And do you have any idea what the Spear guys said when he asked that question? They probably thought he was a fool. No, he said almost. Almost. He's they said, well, Claude, this is how all beer is made. We don't do anything different. I don't do anything unique. And then Claude came back and this is the problem, OK? And this is also the problem with a lot of real estate agents. Well, Betty, all good real estate agents do these best practices. And from your perspective as the real estate agent, you don't do anything special, but what Claude understood that the big guys did not understand is that the public did not understand that OK? And he said whoever educates the public first is going to own that market share. It's going to own that what we call positioning in the mind. Now, let's talk about positioning real quick, because this is real important. OK, so positioning is a marketing term. If you've ever read a book, millionaire real estate agent, have you ever read that? I know because I know you guys have been and do things with real estate as well. So millionaire real estate agent talks about a concept called market share dominance. He actually pulls that. The concept of that from a book called Positioning by Ellery's and a guy named Fred. And that book was written in the 1980s as a fabulous read, if you are excited about marketing. But it basically says this, that the typical consumer can only remember two or maybe three brands and nothing else. Wow. So let's do a quick test. Can we test this out on you? [00:16:16] Yes, but I'm probably not the one you want to test. I'm really good at brands. [00:16:20] Ok, good. So let's say you're the good one to test. I want you to think about toothpaste, for example. OK, all right. Tell me the brand of toothpaste that come to mind. [00:16:31] Crest Colgate, Aquafresh. It's red and white. Hold on. [00:16:38] Ok, you can start there. OK, three came to mind instantly. Yes. Most people when asked only to come to mind. But you had a real bad chance time trying to figure out that fourth one that you could picture, but you couldn't come with a name yet. How many toothpaste brands do you think are on the market? [00:16:57] Oh, my word. [00:16:59] I it's got to be well over 25 oh, it's in the thousands. [00:17:05] Ok, right, OK. So at least in the multiple hundreds. But here's so here's what happens. As a consumer with all of these brands, you only quickly come up with three. Uh, what do you think's happening in that geographic farm when you ask a homeowner, give me the name of every real estate agent you think of one to. [00:17:32] Maybe three, yeah. [00:17:33] If you're not one of those names, you have zero chance of getting a phone call when they're thinking about selling. Does that make sense? [00:17:41] Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. [00:17:43] So this is what is so important about this whole idea of marketing for listings is it's all about how do you get your name in that consumer's mind so that they think of you first? And that was the challenge that Spear was having. They were number eight for a reason. No one thought of them. OK, yeah. So what Klau did is he starts writing copy and here's an example called Bottled Purity. And they always have these. By the way, he did a thing on orange juice later. I saw and it says Drink oranges from a bottle. You know, this is keep in mind, back in that time, there was no orange juice you'd buy off the shelf, you'd always squeeze it. So so these headlines create an immense curiosity, bottled purity. And then what he starts to do is he starts to on the ad, he starts to explain these things that slick beer did to bring purity to their beer. He talked about the four thousand foot wells. He talked about the white oak filters. He talked about the plate glass room with only filtered air. He talked about all of these things. And would you like to guess what happened? [00:19:05] He started making more money. [00:19:08] Well, OK, let's talk about expertise. Would you like to guess what happened with Spir? [00:19:13] I probably could not guess some of what you tell me. [00:19:16] Ok, you're afraid to guess what's going on. It is. [00:19:24] So what happened is in less than one year. They jumped nationally to the number one selling beer. [00:19:35] Wow. Oh, my word. Wow. [00:19:38] Think about the impact from a nobody to no one in less than a year leapfrogging over Budweiser. Wow. How do you do that? You do that by giving people an understanding of what pure beer is all about. [00:19:56] And then I'm going to this book written. So there is a real famous I forget the marketing straight, but up in New York, there is a very famous advertising agency called Lordan Thomas, and they are the ones that brought out all of these brands. And Claude worked for him, was president of Lord and Thomas during the years of the Great Depression. It's my understanding, but I know you worked there and the owner of Lordan, Thomas, was talking about he's on a train. You got to go back to the early nineteen hundreds. [00:20:35] There were no interstates, OK? And so if you want to go from city to city, you hopped on a train. So the owner of Lordan, Thomas, was on a train with his I guess it was a preacher, a priest or pastor, depending on the denomination. But this guy had never had any beer in his life and he kind of stayed away from alcohol. And on the train there, you know, riding along and reading the newspaper and and he's reading another ad for Schlitz Beer and talking about the purity and the pure taste and the crispness of the taste. [00:21:11] And he said to and I wish I remember the guy's name, but the owner, Lauren Thomas, he said, you know, I've been reading about this beer so much, I just got to go get it. [00:21:22] I just got to go try it. So he gets up and goes buys his first beer. OK, that's how effective Claude Hopkins was in writing marketing copy about a beer that would persuade homeowners to choose that beer over every other beer out there. Like now, can you start to see some similarities maybe with what's going on there, with what you can be doing with your real estate business? Yes, absolutely. Yeah. So what comes to mind? Anything your editor, strategic, high level or maybe even specific granular level? [00:22:02] High level. I would just be something like you said earlier, something that's going to set you apart, but really draw the attention of the person that you're trying to market to. Clearly, his copy at this time was drawing the attention of readers and people that we're looking through the paper and so forth. And it was intriguing to them. Maybe it was something that had not been done prior to this, you know, to really, like you said, describe the process of the beer and the way the beer taste and all that. Instead of just putting a picture with Budweiser across it, he's actually giving some information on the beer. And so people were inquisitive. [00:22:43] That's kind of what comes to mind. [00:22:45] Yeah, exactly. So now, if we were to relate this to real estate, what do most real estate agents do now? Let me ask you this question. Let me ask the question. [00:22:54] This one, I'm going to get a lot of agents to hate me if I give that answer. [00:22:58] So let me ask you so let me ask a more politically correct question, OK? OK. If you were to get 10 postcards from 10 real estate agents as a consumer. Is there typically anything on those postcards that would persuade you why, to choose one agent over another? Probably not. Probably not. Therein lies the problem. Yeah, all real estate agents do what all real estate agents do because that's what they're taught to do. There's a great book. I don't know if you've ever read it, called Rhinoceros Success, Not J something. Alexander So Rhinoceros is a success. Great book. I highly recommend it. It's a short read just a couple hours or less. And but it talks about how do you really beat the crowd and it's in any one of the main truisms there. So any time you see the crowd going one way, you always go the other way, OK? And this is especially true with real estate. Any time you see all real estate agents doing this same type of practice, do something different now that they're all sending these cars, that all look alikes do something different because otherwise you run in the same problem that you listed. So let me show you what's going on right now. [00:24:23] A quick note on that. I have to I have to solidify that point. I remember about three or four years ago, we got something very different in the mail from a real estate agent, way different than any other agents had done. And if I were if I had been in the market to buy a home at that point, I would have called that agent immediately because it was something that no one else had been doing. It totally caught my attention and I actually liked it. [00:24:51] Yes. So I stand out from the crowd. Yes, it worked. Yeah. So if you can say this, if you're watching the video, you know, all of these people look the same as just silhouettes, OK? Nothing to differentiate. But in marketing, this is really the issue. In marketing, there's a concept known as outside perception versus inside reality. And this is the same thing that Shlosberg was running into and the same thing that all of our listeners are running into right now. That is the outside perception of your marketplace assumes you are just like everyone else you're inside. Reality is, you might be a lot different, but the perception is different. So people question, OK. When you make a sale, the people buy you on perception or on reality, reality, OK, if they've never used you before, do they have anything to buy on reality with. [00:25:56] No. So they have to buy on perception. Yes. OK, so it's a trick question because if you've done business with someone before or they've done business with you, let's say you're a real estate agent, they've done business with you before, then if you're a good agent, they liked you. You did a great job. They're going to use you again and again because they now know your reality. Does that make sense? Absolutely. OK, but they've never used you before. Then what they're doing is they're hiring you based on perception. So perception is the key to engaging that first relationship. I got to tell you a story. [00:26:36] One the one of our clients with Agent Dominator signed up with us. [00:26:44] She put her her past clients and friends on our list to market. And, you know, we have a money back guarantee that you'll get results or we'll give all your money back. OK, and but one of those one of the keys that guarantee is that there has to be at least enough selling activity within your list, that we can guarantee something, you know, sort of like Jesus, he never created something out of nothing. He always took the little that you have and then produced the abundance, you know, five you know, five loaves and two fish to feed five thousand. But he didn't just start with nothing. And we can't create something out of nothing either. So this agent's name, I forget it. I was just going to use first name. But anyway, she came to us at the end of the year. She didn't get any sales, so she complained. She said, I want my money back. And so we go through our process. And one of the questions asked was, you know, how many listings actually came out of that list, whether you got them or not. And there was only one. So, well, that doesn't meet the threshold, OK, because in the in the contract, it says that there's got to be X and but here's A and I'm going somewhere with this, OK? This person that listed their home was a recent past client of this agent. [00:28:12] And chose someone else. Wow. OK, so that shows you how bad that agent was. OK, so that homeowner chose the agent initially on perception, but reality was not good enough to repeat. Wow. So so typically your business comes from reality if it's repeat and it's coming from perception if it's not. So this is the challenge that spearhead the outside perception of all of the beer drinkers was that Sloots was just another beer and the inside reality. The perception is that when Claw's started to explain step by step, those things that they did, then the public's perception of slick beer increased and now they started buying it. This is the same thing with real estate agents. So let me ask you a question. Assume for a moment, Penny, that you are a you're one of our clients, OK? Assume that you maybe you've been selling real estate for 15 or 20 years. You do 30 to 50 transactions a year. You do an excellent job for your clients, OK? And now you want to do geographic farming and you go to this farm and they've seen your signs, you know, over the years. [00:29:35] You might even do some advertising and you're in the grocery store and things of that sort. OK, so here's the question, by and large, to those homeowners. Do they believe that you are any different or any better than any of the other agents? No, no. See, here's what happens. The homeowner's perception is that all agents are the same and all they do is stick a sign in the yard, list the home in the MLS and just sit back and wait for someone to bring a buyer. Does that make sense? Absolutely. OK, so if they believe that to be true, then it makes no difference which agent they choose because their home is going to sell for the same price in the same amount of time. Is this making sense? Absolutely. OK, so now put yourself back in that top producers corner and let me ask you this question, OK? If those homeowners out there understood the skill, the expertise and the experience that you bring to the table for your clients, and they understood that skill, expertise and experience to the same degree that you understand it about yourself, would they realistically choose any other agent besides you? [00:30:52] No. No. So that is your inside reality now becoming their perception of who you are? Yes. Yeah. If you can make Dariya their perception, become your reality, then they would choose you every time. The fact that they're not choosing you every time is because their perception is different. And to the degree that your reality is different than their perception is to the degree of how few listings you'll get from that market. Are these making sense? OK, yeah. So then the question is how in the world do you take your inside reality and help them understand your reality? [00:31:37] What do you think? How do you do that? [00:31:41] Well, I keep I hear my grandmother say the proof is in the pudding, so there's got to be something that I'm going to be doing that will prove to them that that perception is a reality. [00:31:55] Very good. So we got to somehow communicate it. So this is what Claude did. He went through and analyzed each step, the process of making excellent beer, and then he wrote marketing copy that educated the consumer on each of those steps. It wasn't flamboyant marketing copy. It wasn't flowery language. It was here's what we do. And it's so impressive just by itself that people go, wow, that's a lot of effort. This beer must be really great. Does that make sense? Yeah. So we started working on this back in 2013. We start analyze what causes someone to change their perception about a real estate agent. And what we found was a real simple thing. If you want to make your inside reality become their outside perception of who you are, then it really boils down to three things. And we call them the three S's. OK, and I want to kind of walk through these, but the three S's very simply are you have to show off your sales. You have to explain the secrets to those cells, and then you have to have some sort of unique selling proposition or or some unique service that you do that gives them to remember you. And I think we probably ought to just end the podcast right now. We'll come back in a few weeks and finish this up. [00:33:26] What do you think now? [00:33:30] Ok, so I've also got to tell you this this other story. OK, OK, so showing off your cells, we found this was the number one thing most important. In fact, back in 2012 and then 2013 when we just started working exclusively with real estate agents. I don't know if you know this or not, Penny, but we are focus at that time was exclusively geographic farming. And let me back up and share the conundrum with geographic farming. I think the easiest way to explain it, Andina, what conundrum means a pitfall before problem? [00:34:11] I think it's a real word. It may just be made up. I'm not really. I think it's real. [00:34:15] Ok, so the conundrum, OK, in geographic farming is best described by what Mike Feri said. Now, let's test your knowledge again. Do you know who Mike Ferry is? [00:34:31] I do recognize that name. Maybe he was an agent. I don't know. [00:34:36] I think he was an agent, but he is his claim to fame is he has the largest, longest, most successful real estate coaching organization in the world called the very coaching organization or very organization. [00:34:51] So like that, if you go to the website, I haven't been there in a couple of years, but real prominently it says over one million individual hours of coaching conducted. Wow. That's a lot of time. That is a lot of time. A lot of people have heard of Tom Ferry, which is his son. OK, so you have that connection. But Mike Ferry was asked about postcard marketing, geographic farming, and his comment was, if you're going to do postcard marketing and I'm assuming this has meaning for that geographic form. So you have to do nonstop marketing for at least two or three years before you can expect the homeowner to actually remember your name. Wow. That's that Mindshare dominance. [00:35:31] Yeah. Pick up the phone and call you. OK, so the conundrum in real estate, in geographic farming is it takes time because what we're trying to do is we're trying to change the thinking of those homeowners. [00:35:43] We're trying to get their perception that you are not just any other agent, but you are a special agent worthy of being, you know, selling their house. So when we enter this market, the common belief was if you're going to do geographic farming, you market, market, market, market, and your first listing will come maybe by the end of the first year and definitely somewhere more than likely by the second year. And then it would take somewhere between three to five years before you had a lot of volume coming in and you just kind of had a good foothold on that market place. So that's and if you think about even launching a new brand, it takes a long time to get that brand launched. And so that's basically what geographic farming is, is launching your brand. So so when we started geographic farming, would you like to guess how long it took for our average client to get their first listing? [00:36:45] Uh oh. [00:36:50] Two months, pretty clear, pretty accurate somewhere in that one, two, three month time frame, we had most of our clients getting the first listings there. We had a number of clients pick up, you know, sell a couple of million dollars in real estate and their first several months. And a number of clients would actually be maybe a few in the first several months that quickly. But we had a number of clients that would earn seventy five to one hundred thousand dollars in commissions in their first 12 months in geographic farming, which is totally unheard of. [00:37:30] And that process has nothing to do with what I'm sharing here. OK, I'm going to show you that process in just a moment. But but they all interconnected together. So back to this. So as we're signing up real estate agents, we would always ask him, have you ever done geographic farming before? And most of them would say no. Some would say yes. We would then ask those who said yes, was it successful? And most would say no and some would say yes. And we would ask them those that said it was successful. Well, what were you doing that made it successful 100 percent? Of everyone who answered that question, gave the same answer. And would you like to guess what 100 percent of the agents who had success in geographic farming in the past, what was the one answer that they gave? Do you would you like to guess? [00:38:27] My guess, and this is just based on my own personal experience, they were available. [00:38:34] Well, most agents are available because most agents don't have enough business to begin with. I don't know if they'll look at the slide. It's number one of the three S's. [00:38:44] Oh, they showed off their sale. Yeah. And how do you show off a sale if you're a real estate agent? [00:38:52] Signings, marketing, you mail out a Jessell postcard. [00:38:57] Yeah, OK, you show off your sale, OK. And that's what they were doing. And that's the number one most important thing. Here's what I learned from that. Homeowners want to know that you're actively selling them. [00:39:09] Think about this. If you're going to sell your home, do you want to sell it with an agent who rarely sells homes or one that is always selling homes or one that's always selling homes? Yeah. [00:39:20] So the one who never advertises that they're always selling the perception is they I never see them. So they must not be selling. [00:39:30] Yes. OK. [00:39:31] And if you see them then maybe they're selling. So that's the number one thing. So the three Rs is the number one is show off your sales all the time. [00:39:40] And and here's something real interesting about geographic farming. We will definitely have to break on this call. So I want to I want to take us to the end of this, but we'll break and come back another time because I want to show you how to start implementing and executing on this. But I'll I'll stop on this topic and we won't get into the other stuff. But the weather was like, oh, I'm showing off your sales. So most agents believe, wrongly, that you only send Jessell postcards around the sale that you just sold them. [00:40:17] So if I'm doing a geographic farm over here, let's just call it, you know, Cahaba Heights as my geographic farm. Then if I make a sell over in Hoover, I can't show that sell off in Cahaba Heights because Cahaba Heights, they want to see sales that are in their neighborhood. So I can't start showing off sales in that neighborhood until I start getting sales. And so now I'm at the catch twenty two. If I don't have sales, I can't show off it. I don't show my face, I don't get sales is not a problem. Yes. So the simple solution is those homeowners don't care, they just want to know that you're selling. So if you've got a sale from another area, send a Jessell postcard into that farm that you're targeting because any sale is better than no sale. Yeah, I agree with that 100 percent. [00:41:13] I mean, as a consumer, I would be thrilled to see an agent that's selling all over the city because to me that would be a sign that they can sell no matter where you are. [00:41:22] That's right. Exactly. But now there are some. So the closer you get to home. The more that homeowner is going to trust you. Meaning if you sold their next door neighbor's home and three doors down, you sold that home. And one street over, you saw another home. Do you think they'll trust you more than if all your homes are 20 miles away? Probably, yeah, yeah, so proximity does make an impact, and that's why most agents say, well, I need to sell homes here for them to trust me here. So I've got a solution. Would you like to know what that solution is? Yes. OK, so now let's go back and let's first articulate the conundrum, OK? Because these are always conundrum problems we're trying to solve. OK, so the conundrum is, when I sell a home that's 20 miles away, it may have a completely different architectural style than the homes in the neighborhood I want to target. So it becomes obvious that where I sold is nowhere near where they are. OK, makes sense. Yes. The other conundrum is, let's say and Cahaba Heights, all the streets are names like Rosemary Lane and Jackson Boulevard. But where I just sold a whole home, it's all numeric names like Twenty Fourth Street or 1st Avenue South. Mm hmm. So when I show off that sale into this geographic neighborhood, it's very obvious that sticks out like a sore thumb. This has nothing to do with where I live. Is that making sense? Absolutely. So how do you solve this problem? Now, we do this on our postcards that we fully customize for our agents when we go through this whole process, we become the Claude Hopkins' for them and I identify what is they do and we create custom postcards and we include sales. We do it on their postcards. Any idea what that is? [00:43:39] Just putting the name of the street that's part of it goes deeper and then maybe stating like how many days they sold it and if it's sold for five thousand overprice or is part of it. [00:43:55] Ok. Right. So so let me let me I'm going to peel back the onion, OK? I'm going to ask some description. I might open the kimono, OK, and let you see what's actually on the inside of what goes on with all this stuff. OK, so the first thing is the outside architecture of the home is usually the first indication that that home doesn't fit this neighborhood and. But once you go inside the home. That kitchen, the master bedroom, that master bath, the den, the living area, you can't tell what type home they are outside architecture is simply by looking at an inside photo. So if you want to take that sale and make it transferable to another neighborhood when the outside doesn't look the same. Take an inside photo and then that homeowner can't discern if there was a you know, they think it's a neighborhood sale because you send it to them in that neighborhood. Does that make sense? [00:44:56] Yes, it's brilliant. [00:44:59] So that's why we do that. It also helps in some other areas. [00:45:05] The the other thing that we do. Is now this comes into a higher level of marketing understanding. OK, so let me back. Let me explain. Let's first talk about fights, we have normal, which is black print on white copy on white background, and we have reverse font, which is white print on a dark background. Which font do you think is easier to read? Normal font or reverse font normal? That's right. It's eight and a half times easier to read normal font than it is reverse font. Most people don't read reverse font. What about if you look at all caps or let's say upper and lower case versus all caps, which is easier to read if you have a sentence, a sentence in upper and lower case versus a sentence in all caps, which is easier to read upper and lower just because it's more natural. That's right. Or natural. And then italics, not in italics or italics. If everything was in non italics or everything was in italics, which is easier. That's right. [00:46:19] So if you want them to pay attention to the street. [00:46:25] You do it in normal font, upper and lower case, non italics, yeah, but if you want them to not pay attention to the street, so don't even hit their brain. Because you kind of feel obligated, you need to know where the cell was, OK, then you put it in reverse font. All caps, italics are, and in that way it's there, but that homeowner, it doesn't register in the brain. So now you can take a cell from 20 miles away if we use that example. Yeah, you can show just the inside photo. And then for the street, you put it in smaller font, you put it in reverse font, all caps, italics, and so now is satisfies the curious, OK, they posted what I address, but they don't they don't even register. Well, this is in a house near here. Yeah. It just goes right by them. So now you can use cells from anywhere and show off cells in that farm and now you have success in that. Cool. [00:47:32] That's great. I love that. [00:47:34] Yeah. So we're going to have to stop. [00:47:37] Oh, OK. But let me tell you where we're going. [00:47:41] Just to whet your appetite to want to come back is we haven't gotten into how do you start to execute on it. So we're going to talk a little bit further on the next session. Now, that's just showing ourselves we're going to start talking about what are the secrets that you start to explain? What are the things that Claude Hopkins' approach to get people to actually trust you, to know that your beer is pure or your real estate is is excellent. We're going to talk about how do you create a unique selling proposition, what it is, and then how do you start to execute on it? And then later in the session in the series, we're going to then talk about how do you start to identify sellers? What did we do with our clients that got them listings faster than ever before when the general norm was is we're going to take a year or two to get listings and our clients were getting them in the first month or two. How do you do that? And then we're going to move further down into this mastery course and talk about how do you actually pick a farm, because you can't just say eeny, meeny, miny, mo. You point to that area and say that's where we're going to farm because it may not be productive. You know, there's things that you can do. So that's kind of where we're going in this tees it up. Has this been exciting so far? [00:49:04] This has been great. And I just want to encourage our listeners if they want to get all those juicy details and learn how to be successful. So please join us again for the next one so they can get the rest of the story. [00:49:19] Baby, thank you so much for again, just putting all the effort into really trying to make people better and make them successful. And this has been a great podcast. I look forward to the next one so we can finish out our discussion and hear all the good the good details. [00:49:38] Yes. And let me also make a couple plug number one. Yes. If you haven't subscribe to our podcast, subscribe to it so you don't miss anything. Number two, I heard a top producing agent who makes like on average about seven hundred and fifty thousand a year personal production. Take home pay, OK, almost almost take home pay. And he teaches a course and part of his course, he talks about if you think hiring a professional is expensive, try hiring an average year. OK, so I'm teaching you what you know, but I'm not teaching you what we know. OK, so if you want to really master this, if you want to have the highest chance of success, I'd love to have you check us out. You can go either to our podcast website. Getler is calling you dot com and click on the tab. Agent Dominator, you just go to agent nominator dot com and see what we do there. And otherwise, thanks for listening in and come back next time for more of the rest of the story. [00:50:43] Awesome. Thanks, baby. And we look forward to just hanging out again next time. All right. Y'all have a blessed day. Thank you. Bye bye. 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Transcription (was completed by automated process. Please ignore any speech-to-text errors) [00:00:04] Well, hello, everyone, thank you so much for joining us today. I'm super excited and welcome to this next session of Get Sellers Calling You with Beatty Carmichael. Beatty is the CEO of Master Grabber, the creator of Agent Dominator and one of the top marketing experts in the real estate field. Beatty, I am super excited about our call today. What do you have for our listeners? [00:00:28] Well, I am very excited about it as well, Penny, because I get to do today what I love doing. And sometimes I pinch myself saying, Lord, do I really get paid to do this stuff? And the answer is yes, ultimately. So we're going to do not a real estate marketing call. We're going to do a radical face call for those who may be new to us. As a reminder, we do two types of calls. So if you're here for real estate marketing, that's not going to be the topic of today's call. The topic is going to be living as a Christian, and what all of that type of stuff means. So if you want to enjoy that, please continue listening. Otherwise, you can turn off this episode and come back to our next one. So what I want to do when we talked last time, Penny, on the topic, Do all who accept Christ go to heaven? Do you remember that topic? [00:01:26] Yes, I do. I do. [00:01:28] Ok, well today we're going into part two, OK? And next time when we do, another radical faith call will be it part three. And I'm not sure if it's going to be three or four parts, but is this really incredibly exciting for me and very interesting. And I think there are a lot of deep application in terms of what we do with our lives that come out of it. So I want to go into that. So this is a quick review. We started last time with some statements that Jesus made and now we're going to test your memory. Do you remember what those statements Jesus made that we started? [00:02:11] It was something that has to do with we were talking about do all people go to heaven if they get saved or the all believers go to heaven? And it was something it was something along the lines of, all right, that's OK. [00:02:27] That's OK. Yeah, no, that's OK. [00:02:30] Hey, I got it written in front of me. You don't. So that's the key. Oh so the gospels have four times God found is so important. They put four times in the gospel, the basic statement by Jesus that the one who endures to the end will be saved. Yes. Yes. The one who endures to the end by your endurance, you will gain your lives. Okay, so the question was. What in the world has Jesus talking about? So let me ask you a question. When Jesus teaches that you must endure to the end to be saved, does that mean that some people don't endure to the end? [00:03:11] Yes. [00:03:13] And therefore they don't endure to the end. They're not saved. [00:03:18] That's correct. They're not going to go to heaven. [00:03:20] Yeah, and that interesting and yet we think. Huh? OK, so we talked last time on the parable of the Sower, one of the most important parables, because it's the only one that is in all three synoptic gospels. Matthew, Mark Luke is the only one that is in its entirety in all three gospels is the only one that is fully interpreted by Jesus in all three gospels and is the only one that Jesus says, if you don't understand this one, how can you understand any of the parables? So it's kind of like the key, the master key that unlocks every single parable if you dig into it. And what we learned in the parable of the Sower is several things just in a quick review. OK, so you have a sower, we assume the soldiers us, OK, it's not very clear, but go out and you sow the seed everywhere. The seed is the word of the kingdom. And do you remember who the word of the kingdom is? If you were to put a name Jesus. Right. So where it is. So Jesus everywhere and some falls on the path and birch take it away. It's rejected. Some fall in on Iraqi soil. They accept it with enthusiasm. And as soon as the sun comes up because there's no root, it withers. Then some falls on the thorny soil. [00:04:44] Ok, we call that soil number three. If we do soil one, two, three, four. So the stony soil falls among the thorns. It grows up into a plant. It grows up with the thorns, but there's no fruit. And then there's the for soil good soil that it produces some 60, some 30, some 100 salt, OK? And Jesus and Jesus says only the see that falls in the good soil is good. And you have to produce fruit and so what we kind of came through with all of that is that three soils accepted Jesus to some degree. You know, the rocky soil accepted the seed enough that it produced something. But there were no roots. The thorny soil accepted the seed. It actually went in the ground. It produced roots because we know now plant grew, but it was bad. And then the fourth soil, the soil accepted the seed, accepted Jesus and produced fruit. And so what we start to understand is put this parable is telling us, I believe, is that not everyone who accepts Jesus goes to heaven. Not everyone who accepts Jesus actually produces fruit. We also describe that fruit is the womb of a seed is for the seed is formed. And so what Jesus is telling us and we're going to get into this today a little bit more, that unless you're unless Christ is formed in you and you're producing more of Christ, then you're not good. Okay, so that's kind of where we ended up. Any questions or any thoughts on that before we move forward? [00:06:33] No, just such a good reminder. Such a good refresher from last week. So I'm looking forward to this week. [00:06:41] Good. I am too. So we covered one quick topic last time and wrapping up. And I want to I want to focus on this more today. And that's the difference between converts and disciples. So let me just cut in that. What we talked a convert is one who accepts Christ. A disciple is a convert who pursues Christ. Does that make sense? [00:07:10] Yeah, yeah, OK. [00:07:12] And and so it's kind of like a two step process. First, you accept Christ, but accepting Christ. Doesn't mean you go to heaven, it's what happens after there, so you accept Christ and then you pursue Christ. Now, this is not saying we're going to kind of touch on this maybe in a later session, OK? The question is, if you're currently a bad soul, can you become a good soil? That's not the topic of this call, OK? This isn't the topic of once I accept Christ, do I have to do something special? That's not the topic. All I'm saying is very clearly there is evidential difference between good soil, bad soil. And so let's look at it and then let's also analyze it within our lives. So what we find is not all converts go to heaven. But all disciples do all right. And then, John, 15 eight, this is Jesus, and he says by by this, my father is glorified, that you bear much fruit. And so can you finish this sentence on that? [00:08:21] And so go and bear fruit and so prove to be my disciples, right, when you bear much fruit, you prove to be my disciples. [00:08:31] And this is what Jesus is talking about. This is, by the way, the great commission go and make converts of all the nations. Now go and make disciples of all the nations. And so there's something there about this mandate. So with that, I now want to move in to where we're going to be talking about today and it's really quite fascinating. I like to look at what John the Baptist had to say about frit. By the way, this is now trivia. Do you recall anything John the Baptist said about fruit? [00:09:08] So. Wow. Mm hmm. [00:09:12] I don't know, off the top of my head, so let's turn to Matthew three verses eight, nine and 10 and let's see what he says about fruit. [00:09:25] Bear fruit in keeping with repentance and did not presume to say to yourselves, we have Abraham is our father, for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now, the axes laid to the root of the tree. Every tree, therefore, does not bear good fruit that does not bear good for it. Cut down and thrown into the fire. [00:09:52] Ok, just a little back. Back up. Scripture uses the metaphor trees a lot as representing men. OK, so that's why you see this. The access to the trees, every tree that does not bear fruit when he's talking to people and he says bear fruit with keeping with repentance. So when you see the word tree, typically that's going to be speaking about men when there are different types of trees, is talking about different types of men or the human race. Not always, but that's one of the things. So what does this say that what type of fruit are we to bear? Fruit that keeps with resentence fruit that keeps with repentance, so let's go back and cover one thing that's really important. When we read the Bible, the Bible is a book written by a single author, God himself. And when we when we see common terms throughout, there are always going to have something. They're always going to mean about the same thing or typically. OK, so you have just as we talked about last time, you have characters in a book. And if a character named John is introduced at the beginning, the book, then when the author calls out John toward the end of the book is the same. John is the same person. In this case. We have the character of fruit. The last time we talked about with a state in the sower that the good soil produces fruit, we had to understand what fruit is. But here John the Baptist is talking about fruit bear fruit in keeping with repentance. So we kind of understand that what John the Baptist is talking about is the same thing Jesus has been talking about. Does that make sense? Mm hmm. Yeah. OK, so this fruit is fruit in keeping with repentance. Here's something also interesting. What was the message that Jesus came preaching to you? Remember what that message was? [00:11:58] The kingdom of God is here or now, but there's one one part right before that. [00:12:03] Do you remember what it was? It was an action and love, love one another now repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. OK. Oh, so close your so close. So there's something about repentance that's really important when we talk about healing later, whenever the Lord guides me in that direction, repentance is really a key part of of that. So so we are to bear fruit of repentance, OK, if we don't bear fruit. [00:12:38] What does John's passage say is going to happen. [00:12:43] Hmm. [00:12:46] Well, if we don't, it says that every tree or person that is not very good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. [00:12:54] Ouch. You think what do you think that's actually going spiritually? What is he communicating? [00:13:03] Going to heaven, crash and crash and burn. [00:13:05] Yeah, OK, right, OK, so we see this thing about trees. We see this thing about fruit. We see this thing about an axe cutting down a tree and we see this thing about being burned. OK, do you recall any other parables that Jesus uses about a tree being cut down? [00:13:30] I do not. [00:13:32] All right, turn with me to Luke, 13 versus six through nine. This is the parable of the barren fig tree, OK? [00:13:45] Oh, now you remember, right? OK, yes. So let's read the parable of the barren fig tree and what we're looking for. OK, this is let me kind of give you the Cliff Notes version of all this. God works in patterns. You see the same pattern throughout scripture in all kinds of areas. Last time we saw this pattern of something about fruit is important to being, you know, going to heaven. If we want to use that term, that's really to being part of the kingdom of God is the better term. [00:14:15] And we saw that a lot of people produce something, but they didn't produce fruit. The soils produced a plant to some degree. And so we see this pattern. And I want you to be looking for the patterns as we go through. So let's read about the parable of the barren fig tree, OK? [00:14:33] And he told this parable a man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vine dresser, Look, for three years now, I have come seeking fruit on the fig tree and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground? And he answered him, sir, let it alone this year also until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good. But if not, you can cut it down. [00:15:08] Hmm. Wow. OK, so it's not bearing fruit. John talks about bear fruit with keeping with repentance or you get cut down. This is talking about it's not bearing fruit. Let's cut it down. All right. So we have some patterns and similarities there. Here's the question. Does a good tree produce good fruit? [00:15:28] Yes, and how do we know that? [00:15:34] Well, that's a good tree. Then that's its nature, its nature is to produce. OK, all right, so nature is wrong with it. It's going to it's going to reproduce itself, right? [00:15:48] Ok, so seed reproduces after kind. Good. All right. Let's go real quickly. You don't have to turn there, but let's look at what Jesus says. It's in Luke 643 and he says for no good tree bears, bad fruit. Nor again, does a battery bear good fruit for each tree is known by its own fruit. So does a good tree produce good fruit according to Jesus? The answer is yes. OK, so now we're using trees. OK, keep in mind, the metaphor is mankind. Jesus is saying no good man produces bad fruit. Every man will be known after the fruit he produces. OK, there's a way to look at it. So if a tree produces no fruit, is it a good tree? [00:16:37] No, and why is that how do we know that because Jesus just said it, a good tree is going to produce good fruit, right? [00:16:47] Yeah, yeah. Parable of the sower. Only the good soil. The good soil is known because it produced fruit. Jesus said that. By this, my father's glorified that you bear much fruit and so proved to be my disciples, so we know that a good tree will always produce good fruit. A tree without fruit is not good. That's soil number three. If you recall, the plant grew up but produce no fruit. OK, so that's kind of where we are here. Let me give you a little background also. This is interesting, the background on the fig tree. So throughout scripture, the fig tree, in fact, do you know what the fig tree represents throughout scripture? Did you know that? Did you know that it represented something? [00:17:39] I know I did not. [00:17:41] All right, so there are two trees that are used all throughout scripture, sometimes are used in the same passages, sometimes are used differently. One is the fig tree. Do you remember what the other one is? [00:17:52] My guess would be an olive tree. [00:17:54] Yeah, so you have fig trees and olive trees. The question is, what are they? OK, so here we go back to patterns again. Same thing as Paul talks about. The pattern of not all who are descended of Abraham are Abraham's descendants. You remember him saying that? I think it's in Romans. OK, what is he talking about? Abraham had a physical bloodline and Abraham had a spiritual bloodline. The physical bloodline is a shadow of the spiritual, but it's not the spiritual. And we see this thing with fig trees. So throughout scripture, the fig tree represents the chosen people of Israel, of the natural. OK, you can call it the physical descendants of Abraham. And within that physical descendants, it's in a sense, it's death. OK, that's that's why you see all the time the fig tree without any fruit. That's why this parable is the fig tree that's going to be cut down. But then you have the olive tree and the olive tree represents the chosen people, a betrayal of the promise. These are the spiritual descendants of Abraham. And in a sense, the olive tree is always represented with life. [00:19:11] All the fig trees always represented with death and saying, yeah, and an interesting. [00:19:18] So just as the natural the natural world is a shadow of the spirit world, then the people of Israel, the fig tree is a shadow of the people or the promise represented by the olive tree. So that's kind of what we're seeing here. We've got this parable, the bear and fig tree. The fig tree, by the way, is there do you recall any other place in the Gospels where there's a barren fig tree? [00:19:51] Hmm, I do feel like this story is brought up again, but I don't remember where Jesus is going into Jerusalem. [00:20:01] Oh, yes, yes. You see the fig tree and leave. He walks over to get some fruit and there's none there and there's none. [00:20:09] And it's not the season of fruit. It's not the season of fruit. And he curses it. Why do you think he curses the fig tree? [00:20:18] When it's not the season for fruit, I don't know, I've always wondered that because I've always just thought that that was one of those moments in Scripture where it's just showing the sense of humor of God. [00:20:32] Ok, so if we if we say I digress, but this is important, is fun. So the fig tree represents the natural Israel and sin and death, even though it's not the season for figs, as a believer, it's always the season for fruit. This is why you read through revelations and and other passages like in Psalms and other places where you have visions of the heavenly realm and the trees and the plants are always producing fruit all the time. There is no season without fruit. It's always the season for fruit because there's always a season for life. OK, and so Jesus curse, is it the same as the natural descendants of Abraham had been cast with death because they're in bondage to sin, ruled by death, made a covenant with death when Adam fell. OK, and and so you see all these all these patterns, imageries and all these concepts kind of coming together in this one image of Jesus cursing the fig tree. And so we kind of have something similar here. OK, so we have this fig tree. So Israel had been chosen and set apart by God from among all the nations. OK, so this is where you have kind of the chosen people. And Israel had been given gods promise of salvation. Right in that tree, an issue with God's own people, but yet here's what's interesting. Turn with me real quickly, John, 111, so so I want I want to give you this picture, it all ties back into this barren fig tree parable we're talking about here. So the picture is. God had chosen Israel, God had given Israel the promise. Israel was God's people, OK, and now let's read what happens, John, 111, can you read that? [00:22:50] He came to his own disguise, right? [00:22:54] So Jesus came into his own OK, now, now finish it and his own people did not receive him. [00:23:00] Hmm. OK, so his own people did not receive him. So we have kind of this this thing. This is the victory. OK, so now let's move back to the parable of the barren fig tree, 13, six and nine. What do you think this parable is telling us? [00:23:22] Oh. [00:23:27] Well, if we're relating it to what you just kind of give that description, the fig tree and the physical nature of the descendants of Abraham and bondage to them, then the fig tree. Who was in bondage, bondage to sin is not going to produce fruit. [00:23:48] There's no loss almost that that may be a little too much, so so the parable is going to be giving basically one simple point that Jesus trying to make. Let's look at the let's look at the key aspects of the parable first. OK, man has a fig tree. The man comes seeking fruit. There is none. He says, cut it down. OK, those are the basic elements of the parable. So what this tells us is that if you don't produce fruit, you get cut down. [00:24:18] Right? OK, yeah. [00:24:21] And cut down. What do you think that means? [00:24:28] Removed from your purpose, yeah, is it you think this is similar to what John the Baptist was saying just a moment ago? The axe is laid at the root of the trees, and if you don't produce fruit, you'll get cut down and thrown into the fire, right? [00:24:42] Yeah. Yeah. [00:24:43] Ok, so that's I think it's what's talking here is you can get cut down and discarded that purpose that you're talking about for which you've been there, you're going to lose. All right. So but what about the vine dresser? This is real interesting. It says that a man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard. Where do we where do we hear about a vineyard and a vine dresser? Does anything come to mind? [00:25:12] Yes. Jesus. He says, I am the vine dresser and we are the vine almost. No, sorry. I'm sorry. We are his the vine. The father is a vine dresser. [00:25:24] That's right. There are the branches. We are the branches, not the fruit that. Yeah. So John, that's John Tuffin one. So let's go there real quick. I want to show you something. OK, we're just going to read what you just said, basically, John, verse one. [00:25:41] Yeah, I am the true vine and my father is the vine dresser. [00:25:46] Ok, so now we have again characters. The olive tree is planted in the vineyard and the owner comes and talks to the vine dresser. Do you see all these pictures coming together now? OK, so in the vineyard, Jesus is the true vine. He's the olive tree is in the presence of Jesus. The Vineyard, who is the father is there. And the owner says to the to the father, God, the father cut it down. Now read what the vine dresser says. I want you to see this. This is really cool. [00:26:25] This is verse eight, right? Yeah, OK. And he answered him. The vines are the the dangerous, right? Yeah. He answered him, sir. [00:26:36] Let it alone this year also until I dig around it and put on the newer. [00:26:44] Yeah, then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good, but if not, you can cut it down. [00:26:52] Oh, so this is the vine dresser. This is God, the father saying, hey, before we cut this down. Let me work on it special, let me give it special attention, let me let me dig around it, put in manure, let me really do everything I can to give it every opportunity to produce fruit and then if it does well and good, but if it doesn't, then let's cut it down. And that interesting. The heart of the father. [00:27:23] Yes, he's the God of second chances. [00:27:26] He's got a second chance for us. That's right. [00:27:30] And we actually see this same picture. And John, 15. So Rejon 15 first to. [00:27:41] Ok. [00:27:43] When they get back, they're looking to all right. Every branch and me that does not bear fruit. He takes away in every branch that does bear fruit. He pretends that it may bear more fruit. [00:27:59] Okay, perfect. So every branch that does not bear fruit he takes away. There's actually different ways to translate that takes away. And when we look at scripture, it's always multidimensional. Sometimes there's a lot more meaning than just one simple meaning. And so one way to translate in which most Bibles translate as he takes away. But another way you can translate that same word that's been used takeaway is to lift up. So you get kind of the image of if I'm a vine dresser and I'm in the vine is very valuable. This is business. This is what produces livelihood. So I'm not going to just willy nilly, you know, get rid of a branch just because it doesn't produce. I'm going to work with it. Tender care, because if I can get it producing fruit, it's worth a lot. So one way to interpret this is the vine dresser. Every branch that does not bear fruit, he lifts up the idea. You pull it up out of the ground, out of the dirt, you take the dirt off and wipe the dirt off the leaves so they can have sunshine and then you tie it up on the trestle so they can be in the sun and give an opportunity to produce fruit. But then if it doesn't produce fruit, he takes it away. [00:29:17] Does that make sense? Mm hmm. Is that cool? Yeah, it's a great picture. [00:29:22] So that's the same thing we see with this parable of the barren fig tree. Hey, let me give it more time and let me work with it to see if it can produce fruit. It shows the heart of the father really wants to give us every opportunity to produce that fruit. So so now with that, let's start looking a little bit deeper into some questions about this barren fig tree. Did the barren fig tree look like a mature, a mature tree? In other words, had it matured? [00:29:59] No. [00:30:01] Ok, so let me ask you, do you think it was standing tall like a normal tree? [00:30:10] Possibly. [00:30:12] Ok, yeah, OK, if for the owner to come look for the owner to come looking for fruit, should there have been fruit there? Yes, OK, it should have been, which means it's mature enough to have been producing fruit, does that make sense? Yes. OK, so it's mature enough by age and by visual appearance to be producing crude. So. So it's probably at the normal height of other trees that produce fruit, other fig trees, right? Mm hmm. Do you think it has limbs and leaves? [00:30:51] Yeah, probably. [00:30:52] Ok, so appearance wise, it looks like a mature plant. But the problem is there's no fruit. OK, so here's what I think Jesus is also teaching on this. [00:31:08] The same thing we get from Parable of the Sower and some others will say if it's possible for someone to look like a Christian, think he's a Christian because he accepted Christ at some point and may even do Christian like deeds, OK, but still be dead and not born again. That's what you have with this this fig tree. It looks like a healthy fig tree. The only difference is there's no fruit, but everything else about it visually is it looks like it's like a normal fig tree. Does that make sense? [00:31:44] Yeah. Yeah, OK. [00:31:46] And the problem is there's no fruit. [00:31:48] If we use to take this metaphor out and kind of convert it to what seems to be saying how we would phrase it based on the parable of the sower is. There's no Christ being formed in that person. And and if there's no Chrispin been formed in that person, then spiritually that person is dead. [00:32:11] Makes sense. [00:32:12] Yeah, it does OK, because we're only alive in Christ. So based on the four soils of the parable of the sower, which soil would you say that this tree is planted in or represent? [00:32:28] I would say three because yeah, yeah, it's growing and it has leaves and branches and like you said, looked fully mature and like it should have fruit on it. [00:32:40] Yeah, exactly. So this is that soil. Number three, this is why the fig tree is used throughout scriptures that barren, that barrenness. How many people would you think there are who call themselves Christians and look like this fig tree? They look like a Christian, but they bear no fruit while. [00:33:04] I hate to say there's probably way more than. [00:33:08] Then I would want to admit that there are yeah, do you think they think that they're Christians? [00:33:15] Yes, absolutely, yeah, we see this even with Israel. [00:33:19] They thought they were the chosen race, we're all going to heaven because we're part of Abraham. Paul says no. You know, you're you're you're not. OK, so I want to share just a little personal comment on this, because this is actually how all of this study got started for me. So I have a personal friend, a dear family friend named Rich. His parents and my parents have been best friends. His parents were in my parents' wedding. I believe it goes back that far. We've done things with Rich and his family. We've been really close. They've been down to our family farm a lot. And and what happened is in ultra high school, Rich was way a column kind of a hoodlum hurdle may be the wrong word, but he was just way off track. He was chasing the girls, chasing the drugs, chasing, you know, chasing everything. And he was absolutely not a Christian. He gets into college. He goes even more over the deep end there, and then something happens. He's presented with the gospel, he hears it, he receives it with joy, and there's life change in his life, he starts to pull back and stop some of these abhorrent behavioral type of activities he's been doing. And then he gets married and he's later on after college, he starts a Bible study at his home. Lots of people come. They share the gospel. Lots of people claim he claims to accept Christ. And then we start to work together. [00:35:06] He actually worked here with our business for about a year, just over a year, and during that entire time, I saw no evidence at all of Christ being in him. He lives a life of extreme bitterness. He pursues women even now. [00:35:28] He doesn't touch them, to my knowledge, but he sure does pursue them. He pursues riches and wealth that he cannot get, that he cannot get. And everything is very kind of superficial. And so he's even suing me. OK, believe it or not, I'm on something. And through all of this, there's no bitterness in my heart for him. There's only this love and compassion. And as I pray for him and as I analyze what's going on and constant the thing that keeps coming to mine, Lord, is my friend saved. I know he accepted Christ. I know there was a change in lifestyle, but I see no evidence of Christ. And so my it was my concern for my friend that started me digging, taking a deep dive. And what does the scripture say? Does everyone who accept Christ go to heaven? Okay. And and so that's kind of where we are today. And that's what prompted all this. So let me yeah, it's really interesting. So the Lord takes even difficult circumstances in your life and produces good from it. That doesn't mean he's the orchestrator of just like we talked about a while back with the story of Joseph. Okay. You know, if God is sovereign and control, does that mean everything that happens is his will? OK. And even though God did not orchestrate the evil that happened in Joseph's life, he leveraged it to produce the good that he had for Joseph. So that's kind of how this came out. Let me talk as we're talking on this topic of. People who believe they are Christians, people who have accepted Christ at some point, and, you know, my friend Rich, you know, he received a gospel with joy, just like soil number two on the stony ground. [00:37:29] And it actually produced a plant that looked mature. But but my perception of what's going on is it's being choked out by all of the other thorns in life, by the way, sawn OK, in small number three, if you look at thorns as a metaphor, as a character throughout the Bible, it's usually used to on what chokes out life. All right. Everywhere you see Soren's, you can kind of translate somewhat loosely, but translate something is choking life out of this. And if you go back and read, you'll see that you see that common theme. So so the thorns choke out the life of of what's there. But I want to talk on this. There's another parable called I Never Knew You, or at least that's what I call it. Let's turn to Matthew seven versus 21 through 23. So there's word on this topic of the fig tree. The fig tree thinks it's a good tree, but it's not because it produces no fruit. My friend Rich calls himself a Christian, and he may be I'm not I'm not rendering judgment, but I'm rendering observation observationally. I see no fruit. The question is, is it possible to accept Christ and not go to heaven? And so let's read another parable. OK, keep in mind, the parable of the sower unlocks all the parables. So you will see this pattern. Are you ready to read it? [00:38:57] Yes. All right. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my father, who is in heaven. On that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, didn't we prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name. And then will I declare to them, I never knew you depart from me. Workers of lawlessness. [00:39:27] Ouch. [00:39:28] That's pretty painful in it, that's stinging words, that's what we call the stinging words. [00:39:34] Yeah, so so let's ask a real simple question on this one. OK, were these people focused on works or fruit? [00:39:45] Works. How do we know that? [00:39:49] Because everything it talks about them doing is they work, oh, did we not prophesying your name, cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name. All right. So what's the difference between works and. [00:40:06] What do you think, um. [00:40:10] Work is to me, this is just my personal opinion, which to me is what you can benefit or gain for yourself, whether it's notoriety or a favor. And then fruit to me comes from the overflow. It's just what's in you and it comes out by itself. [00:40:32] Ok, I think that's very accurate. Very fair. I was summarize it slightly different. Not that that it's a different understanding. It has a different route of of source works is what you do. But fruit is Christ formed in you. Does that make sense? Yeah. And if crisis formed in you, then he lives through you. And therefore, what you do in action, what you do is from him and not you, and that's the difference between works and free. It's what you do versus Christ doing it through you. And the other thing about works in fruit, as I start to think about this deeper think about this works is created in this in this topic of what we're talking about with this terrible works is created by pursuing the activities of Christ. While fruit is created by pursuing the person of Christ. Yeah, yeah. And so when we look at what we do in a lot and I'm going through this series because, you know, the Lord has called me in ministry, I'm a full time minister, secretly describes disguised as a business owner. [00:41:55] And he has called me to do these radical faith podcasts and teachings to teach his people that they may step more boldly out by faith, solidly on God's word and produce fruit. OK. And and that's kind of why all this comes up and why this is, quote unquote, intermingled with business, because the whole purpose for the businesses to do this stuff. [00:42:22] And but what's interesting is. I was going somewhere with that, let me back up, let me figure out where I was going to work. This created by pursuing the activities of Christ. And fruit is created by pursuing the person of Christ and. When you pursue Christ. Then fruit is automatically produced, so we need to take an introspective look at ourselves and our loved ones and ask, what are we really doing? Are we pursuing the Christian activities? [00:42:58] Oh, I want to go kill. I want, you know, give me this gift of healing. I want to tung's gift of tongues or I want to, you know, go help the poor and serve the widows. Are you doing those because you want to be found in favor with the Lord or are you doing those because they emanate from the Lord pulling you through it, wanting to do it through you, because you're pursuing the Lord as opposed to pursuing the work? I think that's kind of really where I want to go and hit on with this is we have to say, you know, what's what's driving us? Are we the tree with no fruit? Are we these people that Jesus says, I never knew you. So let me now let's have some questions about this parable. Back to the parable. So, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, cast out demons in your name. Too many mind works in your name. And Jesus said, I never knew you depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. So do you think these people looked and acted like Christians? [00:44:06] Absolutely. [00:44:08] Yeah. They even did the activities that Christians do. Dendi Yeah. [00:44:12] I was going to say they did activities that a lot of Christians can't do. [00:44:17] That's right. Yeah. So they saw a lot of times you see someone who prays for healing and the person's heal and you think that guy is really spiritual or someone who gets a, you know, prophecy or does somebody we think they're spiritual, but according to this, they could be dead. Right? So they looked and acted like Christians. Were they born again? [00:44:42] Oh, well, according to Jesus, no. [00:44:46] Well, according to Jesus is a good place to be according to you, right? OK. Yeah, OK. So no, how do we know that they're not born again? [00:45:03] I don't know. OK, so back to this so parable, the sower in the seeds, OK, the seed is shown by the sea, produces fruit in good soil, and when it produces fruit, what's inside the seed? I mean, what's inside the fruit? Yeah, the seed is inside the fruit, right? OK, and so the seed is born again. [00:45:31] Does that make sense, yes. [00:45:33] Yeah, OK, and so born again, born again within the fruit, we know these people are not born again because there's no fruit for all who produce fruit are Jesus's disciples and a disciple knows their teacher. In fact, the definition of disciple is one who studies and follows their teacher to become exactly like that teacher. OK, that's kind of technically the definition of disciple. We know these aren't disciples because Jesus says, I never knew you. [00:46:09] There's no fruit. So if I were to ask, were these converts or disciples, what would you tell me? Converts. Hmm, yeah, converts, they receive the Seiver joy, they receive the good news, they look like Christians. But there's no fruit, there's no fruit because they're not disciples, so did they obtain eternal life? [00:46:36] No, no. [00:46:38] So do you see this pattern again, it's possible to call yourself a Christian, even to those Christian type works? But not truly be born again. Do you think maybe at some point these people that Jesus is talking about had actually, quote unquote, accepted Christ? [00:46:57] Yes, I do. So then what happened? [00:47:05] Too focused on works and doing instead of getting to know the Lord and being transformed by Jesus in them. [00:47:15] Yeah, to focus on works, to focus on themselves and Jesus. So if we go back to our last session on this topic, again, the parable is sweet and sour. We use a word called stewarding the soil that stewarded the seed well is the good soul that produced fruit. But when it's stewarded it poorly, it didn't produce fruit at all. And I think we can use that word here. These people accepted the seed, but they did not steward the seed because they weren't pursuing Christ, they were pursuing Christlike activities. Do you see the difference? Yeah, yeah. So now let's look at two more parables. That tie in, we're going to see a similar pattern and what I'm looking for here. I want to make sure you and everyone else sees this. There's this pattern and it's not a single time pattern over and over and over and over again. We start to see what the Lord is telling us by looking at the patterns of the parables. And as we move into our next session later, we're going to pull away from the parables and actually go into the epistles and what Jesus says, what Paul and Peter says. [00:48:33] And we start to start to see these things and now we start to piece together. These things have been really tough to understand. Now we start to see the pattern. It all starts to make sense. And now we see what the Lord is trying to tell us. So I'm going to read these because they're long and I'm just going to truncate some things along the way. But these are going to be the parables of the miners and the talents. OK, we'll start with the miners. You can open up your Bible to it if you want. I'll read it, though. It's 19 and we're going to basically read 19 verses, 12 through 26. So, Cirlot, the parable of the miners and the talents are two completely different parables, but they are very similar. And I think we're going to see some similar truths here. So starting with Luke 1912, he said. Therefore, Jesus says a nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and then return, calling ten of his servants. [00:49:29] He gave them ten miners and said to them, Engage in business until I come to the first came before him saying, Lord, your miner has made ten miners more. And he said to him, Well done, good servant, because you've been faithful and have very little, you shall have authority over ten cities. And the second came saying, Lord, your miner has made five miners. And he said to him, and you were to be over five cities. Then another servant came and said, Sir, here is your miner. I have kept it laid away in a piece of cloth. I was afraid of you because you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not. So his master replied, I will judge you by your own words, you wicked servant. You knew, did you, that I'm a hard man taking out what I did not put in and reaping what I did not. So why then? Then you put my money on deposit. So then when I came back I could have collected it with interest. Then he said to those standing by, take his mind away from him and give it to the one who has ten miners. Sir, they said he already has ten. He replied, I tell you that to everyone who has more will be given. But as for one who has nothing, even what they have will be taken away. All right. So let's ask a few questions about this parable to understand who is the nobleman being represented in this parable, do you think? [00:50:56] Jesus, yeah, so Jesus is a nobleman who are the servants? US, us as people and what was his command? [00:51:09] His command was to be about his business, to engage in his business until he tried to engage in business until I come. [00:51:18] And so does engage in business mean. [00:51:24] It means. [00:51:26] Do the business that I have given you to do. [00:51:30] Very good, I'm going to clarify just a little bit, if you don't mind, engage in business means to take what a noble men gave them and produce more of it for the nobleman's benefit. [00:51:45] Oh, does that make sense? [00:51:48] Mm hmm. Do you see do you see that as represented here? Yeah, yeah. OK, so how does this pattern resemble the parable of the sower? [00:52:02] Well, taking the seed, yeah. And producing more, so, yeah, producing more. [00:52:10] Yeah, you take the seed, you accept it, you steward it well, you produce fruit that has more seed in and we're producing more of what's been given to us. OK, so for the servant who did nothing, why was he called a wicked servant? [00:52:27] Because he didn't do what Jesus asked him to do, he didn't engage in business, he didn't engage in business. [00:52:34] Why do you think he did not? What do you think is the fundamental difference between the wicked servant versus the good and faithful servants? What is the primary difference? [00:52:47] Oh, well, the first word that comes to my head is laziness. [00:52:51] Ok. [00:52:53] I don't think that's it, so go back to what we just finished talking about with some of the other just a few moments ago, what did we do? What did we discuss in terms of the difference between a disciple and a convert? [00:53:08] What what causes the difference works versus someone who's pursuing their relationship, pursuing the growth. [00:53:18] Ok, yeah. So if we were to take that, here's what I would say. The question is. [00:53:25] For the servant who did nothing, why was he called Wicked? He was in my what I understand he did not value the noble man enough to work on his behalf. In other words, he he merely took but he did not serve in pursuit. Does that make sense? Yeah. [00:53:44] Yeah. It's only when you serve and pursue. You become a disciple if you're simply looking at it for what you get out of it and you treat it with contempt. You don't serve them per se. Does that make sense? [00:54:00] Mm hmm. OK, so then if we used. So then what happened to the one who did not serve and pursue but merely took and hid? [00:54:14] What happened to him? His his portion was taken from him and given to the one who had more, so what he had been given had been is now taken away. [00:54:25] Mm hmm. Is this this talking about spiritual things? Right. Yeah, wow, that's pretty scary, isn't it? It is, yeah. [00:54:34] Ok, so since this is a parable about Jesus and his servants, here's a question. Did all of the servants accept what Jesus gave them? Yes, ma'am, did all who accepted it enter into Jesus's blessings? [00:54:52] All that, the one. [00:54:55] Oh, OK, so if we lose so so if we go back to all who accept Jesus, go to heaven. [00:55:05] Base, if we're using this parable and the pattern we're seeing. I say there's a difference between merely accepting what Jesus gives and stewarding it, well, does that make sense? If we use the terms, convert and disciple on this, which of the servants would be converts and which of them would be disciples? [00:55:30] The first two would be Disciple's and the last one who didn't do anything with his portion would be the convert. [00:55:37] Yeah. All right. So let's we wrap this up. Let's read about the challenge. So this comes from Matthew, 25 versus 14 through 30. We're going to see the same pattern. OK, so Matthew, 25 versus 14 for he'll be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted to them his property to one. He gave five talents to another, two to another, one to each, according to his ability. Then he went away. He received the five talents win at once and traded with them, and he made five Tallas more. So also the one had the two talents made to tell us more. But the one he received, the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money. Now, after a long time the master, those servants came and settled accounts with them. He you five talents came forward bringing five talents, more same master you delivered to me five talents. Here I made five talents more. His master said to him, Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little. I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master. And he also, who had had the two talents, came forward saying Master, you deliver to me to talent. Here I have made two talents more. His master said to him, Well done, good and faithful servant. [00:56:57] You've been faithful over a little. I will set you overmuch enter into the joy of your master shortie. He also, who had received the one talent, came forward saying, Master, I knew you to be a hard man reaping where you did not. So in gathering where you get scared or no seed. So I was afraid and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is here. But his master answered him. You wicked and slothful servant. You knew that I where I have not sown and gather where I gather no seed over our shadow, no seed. Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers and that my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him and give it to him. Who has the ten talents for to everyone who has will more be given and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not even what he has will be taken away and cast the worthless serpent servant into the outer darkness. And that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth now again. So when the master gave the talents his servants, did he expect them to work on his behalf to bring increase? [00:58:14] Did each of those servants accept the talents? [00:58:17] They did. [00:58:19] And so what's the difference between the servants? [00:58:24] We have disciples and we have a convert again, yeah, yeah, one love the master and it says Win at once and traded with them. They eagerly worked on his behalf and eagerly came to the master, said, Look, Master, I got you even more. Sure. Like when you have a young child that comes and said, Daddy, Daddy or Mommy, Mommy, look what I did for you all eager because they want to please you, right? Mm hmm. The last one simply dug a hole and hid it in the ground, doing nothing to benefit his master, not master, always demanding of me. He gives me this money, says do business. I I don't care, I'm going to throw it in the ground and give it back to them, right. [00:59:12] No concern for his master. So did the servant who did nothing. Look like the other servants of the master, do you think? [00:59:23] Yes, yeah, he probably dressed the same. So these are servants of the master, so they probably had uniforms, they had probably protocols, they probably had some prestige among the community because they work for the master. And looking at them, you couldn't tell any difference. But what happened to that servant, the wicked one? What happened to him? [00:59:45] He was cast out. What was what was given to him was taken away. Then he was cast out and then he was cast out. [00:59:52] So do you see any parallels with all these other parables? Mm hmm. [00:59:57] A lot of a lot of patterns here. Right. And they all point to the same thing. So this is the key. When you start to see everything point to the same focal point, you start to pick up. This is important, right? This is something God is saying over and over and over again. We're going to see this a little bit more on the next sessions. But let me just kind of wrap up some things I think are the takeaways. All right. So the parable of the summer shows that the key. Is we have to steward what we've been given. We see that in the parable of the talents, in the parable of the miners. We see this throughout scripture. We've got a steward it if you value something a lot, you'll steward it. Well, if you value it little, you won't steward it at all. Does that make sense? Yes. OK, that's what we see in all of these parables. Are you stewarding what you've been given and both of these parables? The servants who value the master. Took what the master entrusted them. And worked on the master's behalf, you know, the question I saw like to ask is, are we taking what the Lord has given us and working on his behalf or are we taking what the Lord has given us and simply using it on our behalf? That's I think that's kind of the critical point here that that's being communicated. Those who did all the Christian like things, they were working on their behalf. [01:01:27] Did we not heal the sick, cast out demons, do all these mighty works? So. So if we were to then go back to kind of summing this up, a convert is that person who accepts what is given without valuing the giver. A disciple accepts what is given and values the giver so much that they steward well, that which was given them. So we it comes back to where is your focus? We see this in the parable of the merchant of fine pearls or the parable that the treasure in the field where they sell everything they've got because they want it so much, they pursue it. If we use kind of Christian these terms, you know, they've all been given like if we just look at the talents in the minus, they'd all been given the million minus or talents. They've been given the gift of salvation. They all accepted the gift. But only those who stewarded it obtained the gift. And the gift was removed from those who did not. So same thing we saw in the poor soils. So kind of the big take away. A couple of other things we see on this actually. Now the big take away. Yeah, but there's one more pattern that we see in these two parables. So the minus and the talents. One more thing. Do you know what that one thing that they have in common is? [01:02:58] Hmm. [01:03:02] There were three every time. [01:03:05] Oh, that's a good pattern, yes, there's three three is three is a whole number, right? OK, so there's there's something there. OK, it's a whole truth with holy. [01:03:17] No, the thing I saw it and saw is they all occur over a period of time. OK, in other words, I think this is what Jesus is saying, telling us. You can't assess the heart immediately. It takes time to see the fruit of the heart and over time. OK, what one does? Well, evidence what their heart is truly like. And it's only the ones with a true heart for Jesus who will enter his kingdom. And and so I think that's kind of the message here. A lot of it is is the one with a true heart. The other thing that's been convicting of me as I go through this is the focus of discipleship. And if you think about discipleship, so a lot of times a lot of us, you know, we want Converse, go share the gospel list, bring in, you know, bring people to salvation, which is good. Definitely not criticizing that, but it's a focus is sharing the gospel, bringing people to salvation. [01:04:24] Then what's happening afterwards, the way I see it, this is a low image the Lord gave me, not a vision, but just kind of well thought in my mind is it's like raising kids, OK, you birth a child and then for the next 18 or 20 years, you're nurturing and training that child and disciplining them and helping them grow to maturity. And all your focus is on those few children. And then they go do the same thing. OK, but it's not you just go berserk, you know, 30, 40, 50 kids and just, you know, have at it and hope you do well. OK, so I think there's a time to, you know, really focus on making sure that we're raising disciples and not just converts. [01:05:11] Yeah, that's really good. [01:05:13] All right. So we got to wrap up. But any thoughts? Anything hit you? [01:05:19] Oh, gosh. Just so Eye-Opening, you know, I mean, I know these passages. I recognize them all, but it's just so good to kind of dig a little deeper and really get to the heart. I love how the heart of the father was portrayed with the same tree that was producing fruit. I love how I think that would be my encouragement to anyone who's listening, who feels like I've messed up. I can't. I was too late for me, that kind of thing. I've just created way too many things, that kind of thing that the heart of the father is always to restore. And I just love how that was evident in that scripture. You know, that he is the God of second, third, fourth, fifth chances, you know, because his heart just wants you to be connected with him. [01:06:06] So you lost that and he gives time. I've got to read one saying this. This is a bonus, Jeremiah. Eighteen. Okay, because it talks on that. Jeremiah Yeah. For those people who may be saying it's too late for me, I've done so much bad, I've known the good, but I've kept going after the bad. Let me share what Jeremiah God says. And Jeremiah, he says, this is Jeremiah starting with FF7 If at any time I declare to a nation that I will pluck it up and break it down and destroy it because it's been evil and wicked, and if that nation then turns from its evil, I will relent to the disaster I promised it. What God is saying is judgment is coming. But if you simply relent or repent, this is what John the Baptist said at the, you know, bear fruit. In keeping with repentance, the Lord says, I am quick to relent if you will simply repent. And he keeps relending. [01:07:11] Yeah, he does. And that relenting is changing his mind. He changes his mind. I think there's actually a translation of scripture that reads it that way, that he will change his mind. And I love that I do, too. [01:07:24] All right. Well, let's wrap it up. [01:07:26] Well, baby, thank you so much for today. This was so great. And I'm just encouraged by, again, just all the time and effort that you put into studying and preparing for all the listeners. And I hope this has been an encouragement to everyone. And I look forward to our next call and I hope that everyone can join us again. [01:07:47] Amen. We all have a great day. [01:07:49] Thank you so much. Bye. P023
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Please ignore any speech-to-text errors) [00:00:04] Well, hello, everyone, thank you so much for joining us today. I'm super excited and welcome to this next session of Get Sellers Calling You with Beatty Carmichael. Beatty is the CEO of Master Grabber, the creator of Agent Dominator and one of the top marketing experts in the real estate field. Beatty, I am super excited about our call today. What do you have for our listeners? [00:00:28] Well, I am very excited about it as well, Penny, because I get to do today what I love doing. And sometimes I pinch myself saying, Lord, do I really get paid to do this stuff? And the answer is yes, ultimately. So we're going to do not a real estate marketing call. We're going to do a radical face call for those who may be new to us. As a reminder, we do two types of calls. So if you're here for real estate marketing, that's not going to be the topic of today's call. The topic is going to be living as a Christian, and what all of that type of stuff means. So if you want to enjoy that, please continue listening. Otherwise, you can turn off this episode and come back to our next one. So what I want to do when we talked last time, Penny, on the topic, Do all who accept Christ go to heaven? Do you remember that topic? [00:01:26] Yes, I do. I do. [00:01:28] Ok, well today we're going into part two, OK? And next time when we do, another radical faith call will be it part three. And I'm not sure if it's going to be three or four parts, but is this really incredibly exciting for me and very interesting. And I think there are a lot of deep application in terms of what we do with our lives that come out of it. So I want to go into that. So this is a quick review. We started last time with some statements that Jesus made and now we're going to test your memory. Do you remember what those statements Jesus made that we started? [00:02:11] It was something that has to do with we were talking about do all people go to heaven if they get saved or the all believers go to heaven? And it was something it was something along the lines of, all right, that's OK. [00:02:27] That's OK. Yeah, no, that's OK. [00:02:30] Hey, I got it written in front of me. You don't. So that's the key. Oh so the gospels have four times God found is so important. They put four times in the gospel, the basic statement by Jesus that the one who endures to the end will be saved. Yes. Yes. The one who endures to the end by your endurance, you will gain your lives. Okay, so the question was. What in the world has Jesus talking about? So let me ask you a question. When Jesus teaches that you must endure to the end to be saved, does that mean that some people don't endure to the end? [00:03:11] Yes. [00:03:13] And therefore they don't endure to the end. They're not saved. [00:03:18] That's correct. They're not going to go to heaven. [00:03:20] Yeah, and that interesting and yet we think. Huh? OK, so we talked last time on the parable of the Sower, one of the most important parables, because it's the only one that is in all three synoptic gospels. Matthew, Mark Luke is the only one that is in its entirety in all three gospels is the only one that is fully interpreted by Jesus in all three gospels and is the only one that Jesus says, if you don't understand this one, how can you understand any of the parables? So it's kind of like the key, the master key that unlocks every single parable if you dig into it. And what we learned in the parable of the Sower is several things just in a quick review. OK, so you have a sower, we assume the soldiers us, OK, it's not very clear, but go out and you sow the seed everywhere. The seed is the word of the kingdom. And do you remember who the word of the kingdom is? If you were to put a name Jesus. Right. So where it is. So Jesus everywhere and some falls on the path and birch take it away. It's rejected. Some fall in on Iraqi soil. They accept it with enthusiasm. And as soon as the sun comes up because there's no root, it withers. Then some falls on the thorny soil. [00:04:44] Ok, we call that soil number three. If we do soil one, two, three, four. So the stony soil falls among the thorns. It grows up into a plant. It grows up with the thorns, but there's no fruit. And then there's the for soil good soil that it produces some 60, some 30, some 100 salt, OK? And Jesus and Jesus says only the see that falls in the good soil is good. And you have to produce fruit and so what we kind of came through with all of that is that three soils accepted Jesus to some degree. You know, the rocky soil accepted the seed enough that it produced something. But there were no roots. The thorny soil accepted the seed. It actually went in the ground. It produced roots because we know now plant grew, but it was bad. And then the fourth soil, the soil accepted the seed, accepted Jesus and produced fruit. And so what we start to understand is put this parable is telling us, I believe, is that not everyone who accepts Jesus goes to heaven. Not everyone who accepts Jesus actually produces fruit. We also describe that fruit is the womb of a seed is for the seed is formed. And so what Jesus is telling us and we're going to get into this today a little bit more, that unless you're unless Christ is formed in you and you're producing more of Christ, then you're not good. Okay, so that's kind of where we ended up. Any questions or any thoughts on that before we move forward? [00:06:33] No, just such a good reminder. Such a good refresher from last week. So I'm looking forward to this week. [00:06:41] Good. I am too. So we covered one quick topic last time and wrapping up. And I want to I want to focus on this more today. And that's the difference between converts and disciples. So let me just cut in that. What we talked a convert is one who accepts Christ. A disciple is a convert who pursues Christ. Does that make sense? [00:07:10] Yeah, yeah, OK. [00:07:12] And and so it's kind of like a two step process. First, you accept Christ, but accepting Christ. Doesn't mean you go to heaven, it's what happens after there, so you accept Christ and then you pursue Christ. Now, this is not saying we're going to kind of touch on this maybe in a later session, OK? The question is, if you're currently a bad soul, can you become a good soil? That's not the topic of this call, OK? This isn't the topic of once I accept Christ, do I have to do something special? That's not the topic. All I'm saying is very clearly there is evidential difference between good soil, bad soil. And so let's look at it and then let's also analyze it within our lives. So what we find is not all converts go to heaven. But all disciples do all right. And then, John, 15 eight, this is Jesus, and he says by by this, my father is glorified, that you bear much fruit. And so can you finish this sentence on that? [00:08:21] And so go and bear fruit and so prove to be my disciples, right, when you bear much fruit, you prove to be my disciples. [00:08:31] And this is what Jesus is talking about. This is, by the way, the great commission go and make converts of all the nations. Now go and make disciples of all the nations. And so there's something there about this mandate. So with that, I now want to move in to where we're going to be talking about today and it's really quite fascinating. I like to look at what John the Baptist had to say about frit. By the way, this is now trivia. Do you recall anything John the Baptist said about fruit? [00:09:08] So. Wow. Mm hmm. [00:09:12] I don't know, off the top of my head, so let's turn to Matthew three verses eight, nine and 10 and let's see what he says about fruit. [00:09:25] Bear fruit in keeping with repentance and did not presume to say to yourselves, we have Abraham is our father, for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now, the axes laid to the root of the tree. Every tree, therefore, does not bear good fruit that does not bear good for it. Cut down and thrown into the fire. [00:09:52] Ok, just a little back. Back up. Scripture uses the metaphor trees a lot as representing men. OK, so that's why you see this. The access to the trees, every tree that does not bear fruit when he's talking to people and he says bear fruit with keeping with repentance. So when you see the word tree, typically that's going to be speaking about men when there are different types of trees, is talking about different types of men or the human race. Not always, but that's one of the things. So what does this say that what type of fruit are we to bear? Fruit that keeps with resentence fruit that keeps with repentance, so let's go back and cover one thing that's really important. When we read the Bible, the Bible is a book written by a single author, God himself. And when we when we see common terms throughout, there are always going to have something. They're always going to mean about the same thing or typically. OK, so you have just as we talked about last time, you have characters in a book. And if a character named John is introduced at the beginning, the book, then when the author calls out John toward the end of the book is the same. John is the same person. In this case. We have the character of fruit. The last time we talked about with a state in the sower that the good soil produces fruit, we had to understand what fruit is. But here John the Baptist is talking about fruit bear fruit in keeping with repentance. So we kind of understand that what John the Baptist is talking about is the same thing Jesus has been talking about. Does that make sense? Mm hmm. Yeah. OK, so this fruit is fruit in keeping with repentance. Here's something also interesting. What was the message that Jesus came preaching to you? Remember what that message was? [00:11:58] The kingdom of God is here or now, but there's one one part right before that. [00:12:03] Do you remember what it was? It was an action and love, love one another now repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. OK. Oh, so close your so close. So there's something about repentance that's really important when we talk about healing later, whenever the Lord guides me in that direction, repentance is really a key part of of that. So so we are to bear fruit of repentance, OK, if we don't bear fruit. [00:12:38] What does John's passage say is going to happen. [00:12:43] Hmm. [00:12:46] Well, if we don't, it says that every tree or person that is not very good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. [00:12:54] Ouch. You think what do you think that's actually going spiritually? What is he communicating? [00:13:03] Going to heaven, crash and crash and burn. [00:13:05] Yeah, OK, right, OK, so we see this thing about trees. We see this thing about fruit. We see this thing about an axe cutting down a tree and we see this thing about being burned. OK, do you recall any other parables that Jesus uses about a tree being cut down? [00:13:30] I do not. [00:13:32] All right, turn with me to Luke, 13 versus six through nine. This is the parable of the barren fig tree, OK? [00:13:45] Oh, now you remember, right? OK, yes. So let's read the parable of the barren fig tree and what we're looking for. OK, this is let me kind of give you the Cliff Notes version of all this. God works in patterns. You see the same pattern throughout scripture in all kinds of areas. Last time we saw this pattern of something about fruit is important to being, you know, going to heaven. If we want to use that term, that's really to being part of the kingdom of God is the better term. [00:14:15] And we saw that a lot of people produce something, but they didn't produce fruit. The soils produced a plant to some degree. And so we see this pattern. And I want you to be looking for the patterns as we go through. So let's read about the parable of the barren fig tree, OK? [00:14:33] And he told this parable a man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vine dresser, Look, for three years now, I have come seeking fruit on the fig tree and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground? And he answered him, sir, let it alone this year also until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good. But if not, you can cut it down. [00:15:08] Hmm. Wow. OK, so it's not bearing fruit. John talks about bear fruit with keeping with repentance or you get cut down. This is talking about it's not bearing fruit. Let's cut it down. All right. So we have some patterns and similarities there. Here's the question. Does a good tree produce good fruit? [00:15:28] Yes, and how do we know that? [00:15:34] Well, that's a good tree. Then that's its nature, its nature is to produce. OK, all right, so nature is wrong with it. It's going to it's going to reproduce itself, right? [00:15:48] Ok, so seed reproduces after kind. Good. All right. Let's go real quickly. You don't have to turn there, but let's look at what Jesus says. It's in Luke 643 and he says for no good tree bears, bad fruit. Nor again, does a battery bear good fruit for each tree is known by its own fruit. So does a good tree produce good fruit according to Jesus? The answer is yes. OK, so now we're using trees. OK, keep in mind, the metaphor is mankind. Jesus is saying no good man produces bad fruit. Every man will be known after the fruit he produces. OK, there's a way to look at it. So if a tree produces no fruit, is it a good tree? [00:16:37] No, and why is that how do we know that because Jesus just said it, a good tree is going to produce good fruit, right? [00:16:47] Yeah, yeah. Parable of the sower. Only the good soil. The good soil is known because it produced fruit. Jesus said that. By this, my father's glorified that you bear much fruit and so proved to be my disciples, so we know that a good tree will always produce good fruit. A tree without fruit is not good. That's soil number three. If you recall, the plant grew up but produce no fruit. OK, so that's kind of where we are here. Let me give you a little background also. This is interesting, the background on the fig tree. So throughout scripture, the fig tree, in fact, do you know what the fig tree represents throughout scripture? Did you know that? Did you know that it represented something? [00:17:39] I know I did not. [00:17:41] All right, so there are two trees that are used all throughout scripture, sometimes are used in the same passages, sometimes are used differently. One is the fig tree. Do you remember what the other one is? [00:17:52] My guess would be an olive tree. [00:17:54] Yeah, so you have fig trees and olive trees. The question is, what are they? OK, so here we go back to patterns again. Same thing as Paul talks about. The pattern of not all who are descended of Abraham are Abraham's descendants. You remember him saying that? I think it's in Romans. OK, what is he talking about? Abraham had a physical bloodline and Abraham had a spiritual bloodline. The physical bloodline is a shadow of the spiritual, but it's not the spiritual. And we see this thing with fig trees. So throughout scripture, the fig tree represents the chosen people of Israel, of the natural. OK, you can call it the physical descendants of Abraham. And within that physical descendants, it's in a sense, it's death. OK, that's that's why you see all the time the fig tree without any fruit. That's why this parable is the fig tree that's going to be cut down. But then you have the olive tree and the olive tree represents the chosen people, a betrayal of the promise. These are the spiritual descendants of Abraham. And in a sense, the olive tree is always represented with life. [00:19:11] All the fig trees always represented with death and saying, yeah, and an interesting. [00:19:18] So just as the natural the natural world is a shadow of the spirit world, then the people of Israel, the fig tree is a shadow of the people or the promise represented by the olive tree. So that's kind of what we're seeing here. We've got this parable, the bear and fig tree. The fig tree, by the way, is there do you recall any other place in the Gospels where there's a barren fig tree? [00:19:51] Hmm, I do feel like this story is brought up again, but I don't remember where Jesus is going into Jerusalem. [00:20:01] Oh, yes, yes. You see the fig tree and leave. He walks over to get some fruit and there's none there and there's none. [00:20:09] And it's not the season of fruit. It's not the season of fruit. And he curses it. Why do you think he curses the fig tree? [00:20:18] When it's not the season for fruit, I don't know, I've always wondered that because I've always just thought that that was one of those moments in Scripture where it's just showing the sense of humor of God. [00:20:32] Ok, so if we if we say I digress, but this is important, is fun. So the fig tree represents the natural Israel and sin and death, even though it's not the season for figs, as a believer, it's always the season for fruit. This is why you read through revelations and and other passages like in Psalms and other places where you have visions of the heavenly realm and the trees and the plants are always producing fruit all the time. There is no season without fruit. It's always the season for fruit because there's always a season for life. OK, and so Jesus curse, is it the same as the natural descendants of Abraham had been cast with death because they're in bondage to sin, ruled by death, made a covenant with death when Adam fell. OK, and and so you see all these all these patterns, imageries and all these concepts kind of coming together in this one image of Jesus cursing the fig tree. And so we kind of have something similar here. OK, so we have this fig tree. So Israel had been chosen and set apart by God from among all the nations. OK, so this is where you have kind of the chosen people. And Israel had been given gods promise of salvation. Right in that tree, an issue with God's own people, but yet here's what's interesting. Turn with me real quickly, John, 111, so so I want I want to give you this picture, it all ties back into this barren fig tree parable we're talking about here. So the picture is. God had chosen Israel, God had given Israel the promise. Israel was God's people, OK, and now let's read what happens, John, 111, can you read that? [00:22:50] He came to his own disguise, right? [00:22:54] So Jesus came into his own OK, now, now finish it and his own people did not receive him. [00:23:00] Hmm. OK, so his own people did not receive him. So we have kind of this this thing. This is the victory. OK, so now let's move back to the parable of the barren fig tree, 13, six and nine. What do you think this parable is telling us? [00:23:22] Oh. [00:23:27] Well, if we're relating it to what you just kind of give that description, the fig tree and the physical nature of the descendants of Abraham and bondage to them, then the fig tree. Who was in bondage, bondage to sin is not going to produce fruit. [00:23:48] There's no loss almost that that may be a little too much, so so the parable is going to be giving basically one simple point that Jesus trying to make. Let's look at the let's look at the key aspects of the parable first. OK, man has a fig tree. The man comes seeking fruit. There is none. He says, cut it down. OK, those are the basic elements of the parable. So what this tells us is that if you don't produce fruit, you get cut down. [00:24:18] Right? OK, yeah. [00:24:21] And cut down. What do you think that means? [00:24:28] Removed from your purpose, yeah, is it you think this is similar to what John the Baptist was saying just a moment ago? The axe is laid at the root of the trees, and if you don't produce fruit, you'll get cut down and thrown into the fire, right? [00:24:42] Yeah. Yeah. [00:24:43] Ok, so that's I think it's what's talking here is you can get cut down and discarded that purpose that you're talking about for which you've been there, you're going to lose. All right. So but what about the vine dresser? This is real interesting. It says that a man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard. Where do we where do we hear about a vineyard and a vine dresser? Does anything come to mind? [00:25:12] Yes. Jesus. He says, I am the vine dresser and we are the vine almost. No, sorry. I'm sorry. We are his the vine. The father is a vine dresser. [00:25:24] That's right. There are the branches. We are the branches, not the fruit that. Yeah. So John, that's John Tuffin one. So let's go there real quick. I want to show you something. OK, we're just going to read what you just said, basically, John, verse one. [00:25:41] Yeah, I am the true vine and my father is the vine dresser. [00:25:46] Ok, so now we have again characters. The olive tree is planted in the vineyard and the owner comes and talks to the vine dresser. Do you see all these pictures coming together now? OK, so in the vineyard, Jesus is the true vine. He's the olive tree is in the presence of Jesus. The Vineyard, who is the father is there. And the owner says to the to the father, God, the father cut it down. Now read what the vine dresser says. I want you to see this. This is really cool. [00:26:25] This is verse eight, right? Yeah, OK. And he answered him. The vines are the the dangerous, right? Yeah. He answered him, sir. [00:26:36] Let it alone this year also until I dig around it and put on the newer. [00:26:44] Yeah, then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good, but if not, you can cut it down. [00:26:52] Oh, so this is the vine dresser. This is God, the father saying, hey, before we cut this down. Let me work on it special, let me give it special attention, let me let me dig around it, put in manure, let me really do everything I can to give it every opportunity to produce fruit and then if it does well and good, but if it doesn't, then let's cut it down. And that interesting. The heart of the father. [00:27:23] Yes, he's the God of second chances. [00:27:26] He's got a second chance for us. That's right. [00:27:30] And we actually see this same picture. And John, 15. So Rejon 15 first to. [00:27:41] Ok. [00:27:43] When they get back, they're looking to all right. Every branch and me that does not bear fruit. He takes away in every branch that does bear fruit. He pretends that it may bear more fruit. [00:27:59] Okay, perfect. So every branch that does not bear fruit he takes away. There's actually different ways to translate that takes away. And when we look at scripture, it's always multidimensional. Sometimes there's a lot more meaning than just one simple meaning. And so one way to translate in which most Bibles translate as he takes away. But another way you can translate that same word that's been used takeaway is to lift up. So you get kind of the image of if I'm a vine dresser and I'm in the vine is very valuable. This is business. This is what produces livelihood. So I'm not going to just willy nilly, you know, get rid of a branch just because it doesn't produce. I'm going to work with it. Tender care, because if I can get it producing fruit, it's worth a lot. So one way to interpret this is the vine dresser. Every branch that does not bear fruit, he lifts up the idea. You pull it up out of the ground, out of the dirt, you take the dirt off and wipe the dirt off the leaves so they can have sunshine and then you tie it up on the trestle so they can be in the sun and give an opportunity to produce fruit. But then if it doesn't produce fruit, he takes it away. [00:29:17] Does that make sense? Mm hmm. Is that cool? Yeah, it's a great picture. [00:29:22] So that's the same thing we see with this parable of the barren fig tree. Hey, let me give it more time and let me work with it to see if it can produce fruit. It shows the heart of the father really wants to give us every opportunity to produce that fruit. So so now with that, let's start looking a little bit deeper into some questions about this barren fig tree. Did the barren fig tree look like a mature, a mature tree? In other words, had it matured? [00:29:59] No. [00:30:01] Ok, so let me ask you, do you think it was standing tall like a normal tree? [00:30:10] Possibly. [00:30:12] Ok, yeah, OK, if for the owner to come look for the owner to come looking for fruit, should there have been fruit there? Yes, OK, it should have been, which means it's mature enough to have been producing fruit, does that make sense? Yes. OK, so it's mature enough by age and by visual appearance to be producing crude. So. So it's probably at the normal height of other trees that produce fruit, other fig trees, right? Mm hmm. Do you think it has limbs and leaves? [00:30:51] Yeah, probably. [00:30:52] Ok, so appearance wise, it looks like a mature plant. But the problem is there's no fruit. OK, so here's what I think Jesus is also teaching on this. [00:31:08] The same thing we get from Parable of the Sower and some others will say if it's possible for someone to look like a Christian, think he's a Christian because he accepted Christ at some point and may even do Christian like deeds, OK, but still be dead and not born again. That's what you have with this this fig tree. It looks like a healthy fig tree. The only difference is there's no fruit, but everything else about it visually is it looks like it's like a normal fig tree. Does that make sense? [00:31:44] Yeah. Yeah, OK. [00:31:46] And the problem is there's no fruit. [00:31:48] If we use to take this metaphor out and kind of convert it to what seems to be saying how we would phrase it based on the parable of the sower is. There's no Christ being formed in that person. And and if there's no Chrispin been formed in that person, then spiritually that person is dead. [00:32:11] Makes sense. [00:32:12] Yeah, it does OK, because we're only alive in Christ. So based on the four soils of the parable of the sower, which soil would you say that this tree is planted in or represent? [00:32:28] I would say three because yeah, yeah, it's growing and it has leaves and branches and like you said, looked fully mature and like it should have fruit on it. [00:32:40] Yeah, exactly. So this is that soil. Number three, this is why the fig tree is used throughout scriptures that barren, that barrenness. How many people would you think there are who call themselves Christians and look like this fig tree? They look like a Christian, but they bear no fruit while. [00:33:04] I hate to say there's probably way more than. [00:33:08] Then I would want to admit that there are yeah, do you think they think that they're Christians? [00:33:15] Yes, absolutely, yeah, we see this even with Israel. [00:33:19] They thought they were the chosen race, we're all going to heaven because we're part of Abraham. Paul says no. You know, you're you're you're not. OK, so I want to share just a little personal comment on this, because this is actually how all of this study got started for me. So I have a personal friend, a dear family friend named Rich. His parents and my parents have been best friends. His parents were in my parents' wedding. I believe it goes back that far. We've done things with Rich and his family. We've been really close. They've been down to our family farm a lot. And and what happened is in ultra high school, Rich was way a column kind of a hoodlum hurdle may be the wrong word, but he was just way off track. He was chasing the girls, chasing the drugs, chasing, you know, chasing everything. And he was absolutely not a Christian. He gets into college. He goes even more over the deep end there, and then something happens. He's presented with the gospel, he hears it, he receives it with joy, and there's life change in his life, he starts to pull back and stop some of these abhorrent behavioral type of activities he's been doing. And then he gets married and he's later on after college, he starts a Bible study at his home. Lots of people come. They share the gospel. Lots of people claim he claims to accept Christ. And then we start to work together. [00:35:06] He actually worked here with our business for about a year, just over a year, and during that entire time, I saw no evidence at all of Christ being in him. He lives a life of extreme bitterness. He pursues women even now. [00:35:28] He doesn't touch them, to my knowledge, but he sure does pursue them. He pursues riches and wealth that he cannot get, that he cannot get. And everything is very kind of superficial. And so he's even suing me. OK, believe it or not, I'm on something. And through all of this, there's no bitterness in my heart for him. There's only this love and compassion. And as I pray for him and as I analyze what's going on and constant the thing that keeps coming to mine, Lord, is my friend saved. I know he accepted Christ. I know there was a change in lifestyle, but I see no evidence of Christ. And so my it was my concern for my friend that started me digging, taking a deep dive. And what does the scripture say? Does everyone who accept Christ go to heaven? Okay. And and so that's kind of where we are today. And that's what prompted all this. So let me yeah, it's really interesting. So the Lord takes even difficult circumstances in your life and produces good from it. That doesn't mean he's the orchestrator of just like we talked about a while back with the story of Joseph. Okay. You know, if God is sovereign and control, does that mean everything that happens is his will? OK. And even though God did not orchestrate the evil that happened in Joseph's life, he leveraged it to produce the good that he had for Joseph. So that's kind of how this came out. Let me talk as we're talking on this topic of. People who believe they are Christians, people who have accepted Christ at some point, and, you know, my friend Rich, you know, he received a gospel with joy, just like soil number two on the stony ground. [00:37:29] And it actually produced a plant that looked mature. But but my perception of what's going on is it's being choked out by all of the other thorns in life, by the way, sawn OK, in small number three, if you look at thorns as a metaphor, as a character throughout the Bible, it's usually used to on what chokes out life. All right. Everywhere you see Soren's, you can kind of translate somewhat loosely, but translate something is choking life out of this. And if you go back and read, you'll see that you see that common theme. So so the thorns choke out the life of of what's there. But I want to talk on this. There's another parable called I Never Knew You, or at least that's what I call it. Let's turn to Matthew seven versus 21 through 23. So there's word on this topic of the fig tree. The fig tree thinks it's a good tree, but it's not because it produces no fruit. My friend Rich calls himself a Christian, and he may be I'm not I'm not rendering judgment, but I'm rendering observation observationally. I see no fruit. The question is, is it possible to accept Christ and not go to heaven? And so let's read another parable. OK, keep in mind, the parable of the sower unlocks all the parables. So you will see this pattern. Are you ready to read it? [00:38:57] Yes. All right. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my father, who is in heaven. On that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, didn't we prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name. And then will I declare to them, I never knew you depart from me. Workers of lawlessness. [00:39:27] Ouch. [00:39:28] That's pretty painful in it, that's stinging words, that's what we call the stinging words. [00:39:34] Yeah, so so let's ask a real simple question on this one. OK, were these people focused on works or fruit? [00:39:45] Works. How do we know that? [00:39:49] Because everything it talks about them doing is they work, oh, did we not prophesying your name, cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name. All right. So what's the difference between works and. [00:40:06] What do you think, um. [00:40:10] Work is to me, this is just my personal opinion, which to me is what you can benefit or gain for yourself, whether it's notoriety or a favor. And then fruit to me comes from the overflow. It's just what's in you and it comes out by itself. [00:40:32] Ok, I think that's very accurate. Very fair. I was summarize it slightly different. Not that that it's a different understanding. It has a different route of of source works is what you do. But fruit is Christ formed in you. Does that make sense? Yeah. And if crisis formed in you, then he lives through you. And therefore, what you do in action, what you do is from him and not you, and that's the difference between works and free. It's what you do versus Christ doing it through you. And the other thing about works in fruit, as I start to think about this deeper think about this works is created in this in this topic of what we're talking about with this terrible works is created by pursuing the activities of Christ. While fruit is created by pursuing the person of Christ. Yeah, yeah. And so when we look at what we do in a lot and I'm going through this series because, you know, the Lord has called me in ministry, I'm a full time minister, secretly describes disguised as a business owner. [00:41:55] And he has called me to do these radical faith podcasts and teachings to teach his people that they may step more boldly out by faith, solidly on God's word and produce fruit. OK. And and that's kind of why all this comes up and why this is, quote unquote, intermingled with business, because the whole purpose for the businesses to do this stuff. [00:42:22] And but what's interesting is. I was going somewhere with that, let me back up, let me figure out where I was going to work. This created by pursuing the activities of Christ. And fruit is created by pursuing the person of Christ and. When you pursue Christ. Then fruit is automatically produced, so we need to take an introspective look at ourselves and our loved ones and ask, what are we really doing? Are we pursuing the Christian activities? [00:42:58] Oh, I want to go kill. I want, you know, give me this gift of healing. I want to tung's gift of tongues or I want to, you know, go help the poor and serve the widows. Are you doing those because you want to be found in favor with the Lord or are you doing those because they emanate from the Lord pulling you through it, wanting to do it through you, because you're pursuing the Lord as opposed to pursuing the work? I think that's kind of really where I want to go and hit on with this is we have to say, you know, what's what's driving us? Are we the tree with no fruit? Are we these people that Jesus says, I never knew you. So let me now let's have some questions about this parable. Back to the parable. So, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, cast out demons in your name. Too many mind works in your name. And Jesus said, I never knew you depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. So do you think these people looked and acted like Christians? [00:44:06] Absolutely. [00:44:08] Yeah. They even did the activities that Christians do. Dendi Yeah. [00:44:12] I was going to say they did activities that a lot of Christians can't do. [00:44:17] That's right. Yeah. So they saw a lot of times you see someone who prays for healing and the person's heal and you think that guy is really spiritual or someone who gets a, you know, prophecy or does somebody we think they're spiritual, but according to this, they could be dead. Right? So they looked and acted like Christians. Were they born again? [00:44:42] Oh, well, according to Jesus, no. [00:44:46] Well, according to Jesus is a good place to be according to you, right? OK. Yeah, OK. So no, how do we know that they're not born again? [00:45:03] I don't know. OK, so back to this so parable, the sower in the seeds, OK, the seed is shown by the sea, produces fruit in good soil, and when it produces fruit, what's inside the seed? I mean, what's inside the fruit? Yeah, the seed is inside the fruit, right? OK, and so the seed is born again. [00:45:31] Does that make sense, yes. [00:45:33] Yeah, OK, and so born again, born again within the fruit, we know these people are not born again because there's no fruit for all who produce fruit are Jesus's disciples and a disciple knows their teacher. In fact, the definition of disciple is one who studies and follows their teacher to become exactly like that teacher. OK, that's kind of technically the definition of disciple. We know these aren't disciples because Jesus says, I never knew you. [00:46:09] There's no fruit. So if I were to ask, were these converts or disciples, what would you tell me? Converts. Hmm, yeah, converts, they receive the Seiver joy, they receive the good news, they look like Christians. But there's no fruit, there's no fruit because they're not disciples, so did they obtain eternal life? [00:46:36] No, no. [00:46:38] So do you see this pattern again, it's possible to call yourself a Christian, even to those Christian type works? But not truly be born again. Do you think maybe at some point these people that Jesus is talking about had actually, quote unquote, accepted Christ? [00:46:57] Yes, I do. So then what happened? [00:47:05] Too focused on works and doing instead of getting to know the Lord and being transformed by Jesus in them. [00:47:15] Yeah, to focus on works, to focus on themselves and Jesus. So if we go back to our last session on this topic, again, the parable is sweet and sour. We use a word called stewarding the soil that stewarded the seed well is the good soul that produced fruit. But when it's stewarded it poorly, it didn't produce fruit at all. And I think we can use that word here. These people accepted the seed, but they did not steward the seed because they weren't pursuing Christ, they were pursuing Christlike activities. Do you see the difference? Yeah, yeah. So now let's look at two more parables. That tie in, we're going to see a similar pattern and what I'm looking for here. I want to make sure you and everyone else sees this. There's this pattern and it's not a single time pattern over and over and over and over again. We start to see what the Lord is telling us by looking at the patterns of the parables. And as we move into our next session later, we're going to pull away from the parables and actually go into the epistles and what Jesus says, what Paul and Peter says. [00:48:33] And we start to start to see these things and now we start to piece together. These things have been really tough to understand. Now we start to see the pattern. It all starts to make sense. And now we see what the Lord is trying to tell us. So I'm going to read these because they're long and I'm just going to truncate some things along the way. But these are going to be the parables of the miners and the talents. OK, we'll start with the miners. You can open up your Bible to it if you want. I'll read it, though. It's 19 and we're going to basically read 19 verses, 12 through 26. So, Cirlot, the parable of the miners and the talents are two completely different parables, but they are very similar. And I think we're going to see some similar truths here. So starting with Luke 1912, he said. Therefore, Jesus says a nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and then return, calling ten of his servants. [00:49:29] He gave them ten miners and said to them, Engage in business until I come to the first came before him saying, Lord, your miner has made ten miners more. And he said to him, Well done, good servant, because you've been faithful and have very little, you shall have authority over ten cities. And the second came saying, Lord, your miner has made five miners. And he said to him, and you were to be over five cities. Then another servant came and said, Sir, here is your miner. I have kept it laid away in a piece of cloth. I was afraid of you because you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not. So his master replied, I will judge you by your own words, you wicked servant. You knew, did you, that I'm a hard man taking out what I did not put in and reaping what I did not. So why then? Then you put my money on deposit. So then when I came back I could have collected it with interest. Then he said to those standing by, take his mind away from him and give it to the one who has ten miners. Sir, they said he already has ten. He replied, I tell you that to everyone who has more will be given. But as for one who has nothing, even what they have will be taken away. All right. So let's ask a few questions about this parable to understand who is the nobleman being represented in this parable, do you think? [00:50:56] Jesus, yeah, so Jesus is a nobleman who are the servants? US, us as people and what was his command? [00:51:09] His command was to be about his business, to engage in his business until he tried to engage in business until I come. [00:51:18] And so does engage in business mean. [00:51:24] It means. [00:51:26] Do the business that I have given you to do. [00:51:30] Very good, I'm going to clarify just a little bit, if you don't mind, engage in business means to take what a noble men gave them and produce more of it for the nobleman's benefit. [00:51:45] Oh, does that make sense? [00:51:48] Mm hmm. Do you see do you see that as represented here? Yeah, yeah. OK, so how does this pattern resemble the parable of the sower? [00:52:02] Well, taking the seed, yeah. And producing more, so, yeah, producing more. [00:52:10] Yeah, you take the seed, you accept it, you steward it well, you produce fruit that has more seed in and we're producing more of what's been given to us. OK, so for the servant who did nothing, why was he called a wicked servant? [00:52:27] Because he didn't do what Jesus asked him to do, he didn't engage in business, he didn't engage in business. [00:52:34] Why do you think he did not? What do you think is the fundamental difference between the wicked servant versus the good and faithful servants? What is the primary difference? [00:52:47] Oh, well, the first word that comes to my head is laziness. [00:52:51] Ok. [00:52:53] I don't think that's it, so go back to what we just finished talking about with some of the other just a few moments ago, what did we do? What did we discuss in terms of the difference between a disciple and a convert? [00:53:08] What what causes the difference works versus someone who's pursuing their relationship, pursuing the growth. [00:53:18] Ok, yeah. So if we were to take that, here's what I would say. The question is. [00:53:25] For the servant who did nothing, why was he called Wicked? He was in my what I understand he did not value the noble man enough to work on his behalf. In other words, he he merely took but he did not serve in pursuit. Does that make sense? Yeah. [00:53:44] Yeah. It's only when you serve and pursue. You become a disciple if you're simply looking at it for what you get out of it and you treat it with contempt. You don't serve them per se. Does that make sense? [00:54:00] Mm hmm. OK, so then if we used. So then what happened to the one who did not serve and pursue but merely took and hid? [00:54:14] What happened to him? His his portion was taken from him and given to the one who had more, so what he had been given had been is now taken away. [00:54:25] Mm hmm. Is this this talking about spiritual things? Right. Yeah, wow, that's pretty scary, isn't it? It is, yeah. [00:54:34] Ok, so since this is a parable about Jesus and his servants, here's a question. Did all of the servants accept what Jesus gave them? Yes, ma'am, did all who accepted it enter into Jesus's blessings? [00:54:52] All that, the one. [00:54:55] Oh, OK, so if we lose so so if we go back to all who accept Jesus, go to heaven. [00:55:05] Base, if we're using this parable and the pattern we're seeing. I say there's a difference between merely accepting what Jesus gives and stewarding it, well, does that make sense? If we use the terms, convert and disciple on this, which of the servants would be converts and which of them would be disciples? [00:55:30] The first two would be Disciple's and the last one who didn't do anything with his portion would be the convert. [00:55:37] Yeah. All right. So let's we wrap this up. Let's read about the challenge. So this comes from Matthew, 25 versus 14 through 30. We're going to see the same pattern. OK, so Matthew, 25 versus 14 for he'll be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted to them his property to one. He gave five talents to another, two to another, one to each, according to his ability. Then he went away. He received the five talents win at once and traded with them, and he made five Tallas more. So also the one had the two talents made to tell us more. But the one he received, the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money. Now, after a long time the master, those servants came and settled accounts with them. He you five talents came forward bringing five talents, more same master you delivered to me five talents. Here I made five talents more. His master said to him, Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little. I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master. And he also, who had had the two talents, came forward saying Master, you deliver to me to talent. Here I have made two talents more. His master said to him, Well done, good and faithful servant. [00:56:57] You've been faithful over a little. I will set you overmuch enter into the joy of your master shortie. He also, who had received the one talent, came forward saying, Master, I knew you to be a hard man reaping where you did not. So in gathering where you get scared or no seed. So I was afraid and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is here. But his master answered him. You wicked and slothful servant. You knew that I where I have not sown and gather where I gather no seed over our shadow, no seed. Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers and that my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him and give it to him. Who has the ten talents for to everyone who has will more be given and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not even what he has will be taken away and cast the worthless serpent servant into the outer darkness. And that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth now again. So when the master gave the talents his servants, did he expect them to work on his behalf to bring increase? [00:58:14] Did each of those servants accept the talents? [00:58:17] They did. [00:58:19] And so what's the difference between the servants? [00:58:24] We have disciples and we have a convert again, yeah, yeah, one love the master and it says Win at once and traded with them. They eagerly worked on his behalf and eagerly came to the master, said, Look, Master, I got you even more. Sure. Like when you have a young child that comes and said, Daddy, Daddy or Mommy, Mommy, look what I did for you all eager because they want to please you, right? Mm hmm. The last one simply dug a hole and hid it in the ground, doing nothing to benefit his master, not master, always demanding of me. He gives me this money, says do business. I I don't care, I'm going to throw it in the ground and give it back to them, right. [00:59:12] No concern for his master. So did the servant who did nothing. Look like the other servants of the master, do you think? [00:59:23] Yes, yeah, he probably dressed the same. So these are servants of the master, so they probably had uniforms, they had probably protocols, they probably had some prestige among the community because they work for the master. And looking at them, you couldn't tell any difference. But what happened to that servant, the wicked one? What happened to him? [00:59:45] He was cast out. What was what was given to him was taken away. Then he was cast out and then he was cast out. [00:59:52] So do you see any parallels with all these other parables? Mm hmm. [00:59:57] A lot of a lot of patterns here. Right. And they all point to the same thing. So this is the key. When you start to see everything point to the same focal point, you start to pick up. This is important, right? This is something God is saying over and over and over again. We're going to see this a little bit more on the next sessions. But let me just kind of wrap up some things I think are the takeaways. All right. So the parable of the summer shows that the key. Is we have to steward what we've been given. We see that in the parable of the talents, in the parable of the miners. We see this throughout scripture. We've got a steward it if you value something a lot, you'll steward it. Well, if you value it little, you won't steward it at all. Does that make sense? Yes. OK, that's what we see in all of these parables. Are you stewarding what you've been given and both of these parables? The servants who value the master. Took what the master entrusted them. And worked on the master's behalf, you know, the question I saw like to ask is, are we taking what the Lord has given us and working on his behalf or are we taking what the Lord has given us and simply using it on our behalf? That's I think that's kind of the critical point here that that's being communicated. Those who did all the Christian like things, they were working on their behalf. [01:01:27] Did we not heal the sick, cast out demons, do all these mighty works? So. So if we were to then go back to kind of summing this up, a convert is that person who accepts what is given without valuing the giver. A disciple accepts what is given and values the giver so much that they steward well, that which was given them. So we it comes back to where is your focus? We see this in the parable of the merchant of fine pearls or the parable that the treasure in the field where they sell everything they've got because they want it so much, they pursue it. If we use kind of Christian these terms, you know, they've all been given like if we just look at the talents in the minus, they'd all been given the million minus or talents. They've been given the gift of salvation. They all accepted the gift. But only those who stewarded it obtained the gift. And the gift was removed from those who did not. So same thing we saw in the poor soils. So kind of the big take away. A couple of other things we see on this actually. Now the big take away. Yeah, but there's one more pattern that we see in these two parables. So the minus and the talents. One more thing. Do you know what that one thing that they have in common is? [01:02:58] Hmm. [01:03:02] There were three every time. [01:03:05] Oh, that's a good pattern, yes, there's three three is three is a whole number, right? OK, so there's there's something there. OK, it's a whole truth with holy. [01:03:17] No, the thing I saw it and saw is they all occur over a period of time. OK, in other words, I think this is what Jesus is saying, telling us. You can't assess the heart immediately. It takes time to see the fruit of the heart and over time. OK, what one does? Well, evidence what their heart is truly like. And it's only the ones with a true heart for Jesus who will enter his kingdom. And and so I think that's kind of the message here. A lot of it is is the one with a true heart. The other thing that's been convicting of me as I go through this is the focus of discipleship. And if you think about discipleship, so a lot of times a lot of us, you know, we want Converse, go share the gospel list, bring in, you know, bring people to salvation, which is good. Definitely not criticizing that, but it's a focus is sharing the gospel, bringing people to salvation. [01:04:24] Then what's happening afterwards, the way I see it, this is a low image the Lord gave me, not a vision, but just kind of well thought in my mind is it's like raising kids, OK, you birth a child and then for the next 18 or 20 years, you're nurturing and training that child and disciplining them and helping them grow to maturity. And all your focus is on those few children. And then they go do the same thing. OK, but it's not you just go berserk, you know, 30, 40, 50 kids and just, you know, have at it and hope you do well. OK, so I think there's a time to, you know, really focus on making sure that we're raising disciples and not just converts. [01:05:11] Yeah, that's really good. [01:05:13] All right. So we got to wrap up. But any thoughts? Anything hit you? [01:05:19] Oh, gosh. Just so Eye-Opening, you know, I mean, I know these passages. I recognize them all, but it's just so good to kind of dig a little deeper and really get to the heart. I love how the heart of the father was portrayed with the same tree that was producing fruit. I love how I think that would be my encouragement to anyone who's listening, who feels like I've messed up. I can't. I was too late for me, that kind of thing. I've just created way too many things, that kind of thing that the heart of the father is always to restore. And I just love how that was evident in that scripture. You know, that he is the God of second, third, fourth, fifth chances, you know, because his heart just wants you to be connected with him. [01:06:06] So you lost that and he gives time. I've got to read one saying this. This is a bonus, Jeremiah. Eighteen. Okay, because it talks on that. Jeremiah Yeah. For those people who may be saying it's too late for me, I've done so much bad, I've known the good, but I've kept going after the bad. Let me share what Jeremiah God says. And Jeremiah, he says, this is Jeremiah starting with FF7 If at any time I declare to a nation that I will pluck it up and break it down and destroy it because it's been evil and wicked, and if that nation then turns from its evil, I will relent to the disaster I promised it. What God is saying is judgment is coming. But if you simply relent or repent, this is what John the Baptist said at the, you know, bear fruit. In keeping with repentance, the Lord says, I am quick to relent if you will simply repent. And he keeps relending. [01:07:11] Yeah, he does. And that relenting is changing his mind. He changes his mind. I think there's actually a translation of scripture that reads it that way, that he will change his mind. And I love that I do, too. [01:07:24] All right. Well, let's wrap it up. [01:07:26] Well, baby, thank you so much for today. This was so great. And I'm just encouraged by, again, just all the time and effort that you put into studying and preparing for all the listeners. And I hope this has been an encouragement to everyone. And I look forward to our next call and I hope that everyone can join us again. [01:07:47] Amen. We all have a great day. [01:07:49] Thank you so much. Bye. P068 [/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
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Please ignore any speech-to-text errors) [00:01:43] We've got a great special guest with us and I'm going to introduce themselves to you. Would you like to do that quickly? [00:01:58] I would love to. Hey, everyone. Beatty Carmichael here. And I love being here. I love marketing. I'm passionate about it. I love marketing to generate listings. Been in this business for about 20 years, working with sales agents, generating consumer leads. Start working in the real estate world. 2012, we start getting tremendous results with our clients, helping them earn as much as one hundred thousand dollars within six months to a year. And geographic farming using some things we've done. And then over the years started work on additional things to help them win more of the listings that we're identifying for them. [00:02:38] And that brings us real quickly today on what we do and in working with personal list and past clients and sphere of influence. [00:02:46] That's great. And what would you like to put me into? Juicy news. [00:02:54] Robert Newman, founder of Bandari and the. That that that should be enough for the moment. You're. [00:03:02] And I'm the founder. Roy, we provide a platform for you to lead. We've been using Facebook to get new leads. [00:03:13] So this show, folks, we're going to be discussing how to build a really powerful, effective personal form and how the techniques and the way you build up a relatively small group of referrals but have a really powerful referral engine. [00:03:35] So that's what we agree, hopefully. Right. [00:03:41] So maybe we can start with what you see as some maybe some of the people that come to you or make him around your team, but will refer people to that. [00:03:59] Yeah, that's super. [00:04:00] So the concept, I think is, is how do you take that personal list, your personal forum, your past clients sphere of influence and other people and get more selves out of it on an ongoing basis? And I think the thing that most people the biggest mistake most people make is they think they're doing okay, because what happens is, is you've got your list, you're working your list, you get sales from it. You compare yourself to other people in your office that you know, and you say, I'm doing okay. So this must be the right way to do it. But what they miss out on is how many more cells over here you really can get if you just understood what was possible. Can I share a study with you that kind of correlate? Okay, perfect. So a few years back, an organization wanted to really understand how many cells should you be getting from your personal contact list? So they survey thousands of agents across the country. They got that data back and as they started tabulating it. What they found is once you cross a threshold in terms of how consistently and significantly you touch that list, the average agent in that list was getting 17 cells a year for every 100 personal contacts that they were marketing to. So now that you got kind of a statistical reference, you can start to look at how many cells a year are you getting on your list and say, am I really doing all that well or not? And I think what happens with most people is they're doing far shy of what they should be doing. And that's the biggest mistake. If you don't know you're missing the mark, then you'll never hit the mark. [00:05:38] Two words, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. So you know that. [00:05:50] So how do we improve the mood of the people? But they know we move immediately. [00:06:00] Yes. So I say they're five steps. Or better yet, I might say there's five pillars. OK. And what happens is all these things go in. If you imagine you put all the stuff into a cauldron and kind of mix it up, all these things apply. It's not one step after another as these five different things. I think the biggest thing is understanding how does a homeowner choose an agent? Because once you can figure out what causes that homeowner to choose one agent over another, then you can modify your marketing to apply these principles and you can start to get more sales from it. So what we've started to learn is it's actually a formula. You have two things. You have trust and you have top of mind. And the goal is to increase your trust. And your top of mind within those homeowners mindset. And a real simple way to kind of understand the dynamic is if you put trust on a scale of one to 10. And the same thing with top of mine on one to 10, then if your trust is a three and you're top of mind is a five. If you were to multiply those together, then three times five, you're about a 15 percent likelihood that you can get a sale or a referral that's coming out of your list. But if you can increase your trust, let's say, to a nine and increase your top of mind to a 10. Multiply those together. Now you're about a 90 percent chance of getting whatever sales and referrals come out of that list. So the whole idea, the first thing is to start to understand that you've got increase both trust and top of mind. What I see with most agents is they work on top of mind, but they have no clue about trust. And so you have this lopsided so that you don't really get very far down the road. [00:07:46] Doing, too. When you say increasing trust. A lot of our a lot of our audience isn't actually going to understand what you mean by that or they're going to they're going to need something more specific in order to make it more apparent. So what is it? What is it you are referring to when you say increasing trust? [00:08:03] Very good. So that's actually step number two or pillar number two. How do you do it? Sort of. You have to understand that there is a concept concept in marketing that really applies to what goes on here. And it's the concept of outside perception versus inside reality. And here's what it means. [00:08:20] The outside perception of that homeowner is that all agents are the same, which all agree with that. [00:08:29] Sure. OK. I mean, for the sake of this conversation. Yes. [00:08:35] Ok, let me see if I can I would say there's a lot of filters in the average mind. That's been my experience being in this industry alone. But but but let's just say that for the sake of argument that that whether or not they have not. The average seller is is in the same category as the other or the average age is in some categories, other agents. [00:08:58] Ok. So let me give you a Real-Life example. A client called me up. His name is Jason. He's the leader of a team that year. His team did eleven hundred and twenty transactions. So it's a huge team. And they've been targeting a geographic farm of two thousand homes for six months. No results. He called me up and said, Can you help us? I said, I think I can. Let's get on the phone and talk. So I was on the phone with Jason and his assistant, Ken, and I was asking him what's going on in this farm? And and I immediately said, well, it sounds like you're not well branded. And I use the wrong term because all nobody. I'm really well branded. OK. What do you mean? He said, I've been spending eight thousand dollars a month for two years. I'm on the radio. I'm in the billboard. I'm on the park benches. I'm at the grocery store, at the athletic stores, athletic events. I do a 12 page newsletter once a quarter that I send down. Is that all that's going to this homeowner group of 2000 homes? He said, yes. I said, well, then how many listings came on the market in the last six months? And he said probably about 200. I said, how many of those listings did you get? He said, I got a couple. So I said, Jason, if you're so well branded, why did only two people trust you enough to sell their home? And there's this pregnant pause. [00:10:22] And he said, I don't know. I said, would you like to understand why? He said yes. So I started to explain this concept of outside perception and the way I explain it. All these homeowners look at you just like any other agent. All you do is stick a sign in the yard, list your home in the MLS and wait for someone else to bring a buyer. He said, You agree with that? I said, as long as they believe that you're just like everyone else, then they have no reason to choose you, because in their mind they can choose any agent and their home is going to sell and about the same amount of time for about the same price. I said imagine for a moment that every one of those homeowners out there work can. She understands everything about how hard you work, all your skill, all your degrees, all the extra stuff that you do, the nuances that drive everything. If all of those homeowners were Cam, how many of those listings do you think you'd get and can piped up and said all of them. And that's what I mean. Outside perception is most agents do the same thing. But the inside reality is you're really special the way that you build trust. Back to your question, the way that you build trust has you got to help them understand your inside reality of your skill and expertise to the degree that they would feel that they're full to choose anyone else beside you. [00:11:38] The way that you get there is as we've analyze this and as we've tested it, what we've found, there's a formula, I call it the three SS sets up. It's a three step formula that as long as you do these three ingredients on all your marketing, then you will consistently move that needle to where they start to lean toward you all the time. The first s is showing off your successes. That means, you know, let them know that you're constantly selling. The second S is to share the secrets behind those successes. Let them help them give open up the kimona, so to speak, in terms of of what is it that you do special that causes that sell to move faster or for a higher sales price. So they start to believe that you actually understand real estate at a level that most agents may not. And and now they are from their mindset. You've got the expertise. And the third thing is what we call showing in a unique services that you do if you're familiar with the term unique selling proposition or USP. That's your USP. So when you show off your successes, explain what you're doing with those and constantly have a U.S. opinion package that and send it out consistently. That starts to build the trust level that gets home owners choosing. This is making sense. [00:12:59] Yes, it is. In order to understand the case study, though, a little bit better, because what you're doing in. Because I've trained my segment of our audience in a very particular way. When we start talking about past like a past history of past client scenario, I've gotten them used or trained to the concept of referring to that as a case study, a case study that you're mentioning it, which is great, by the way. And I'm loving. It is. But but I am curious, this agent, can you at least give us the part of the country that they were in? [00:13:31] Yeah. I'm sorry. Minnesota. Minnesota. OK. I don't weigh on the high end or the low end of the marketplace. In other words, where they selling your average average? [00:13:43] I think their average health prices in the 50s to 80s somewhere. Right in there. [00:13:48] Okay. All right. Perfect. So, yes, I do understand and I do agree with what you're what you're saying. The most important thing or the thing that you're saying that is giving us more detail than than things we've had on the show in the past is definitely the middle s past successes. But the secret to my formula, which is something that we've bounced, we've never quite called it, we've never packaged the information, is as beautifully as your packaging it. And I'm really appreciating that like you're you're the secret of my success. I that is not something that we've labeled that particular way. But you don't anyway contain them. [00:14:30] But before we go, we're probably going to go for a break, a few moments, folks, with just one friend. I want to clarify, because you've used the term top of mind. [00:14:41] We also use online presence. We kind of mix that soccer mind with online presence. [00:14:49] That means you you need to keep your you or your brain and you all know me, your brain in front of your target audience, because the more you do that to me, the more chances are you will refer people to. I just want to clarify that. So we're going to go for a break, folks, and we're going to come back. We're going to delve more into this question mark. Mary will be back in a few months. [00:15:20] You're listening to the Get Cellar's Calling You podcast if you want more listings from past clients and sphere of influence from geographic farming and even from commercial investment properties. [00:15:31] Check out our marketing service named Agent Dominator. We guaranteed closed sales or give your money back. Learn more and get sellers calling you die. Come and select Agent Dominator from the menu. [00:15:42] Now back to the podcast. [00:15:46] We can we both personally. So would you like to continue? [00:15:53] I would love to continue because you're getting me excited now. This is what I love to do. So back to your comment, Robert. That, you know, a lot of people talked about it, but they haven't gone into the level. So let me talk about how specifically do you start to transform? Because this is a transfer of knowledge. This is a transfer of what you know about yourself. So that becomes what they know about you. Let me share another case, though, because this is an isolated to just one location. I had another client who was a three year age, and at the time he was targeting twelve hundred homes in a farm. He'd been there for a year. He had no listings. And he called me up and said, Can you help me? I said, I think we can. And this is right at the beginning. This is like four and a half, five years go right at the beginning of the time that we started to be testing out this concept of the three S's and long before we've guided to the perfection level that we have now. So we started to test some things out. And it took us about four months to get in gear with it. Okay. And in those four months, he generated, I think, like two or three listings. [00:16:59] And then from month, for two months, they he generated another four listings. And by the eighth month, he was getting to come. List me now phone calls every single week. And here's what's really cool. Half of those calls were saying, Josh, I'm thinking about selling. Can you come talk to me? But the other half were saying, Josh, my home is on the market. It's not selling. As soon as my contract expires, will you come sell it for me? They never met the guy, but they were so convinced that he could do a better job. They were buying him sight unseen. When you can take a consumer who's never match you and convince them that you're the Best Buy Carious Lee through the mail with postcards. Imagine what you can do if that's a geographic form. Imagine what you can do with your personal list. People who already know you. So the methodology is simple. First, you gotta remember, you gotta keep showing off yourself. The easiest way to do that is just sell postcard. But then most agents just do a just whole postcard and it shows a picture of the house it says just sold, gives the address and you flip it to the back of the card and it says, I just sold this home. [00:18:06] If you want me to sell yours, give me a call. Just the same thing that everyone else does. But if you take a little bit of extra time and effort and actually craft that just old toy postcard to tell a story. OK. So now imagine the postcard comes out this way. The headline might say Sold in five days for full price. OK. Now, already that's starting to express something that you've done that most agents don't do. It's pretty impressive. But then I tell a story about it and destroy might be you know, the Smiths had just gotten a new job in another city. They had to move fast. [00:18:43] They did not have much equity, but they needed all the equity they had in order to buy their new home. They knew they needed an expert. They heard in my reputation. So they called me great decision because with aggressive marketing that began before the home even went on the market, we were able to generate 10 showings in the first five days. We created three offers and creative bidding war, selling it for full price. So now I'm starting to explain a little bit about what happened, or I can take that same concept and use a different show, sell postcards. And I'm going to start to outline what are the things that I did to get the home ready to go on the market. So this old fart, you know, we posted of all the clutter, we staged it. We we did simple fix ups and repairs and especially new coat of paint in the hallway and in the master bedroom and in the kitchen. Okay. We use professional photography. I wrote custom ad to target specific buyers who would want this type of home and all of these things before it ever went on the market. So once it went on the market, we created a deluge of prospects wanting to come see it. Whatever it is that you do, you articulate it. And here's here's the thing that is really funny. I was talking to a client recently, and and what the client was sharing is, is, you know, it's like she said, the light bulb just came on. It's not that you're better than the other agents. It's simply that you're telling the homeowner what it is that you do. [00:20:18] So they perceive you as better. I said, that's it. Knowledge is power. And if they understand it, they understand you, but they don't understand the other agent, they're more likely to choose you. This is kind of making sense. [00:20:34] No, it makes it makes very good sense. There's only one small operation for our. Again, just for John Ani's our audience, which is actually I think the vast majority of the people that we that we communicate with are going to be digital marketers more than traditional marketers. We have done direct mail specialist in the past on the show. And I'm sure that John has done way more than I have. So I'm going to say this for our audience. You can take the information that we're getting right now and in your mind, transfer the direct mail piece into a landing page. This method would work beautifully if we're driving traffic from the digital source such as Google or Facebook, sending them to a page. [00:21:19] And we could use exactly what most of this reads. [00:21:28] Ballboy boop boop boop boop boop boop boop. Grew your boobs. [00:21:38] Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, no. I was about ready to master. [00:21:48] Didi is beating the data. Right? Right. More inside the baby as my baby's name anyway. So that that that's the only thing I would say. Other than that I am loving everything. I have nothing to add. [00:22:02] Hey, buddy. Do you have a charger climb every time you do human cloning group. [00:22:12] But I guess that I've been forgiven for all the bad things I've done. I forgive those who do it again. [00:22:24] Thank you. But do you want your coverage to do. [00:22:33] So let me play off of what you guys are talking about, because I think you make a great point. This is not a postcard. The postcard is simply the delivery medium for the message is the message that makes a difference. It's not the delivery medium. And so now if we're talking about landing pages, let's talk about how do you make that landing page more effective? OK. So as long as you're willing to go through a little bit more effort, you can take your number Skyhigh. Let me see if this makes sense. I want to talk about in terms of what is it worth and how much time is it worth to put together. So you take your average agent, let's say they've been in business for four or five years. That agent's going to do about fifteen to twenty transactions a year. They know probably 250 to 300 people. OK. So if you take the simple statistics of 17 sales per 100 is being what's possible at 250 people. That's 40 sales a year that statistically you should be able to get from your list. Get that average agent is doing 20 transactions a year, probably no more than 10 are coming from their personal contacts. So 40 minus 10 means that there is a differential of 30 listings, 30 cells a year that the average agent is losing. But when you start to multiply that by the average commission, probably call it seven thousand dollars per cell. That's two hundred and ten thousand dollars a year over three years. That's over six hundred thousand dollars in commissions. [00:24:00] Most agents are losing. The reason I go through this is because some of this is gonna say, boy, this takes a lot of work. Well, how much work does it take to earn six? How much work does it take to lose six hundred thousand dollars? That could be your family's income rather than your competitors. This is the most important thing you can do. So as we're talking about digital marketing on a Web site, let's talk about kind of three stages of how you can do a stage. Number one, you just put some text up there. Stage number two, you put a photo of you in a house and the text and maybe a little bit audio. But the best thing would be to do it on video, because this is one of the elements we haven't gotten into yet. If you take trust trusses divide into three different segments in terms of the trust I'm talking about that causes a homeowner to choose you. And let's see if I can make sense in an analogy. I'm a homeowner. I want to sell my house. And I have two agents there. I'm friends with both of them. I would trust my kids with both of those agents. OK. So that's one element of trust. One agent I know is a brand new agent. The other age and I know is a top producer and has been a top producer for 10 years. I trust them both equally, socially, both. Which one am I gonna trust my house to? [00:25:19] What do you think? The new agent or the top producer? [00:25:25] John, I always. I've been doing. Hope you do this one. [00:25:31] Absolutely. [00:25:32] Because I trust his expertise more. So trust is divided both by a relational trust. Have I met you? OK. But then there's two other segments of trust. And this is what we're talking about. Do I trust that you're constantly selling? And do I trust that you have the expertise? And so if I can then put myself on a video. What happens is now they get a chance to meet me just like those. Are you online looking at me right now? You start to look at this guy. OK. He looks trustworthy. He sounds trustworthy. You've never met me personally. But you can put a face and a personality and a voice and you say, I trust that guy. And that's what video can do beyond anything else. So if you would create a series for every postcard that you would have sent out if this was a postcard world. The content that you put on the postcard. Put that in a live video. So when people come to your Web site, they're able to see you here. You and you have your content underneath your video. They can read it as well. But now you're multiplying all the elements of trust. So you're more likely to get the deal making sense. [00:26:40] Yes. [00:26:42] Although you're saying a lot of stuff that we. That we believe in strongly. I have conversations about video with my clients and my my prospective clients almost daily. So it's it's it's I don't I it's always nice to hear another marketing expert who makes their living selling marketing services talking about the same thing you talk about with your clients. I've had the same results as you've had. Video is very impactful in terms of demonstrations of past success, such as testimonials, things like that. They're great. They're even better if you can take a 30 second video of a client you've just sold their home for. And put that on your Web site. Video testimonials these days in terms of demonstrations of success, almost, I would guess, in terms of inspiring response, anywhere from 10 to 15 times more effective than simply getting a written testimonial in today's world. So those things I, I, I believe in strongly and you're just you're you're going right down the you know, right down the chain. [00:27:48] Ok, well, let's hit that. That's a statistic you mentioned because it correlates with another statistic. Did you know that your personal lives. Those people who have met who are eight to 10 times more likely to do business with you than that generic list who've never met you? Did you know that? [00:28:05] I heard a lot of statistics, so, yes, probably. But continue with it. [00:28:11] So the correlation is that video testimony, they get a chance to meet the person as opposed to just read about them. And once you've met the person, that trust level goes up. And that's what I was talking about with video. Video allows him to meet you. They carry Asli even if they haven't met you in person. So that's why it's so powerful. One of the real reasons why it's so powerful. [00:28:35] So maybe you think it's step number four. [00:28:40] Yes, I agree. OK. [00:28:44] Seven. Number three. So step number three is what I was calling top of mind. And I think what you call perpetual. What? What was it? That's right. [00:28:58] And so toxify boy. [00:29:03] Ok, cool. Yeah. It's all the same thing. It is. So if you go back to a book, this is really interesting. Must you guys or some you guys may have read the book Millionaire Real Estate Agent by Gary Keller. Okay. And he talks about this thing called mindshare dominance. But the source of that content was a book written in the 1980s by Al Rees and his partner. And is called Positioning. And what it says is that the homeowner, the consumer can only remember two or maybe three brands at one time. And so if you're in a market where you got kinds of brands, which we are in real estate, then that typical homeowner is gonna remember typically two or three agents. And if you're not one of those two or three, you're not even going to get a chance at the deal. And so that's talking about a lot. In large part. Top of mind. And the key is, how do you stay top of mind? And I was doing a training recently for a large brokerage office and a broker guy named Dave was in there. And we're talking on the subject. Top of mind. I was asking him, are all coaches the same? And he said, yes. And you guys know the architecture is probably not just for those listeners out there. [00:30:18] I said, OK, so let me see if this makes sense. So I send you an email. OK. And that email says it's summertime. I hope you have a good summer. Or I could show up at your house unexpectedly and say, hey, my wife baked you guys some cookies. We just love your friendship and just wanted to bless you. I was in the area. Hope you enjoy these cookies. You're telling me that both of those touches are equal impact? I'm telling you, they're not. So what you have is to stay top of mind. You've got to constantly be in front of people. But the question is, how can you be in front of them without overdoing your welcome? And what I say back to your original question, Jonathan. What do most agents do wrong when they do? Top of mind. One of the things that they do wrong is they think it's an email campaign, that any email works. And so they go by an e-mail campaign off the shelf or they use one that their company provides and they think this is all you need to stay top of mind. The challenge is sometimes you may not know it, but you're actually ticking your prospect off rather than increasing value. So I see you laughing right there, Jonathan. [00:31:26] The guy I got to tell you a story, I bought a house recently and my loan officer day puts me on this drip email campaign. And I get so frustrated I'm actually at a market. I created a folder on my computer. Stupid emails series. Yeah. And I don't even read them. I just fly them in that folder because I'm going. Are you serious? You're actually sending me this. [00:31:49] You just bought baby food. You turn on the poles. [00:32:02] Well, almost. So let me see. Let me let me take a guess. You get a lot of e-mails every day. Is that right? Jonathan? [00:32:09] Heidi. OK. Absolutely. OK. When you get an e-mail that adds no value to you. Is that a pleasant experience or a negative experience? [00:32:22] Somebody used to do. [00:32:24] We keep seeing this girl, a Muslim. I apologize. I find it a little bit annoyed. [00:32:34] Yes, yes, exactly. So that's what these are. I get so many e-mails, I can't manage it. And so, like, one of the e-mails says how to clean pillows. [00:32:42] I don't care about cleaning pillows. Or another e-mail says it's summertime and open. This is this picture that says, enjoy your summer. I'm going. You wasted my time for that. And so what happens is, is looks like you people are going to unsubscribe. They're gone hardily. But they're getting this negative impression saying you're violating my space because you're not adding value. So when you do a touch, you've got to look at what adds value to that homeowner. And the more that you can add value, the more frequently you can touch them. [00:33:14] So we have a client that I think from an e-mail series. Hasbro has broken the code on this. He touches his list weekly 52 times a year. If he misses an email, they actually email him back and say, Stuart, we didn't get that e-mail. Can you please send it this week on this date? And when you've got your people wanting what you have so much that they recognize when they don't get it, then you've got a touch system that allows you to stay always in front of them and keep driving value. [00:33:48] You have a quote. [00:33:49] Can you tell me? Yes, I did. Whew. [00:33:55] Ok, good. That's the response I want to get. So it's all consumer facing, not real facing. And what he found is human interest stories. Do you remember the radio announcer, Paul Harvey? Does that ring a bell? [00:34:19] Yeah. But. [00:34:36] Okay. So human interest stories, if I can share something that someone can read in the go. This is wonderful. It makes my heart feel good. I'm ready to take the day to day. Then they look forward to it like a cup of coffee. Okay. But when you send them garbage that has no value, then it becomes a negative impression. So, as you say, to stay top of mine, you've got to find those things that are going to be positively received rather than negative. And the more positive they are, the more frequently you can touch them. So, my friend. Okay. He let me tell you who let me tell you a lot about him, because it's really amazing. He does 80 to 100 transactions a year on 35 to 40 hours a week. He doesn't work weekends and he rarely works evenings. And the way he is done and he's figured out I can educate them my expertise and I can touch them all the time. And between trust and top of mind, they just fly to him. And that's the third pillar is this whole concept. They just ain't top of mind. And there are lots of things you can do. The email stuff is one, but there's a lot of other things that you can apply the process. Does this add value? [00:35:50] Then you'll always stay top of mind. [00:35:53] Those soon, those subject that we punched in our previously internal discussions, when we get back to the building at least slightly, I kind of have a really whole my personal, my kind of people that we've been talking about through this interview, though apart. And then there's others that you need to set your list. I mean, send them send them relevant information or e-mail the postcard. It doesn't really matter. We've crunched, haven't we? It's the message that really matters. [00:36:38] But it does. But I, I. Did I miss it? We have a couple of specific examples. Do you happen to know what he what he specifically said 52 times a week? I merely touched on the broad category. [00:36:53] I can show you. I can show you examples of Mamo Royte work. [00:36:58] You're killing me. I want I want you here to hear it like an example or two. [00:37:03] Ok, so you're example. Here's an example. Starts off a story. Starts off first person. My dad was a storekeeper and we lived above our store. And I was good in school and good in math. And then my dad encouraged me to go to this music area, music facility. And I started to learn music. And I really enjoyed music. And by the time I got to high school and graduating high school, I had a choice to make. Do I go into and pursue math or do I go in and pursue music? [00:37:38] And I didn't know which way to go. And I talked to my dad and my dad said that, you know, you can only sit in one chair, pick a chair, you want to sit in for the long term and pursue that. He said, well, I decided to go into music then. So I started to pursue pursue music. [00:37:59] And after 10 years, I was able to go to the Carnegie Hall. A few years later, I was able to perform before the pope. And he starts listing all of these places and you go, oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. And at the bottom, it's signed Pavarotti. Okay, so it's one of those things that you it draws you in. And it's a good feeling. Wow. And maybe somewhere in that comment, someone made a comment. Oh, Pavarotti. You know, I wish I could do music like you. I'd give anything to be like you. And give my life to do it. And he looked at her and said I did. [00:38:39] Ok, so those are the type of human interest stories I'm talking about, things that e-mails, things like that 52 times a week. [00:38:47] We're not talking like home improvements and we're not talking in the local home values. We're talking something else almost. [00:38:56] But 52 times a week might be a little overkill. Ah, sorry. I really. [00:39:05] It's very early in the morning for me. [00:39:07] I am nocturnal book lover. Oh. About Ruby. But we're real. You are. I totally understand where you're coming from. [00:39:22] But I just want to put just to tell the audience, this is these are these are people that you have to trust and you're sending them. Content that is trust building and interesting. But that's why you need to certain you have a really quality list. And I have a big list. And then the people you send, this will be a smaller segment. Some other parts you'd least you probably wouldn't seem some use in speech, which would be more traditional, which is more about if they're actually in the process of buying or selling a house. But some good concern, Robert just mentioned is probably too soon. What do you think? Oh, my waffly there. [00:40:18] I think you're right. You know, they're only going to want to receive the e-mail from you initially that they know you and they're gonna open it. And if you're just a stranger, it's not as effective. But what's interesting is if it's content they want, then whether they know you're really well or know you just casually. If they like the content, they're going to appreciate it. And that's the cool thing with this. If I can give you what you want, then whether I'm a close friend or a distant friend, you'll still want to receive it. And that's where the whole value proposition comes in. [00:40:55] Phone unsustained e-mail marketing really is just like get a lot of e-mail when I know a lot of the guys signed up for and signed up to fast and not even remember that were signed by Bob Lonas. They have a really easy way of describing them. [00:41:17] I have a section of people that see me that I really see as experts in marketing that that's why I'm interested in Facebook and WordPress, though they are my interests and they send me email and I don't read it all. But I'll choose not to unsubscribe because I know that maybe that particular e-mail wasn't totally interesting. Look, pretty good confidence that the MC female will have something interesting to me. What do you reckon about that? [00:41:48] I did the same thing. There are some e-mails that I rarely read, but I don't unsubscribe because there is enough value over time that I go, wow, that can help me with my business. And so I buy an entirely with what you're talking about, around what you eat, what you said at the beginning of this conversation round. [00:42:08] Trust me. [00:42:09] That's all it is. It is trust. It's that expertise. And yet when you really boil it down for all of this, comes back into that great big cauldron, is do they perceive you as giving them the value they want? Because we're all value seekers and and their ultimate saying, if I'm going to buy a house, buy a car, hire a person, go on on a date, whatever it is, ultimately it's I've got a certain thing of value. I'm looking for something I desire out of that. And if you can show me that you can deliver for me, then I'm going to be more likely to do business with you. [00:42:48] I mean, it was of great summary. I think we're going to wrap it up because you're getting a lot of phone calls. But there we go. But probably are we going to wrap it up? It's been a fascinating conversation. [00:42:59] We'll be back next week. I think we will be with very internal show where we be continue our ongoing on going series of FCO. Part three. [00:43:12] And thank you so much for being our guests. It's been fantastic. [00:43:17] Lovely meeting you. Love this conversation. [00:43:20] You will be coming back. We'll see you next week, folks. Bye. [00:43:26] If you've enjoyed this podcast, be sure to subscribe to it so you never miss another episode. Also, if you want an easy way to grow your business, check out agent dominated. Guarantee listings and sales from past clients and sphere of influence. Geographic farming and commercial investment properties. If you don't get the sales, we promise we'll give your money back. Learn more on our Web site. Get cellar's calling you dot com. And Select Agent Dominator from the menu. Thanks for listening to the Get Sellers calling you podcast and have a great day. P067 [/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
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Please ignore any speech-to-text errors) [00:00:04] All right. Well, hello, everyone. Thanks for joining us. My name is Penny and we're so glad that you're here with us today for this next session of Get Sellers Calling You. Beatty Carmichael is the CEO of Master Grabber, the creator of Agent Dominator and one of the top marketing experts in the real estate field. Beatty, I'm really excited about our call today. What do you have for us? [00:00:27] Well, I'm excited, too. And for those listening, this a quick disclaimer and heads up, we do two types of calls. One focused on growing a real estate business. By the way, we'll be doing more on that in the commercial sector as well. So you have commercial business. We got some really cool things on that. But the other type of topic we cover is on a spiritual nature. We call it radical faith. And it's where we talk about Jesus talking about Jesus offense. You you don't want to listen. Then you are forewarned and you can turn off this episode and come back to the next one. So that's what we're going to be talking about. [00:01:10] Awesome. I'm so excited. [00:01:12] Yes. Well, I'm kind of excited about this on this call, too, because this is, again, one of those studies I've done that I thought I'm going down this path and I know the answer. And then I start to search scriptures and I go, Huh? That's not the answer I was really expecting. [00:01:31] So kind of as a way of an intro, things are not always as they may seem. Okay, well, let me ask you a question. Jesus is up on the cross. [00:01:44] You remember that. You remember Jesus Christ. Just making sure that Jesus is up on the cross. And the question is, did God forsake him while he was there? [00:01:57] What do you think? No. No. [00:02:04] Yes. Yes. Well, yes, because I know that God turned his back on the thing. He wasn't turning his back on Jesus. [00:02:14] He was turning his back on the sin that was upon Jesus. And Jesus cried out, Why have you forsaken me? [00:02:23] So I could be both of you. You may be right, because a lot of times there's multiple dimensions and God's kingdom. [00:02:37] So it's not always linear and black and white. But for the sake of discussion, just kind of go down this path. [00:02:45] If you had to choose one or the other. Most likely. Did God forsake Jesus while he was on the cross or did God not forsake him? He did not. [00:02:59] Okay, give me your reasoning behind it. Do you have any scripture to back that up? [00:03:06] I can't think of any off the top of my head. I'm basing it on just what I know to be the nature and character of God. [00:03:14] Okay, great. Good God. Good woman. All right. So now Jesus does say, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? So does that mean that Jesus was wrong? [00:03:30] No. [00:03:32] Jesus was right. [00:03:34] If that's what he was feeling in the moment. We know that Jesus was perfect. So even though sometimes our feelings can lie to us. [00:03:46] That's a good question. That's a good question. [00:03:50] It is because a lot of people say, well, God, obviously for Jesus on the cross because Jesus said he did. You actually have a more accurate answer in reasoning behind it than you may realize. So this is where things are not always as they seem. You have to really look deeper underneath the surface and try to understand what's going on. So let me get you real quickly to turn to Psalm 22. [00:04:22] Let me give you a little background on Psalm 22. This is David in the Spirit, writing about the crucifixion. This is David watching. I'm assuming he's seen it take place or it's a vision, but he is see, he is writing down what the Lord has shown him. Just start reading the beginning of Psalm 22. And I just want to set the stage of what's going on here. [00:04:54] My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me so far from my cries of anguish? Oh, my God. Okay. [00:05:06] So Jesus is quoting Psalm 22? Actually, no. David is writing what Jesus says. And so David is actually quoting Jesus as opposed to Jesus quoting David. Does that make sense? Mm hmm. So here we have Jesus saying, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? As you read through Song 22, you see all the things about the crucifixion. You see them. They take my clothes. They cast lot from my clothes. They split them among I am pierced my my ribs, stand out, all these things that happen in crucifixion. So we know very clearly this is the crucifixion. But down real quickly to verse 24 and tell me. But first, 24 says was 24. [00:05:58] He has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one. He has not hidden his face from him, but has listened to his cry for help. [00:06:09] So this is talking about God. And it says that he has not hidden his face from him. Jesus says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? [00:06:19] And down here, it says that God never forsook and he never hid his face. [00:06:27] What in the world could be going on in this interesting. Fascinating. Thanks are not always as they seem, are they? [00:06:36] No, definitely not. [00:06:37] You got to dig a little bit deeper, especially when you want to really understand what's really going on and how to apply it in your life, how to live in a way that the Lord called us to live and what actually is going on. You've got to dig deeper to tap into a session we just recently did on when bad things happen. Is it God's will? Got some interesting observations there. So let me share it, because this is not the focus of the call. But I thought this was an interesting way to start it. Let me share kind of what's going on. [00:07:10] Have you ever heard the top concept that thin blinds you from the truth? Scene creates a veil over our eyes. And this is the whole idea of the wedding ceremony. The bride wears a veil and the bridegroom takes the veil off. And now she can see clearly as a as a foreshadowing of the spiritual. Ceremony with Jesus. And where the bride takes the veil of sin that blocks our vision. So when Jesus is on the cross, he became sin. And as soon as he became sin, a veil came over his eyes and he could no longer see the father. My God, my God, why do you forsaken me? David is saying, I'm right here. God never first took you sin blocks. Okay. So a lot of times we all believe what we've been told. But sometimes we don't really know why we believe it. Other times we believe a certain way because we read God's word and it says this and someone else reads that word and they get something totally different out of it. And the question is kind of flood what's right. So I want to move into the topic now because it's a bigger topic. Here's a question. [00:08:49] Does everyone who accepts Christ go to heaven? In other words, once you've accepted Christ, can you lose that salvation? [00:09:00] Oh, gosh, that's one of those questions that just gets so there's so much controversy. [00:09:09] Let's go. Let's go back. Let's go back to the root of the question. Does everyone who accepts Christ go to heaven? [00:09:16] Yes. [00:09:18] Why do you believe that? [00:09:23] Because the Bible says. [00:09:28] It says, if you believe in the Lord Jesus, he will be saved. [00:09:34] Is that accepting or believing or are those the same? [00:09:39] Well, maybe that's the translation I learned. [00:09:43] So let me let me ask you. Are you absolutely positive? That everyone who accepts Christ go to heaven. [00:09:56] I have to be honest, I'm not actually positive now that we're doing this call and I'll catch you on a number of things in the past, you're starting to think Beatty may know something. I don't. I'm not going to be quite so positive. Right. Right. Okay. Well, good job. Don't be positive. Okay. Okay. [00:10:19] So the topic of this series that we're going to do, and it's going to be multi part because it's really threw out all scripture, especially New Testament. And that is the question does do all who accept Christ go to heaven? [00:10:35] This call is going to be part number one. We're going to lay the foundation and then we're going to start to dissect it. And this isn't for just simply an intellectual pursuit of just saying, here's what scripture say. But really to try to understand. What is God calling us to do and why? And as I've gone through this myself, here's the net result. I've changed my perspective of what's most important. It's really amazing. Okay, just a quick disclaimer. I don't have all the answers. This is one of those topics that you mentioned. Everyone has all kinds of different opinions. Scripture is constantly, consistently true is the question of what are we and how we interpreting and why. So we don't want to share is is what I believe the Lord is directing me in understanding. So I want to talk about some of the controversial versus real quickly. So this kind of tees up why this is such a difficult topic. So let's go to Matthew ten, verse 22. [00:11:39] Okay. All right. [00:11:43] By the way, this is this is all these things we're going to go through for passages. And they're all Jesus talking. So go ahead, Matthew, 10 22. [00:11:52] You will be hated by everyone because of all. But the one who stands firm to the end will be saved, stands firm to the end. [00:12:02] Okay, that's interesting. Let's use also ESV translation on these. Let's now go to Matthew 24 and we're going to read verses 10 and 13, 10 and 13. [00:12:21] 24, verse 10 and 13 percent says and then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And then verse 13 says, But the one who endures to the end will be saved. [00:12:37] And they translates that first verse. And then many will fall away from the face. Okay, here we see. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. Let's now go to mark 13. [00:12:53] Martin, 13 versus 12 and 13. Let's see what that says. [00:12:58] All right. Verse twelve. And brother will deliver brother over to death. And the father, his child and the children will rise against parents and have them put to death. And you will be hated by all for my name's sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. [00:13:17] We see that again. The one who endures to the end. Makes you wonder, well, does that mean not all people who accept Christ? Go to heaven because why would Jesus keep talking about enduring to the end? Let's look at one more loop, 21, 17 through 19. [00:13:42] All right, 17 to 19 says you will be hated by all for my name's sake, but not a hair of your head will perish by your endurance. You will gain your lives. [00:13:56] There we have it again. Here's the question. When Jesus teaches that you must endure to the end to be saved. Does that mean that some people don't endure to the end? [00:14:09] Yes, I could see how some people probably give up or decide that I'm done with this. Okay, okay. [00:14:17] But the fact that Jesus is teaching that you had to endure to the end indicates that there are obviously those who don't endure to the end. Does that make sense? Yes. By the way, here's something else interesting. This was so important, apparently, that God put it in. The scriptures four separate times just by Jesus. We're going to say that this concept is pervasive. [00:14:43] But four separate times by Jesus. [00:14:45] If people don't endure to the end, then does that mean that they don't go to heaven? [00:14:53] I'd like to investigate that a little further. [00:14:56] Okay, so let me ask this question. Does being Sayed. [00:15:00] Does that. Men going to heaven. Do you think? [00:15:05] According to what we just read. No. [00:15:09] Okay, can you give me some scripture to back up? We're saved in heaven. Don't necessarily go together. [00:15:18] Well, the ones we just read, Jesus was speaking in reference to being saved and said those who Indore to the end. So three times we read that right. [00:15:30] So those who who endure to the end will be saved. Can we probably transliterate that? Those who endured to the end will make it to heaven. Probably is just kind of lame, the fact that Jesus is talking about being saved. Going to what we talk about going to heaven. Probably one in the same with that. Would you agree with that? [00:15:52] Yes, I would. [00:15:54] Okay. So if Jesus is saying. Or so is Jesus saying that whether or not they endure determines whether or not they are saved? [00:16:11] That's a very deep thought. I think so. I think that would go hand in hand. Okay, one influences the other. [00:16:24] Right. So what we're going to find out as we go through it, it's either a determining factor or an indicative factor. It's either the evidence had been saved or they determine that they are to be saved. So we're going to see what the scripture talks about a little bit more. So when Jesus came to Earth, here's another question. What was the main message that he preached? In other words, why did he come to Earth? [00:16:50] He preached the kingdom of heaven is near. He preached to be safe so that you could go to heaven. That was his message, to believe him to get right there. [00:17:02] So true. So he never really preaches forgiveness. [00:17:07] Have you ever noticed that he didn't have to come to Earth for forgiveness because God gave people all through the Old Testament. [00:17:16] He didn't come to Earth specifically for salvation. You said that on. He came to preach the kingdom of heaven. In fact, this is his common theme. If you can finish the sentence, repent for the kingdom of heaven is near or near here at hand. It's right here in our midst. Okay, so we had this thing called repentance and forgiveness, salvation going to have been saved. All these things are part of the kingdom of God. But what Jesus came to do was much more holistic than just being saved or forgiven. And I think that if we start to then understand what the kingdom of God really means. And understand more about that make more sense. Why? What Jesus talking about enduring to the end really means if we want to understand what Jesus means, the one who endures to the end. We have to go back to his core message that he's always teaching repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. And if we understand the kingdom of God, then we can then figure out what he really means about enduring to the end. Does that hurt? So with that then the question is. When Jesus taught on the kingdom of God, because that's most of what he taught on what was his primary method of teaching about the kingdom of God. [00:18:52] Do you recall the parable parables? Good job. Okay. So if we want to understand the kingdom of God, let's look at some of the parables, because that's what he teaches through which other parables is the most important in understanding. [00:19:11] All of the parables. Do you recall which one? [00:19:15] Oh, gosh. He had so many. The one that's popping out is the seed and the sower. But that might not be the one you're thinking of. [00:19:28] Did many good jobs go to Mark for verse 13? This is a commentary of Jesus on the parable of the seed in the summer. [00:19:41] Okay. [00:19:42] Four, verse 13. And he said to them, do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? [00:19:53] So here's something here's something real interesting. The parable of the seat in the Sower, I believe I'm correct, is the only parable in all three of the synoptic gospels. That's the same. And it's the only one where Jesus gives a parable and gives the interpretation. In fact, I think it's the only one that he gives the interpretation on. And he says here that if you don't understand this parable, you cannot understand any of the parables because this parable unlocks all the other parable. So this is a pretty important message on understanding the kingdom of God. Makes sense. Yes. Okay, so now let's read into this. Let's go read the parable of the Sower, and we're going to do this in Matthew. Okay. Okay. So, Matthew, 13 versus three through eight. [00:20:53] All right. And he told them many things in parables saying a sower went out to sow as he sowed some seeds, fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground where they did not have much soil. And immediately they sprang up since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain. Some 100 fold. Some 60, some 30. He who has ears let them hear. [00:21:37] Very good. So now we have the soil where the seed goes out. And now we're going to replay what Jesus says this means. That's going to be verses 18 through 23. [00:21:53] Here, then, the parable of the sower, when anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it. The evil one comes and snatches away what has been found in his heart. This is what was sown along the path. As for what was shown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately received it with joy. Yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while. And when tribulation or persecutions persecution arises on account of the word immediately, he falls away. As for what was sown amongst thorns, this is the one who hears the word. But the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word. And it proves unfruitful. As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands that he indeed bears fruit and yields in one case a hundredfold and another 60 in another 30. [00:22:51] All right, great. So now we're going back to the Requestion. Does everyone who accept Christ go to heaven? We say that Jesus says only the one who endures to the end will be saved. [00:23:05] We now go into this parable. He starts to describe it. So now let's get an understanding of this parable as we go in. So there are several parts about this parable that we need to break down first just to really kind of understand a little bit more. The first one is the seed. Okay, this is the seed and the seed is a key part. Here's the question. What is the seed? [00:23:33] The word. [00:23:34] Okay, so, Jesus, the seed is the word, the word of the kingdom. And what is the word Jesus? [00:23:45] Yeah. Okay, John, one one in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. [00:23:52] So the seed is Jesus. Right. Okay. Very interesting. So then we have the next. Let's look at the four soils. Okay. What did the soils represent? [00:24:07] The beginning part where he described it, yes. [00:24:12] When he's throwing when you're trying to sort out what do the soils represent, there are four types of soil. So what what did they representative of? [00:24:21] A person's heart, a person's heart. Okay, so four types of heart, four types of people, right. What separates one heart from another? What separates one group of people versus the other group of people? [00:24:39] The state or the beating of their heart? The state of their heart. [00:24:45] But less and less narrowed a little bit more. Okay. Okay. I'd like to suggest the stewardship of the seed, which is it represents, to say, the heart, but the state of heart is exemplified and evidenced by how its stewards see. Does that make sense? Okay, so what differentiates one soil from another, one type of person from another is stewardship of the seed. And then if the seed is Jesus and the soil represents the different types of people. What does that mean, that all people receive Jesus? [00:25:27] No. [00:25:33] Goes out, the soda goes out and sows the seed. Jesus. Yes. And does the same get sewn on all four soils? [00:25:47] Yes. [00:25:49] All four soils receive the seed sown. [00:25:55] Correct. [00:25:56] Okay. [00:25:58] So let me ask the question again. If they did this soil, it's not a trick question. It's a question that. [00:26:06] We usually don't consider because it doesn't make sense based on what we've been taught. But we have to do is we have to dig deeper than what we've been taught and see what the word says. Because what we've been taught may not be. What the world says, it may be something slightly different. So here's the question at the seat is Jesus and the soul represents people then does that mean that all people receive Jesus? Yes, it does. In fact, Romans, what does it Romans one tells us that everyone has the heart of the law of the Lord written on their hearts already. They see God's law in the skies and in everything. So everyone has received the truth. Jesus says the high priest prayer when he's praying to the Lord of the tables. He says, Die word is truth. God's word is truth. Jesus is the word. Jesus is the seed. And we see truth everywhere in nature that that proclaims God. So everyone has received that seed. But that doesn't mean they've done anything with it. That's the key. So now we've got the seed. We've got the soils. Now we have. Fruit, fruit is really the key message that Jesus is teaching about. And he basically basically says that here's my way of just kind of transliterating a little bit. Only those who produce fruit or are going to be. [00:27:46] Right, that's basically what we can start to see in his message, and I want to unpack that with fruit. [00:27:55] Fruit is the key to this parable. Fruit is only found in one soil. Soil is that good soil, the good soil. Okay, great. [00:28:05] And I want it just for sake of purpose. I'm going to label these soils as soil one, two, three and four soil. One is the path to the rocky soil soil. Three is the thorns and soil for the good soil. And then that way we can just kind of keep keep it simple. [00:28:23] Okay, so what we had to do is understand what is fruit. So if I were to ask you, what is fruit? This is the kid. This is the key to understanding everything is this fruit? What is it? [00:28:40] Fruit is what is produced from the seed. [00:28:47] Very good. [00:28:49] But what is it that's the prize? What can we call it the result? The seed managed and held and cared for properly. [00:29:08] All right. All right. We're gonna get there. Let me back up and just kind of bring us into this, because I think this is kind of fun. So seed one of the times another sessions. I was talking about the Bible has been written by one author. Would you agree with that? Yes. Okay. Now, that author inspired many men to actually pen that one author's thoughts, but it's all one author, which is God himself. Exactly. So anytime you have a book, you have characters in the book and those characters keep coming up and they always are the characters that they were. [00:29:54] In other words, if I'm reading a book and let's say, say, a Tom Clancy novel, I used to read those years back and he introduces a guy named Gosh, I forget the guy, but he introduces a couple of guys up front in the novel. [00:30:13] Then throughout the novel, every time he calls that person up by name. John did this or John did that. [00:30:19] It's always that person that he introduced and described at the beginning. Does that make sense? Yes. So the character goes throughout. So we see that same thing in the scriptures. [00:30:31] We see it with fig trees, olive trees. We see it with light, darkness. We see it with soils. We see it with seed. We see all kinds of thing. So the question is, what does seed represent? What is the character of seed? I like to show you something because this is really cool. [00:30:46] Where does God first introduce his character seed? [00:30:54] In the Garden of Eden, if I'm not mistaken, a little bit before. [00:31:00] Oh, you'll have to tell me. [00:31:05] Let's go to Genesis 111. [00:31:10] During creation, now, Save was obviously present in the Garden of Eden, but he introduces what it is. [00:31:19] During creation, Genesis one 11 with 11 and God said, let the earth sprout vegetation plants yielding seeds and fruit trees bearing fruit and which is their seed, each according to its own kind on the earth. [00:31:36] And it was so seed reproduces after its own time. We used today's technology words that carries all the DNA to reproduce an exact replica of whatever it is, whatever it came from. Does that make sense? Yeah. And then where is seed formed? [00:32:03] Well. See, far and within the fruit. [00:32:08] The fruit is the womb of the seed. Interesting, isn't it? [00:32:15] I mean, we know that it is insane to think of it that way. [00:32:18] Okay, so this makes sense. A seed is planted. It has to die. Once it dies. It's burst again. Into a new plant after its own kind, as that plant matures, it produces fruit. And inside, the fruit seed is created so that the plant through the fruit can reproduce itself again. Does that. Soun. [00:33:00] Similar to something else that we would think about in Christian terms. And that's just what Jesus did. He came as a seed of God. Right. The exact replica. He dies and he's planted into the ground, right into the temple. And then when he dies, he becomes born again into a exact replica. And he produces through. Okay. So we see this this pattern of the seed. And the fruit is the womb that causes that seed to produce fruit is in the process of where seed has been reproduced. Making sense? Yes. Okay, so then why does the characteristic of the seed. What is the characteristic of the fruit? It's kind of an aside, but it kind of ties into this. If I were to say, what is the fruit of? Can you finish that sentence? [00:34:13] What's it called fruit of? Prudent spirit. [00:34:19] So let's look at that real quick. This is Galatians five. 22, 23. But I want you to do it in The Passion translation on this one, because I think this song articulates what it's really saying. [00:34:33] And you said the Galicians five, five, 22 and 23. [00:34:50] All right, here we go. 22 and 23 says the fruit produced by the Holy Spirit within you is Divine Love in all its varied expressions. [00:35:04] Such a perfect moment. [00:35:07] A lot of times people say the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace. [00:35:12] But I think what the term love is, the fruit of the spirit is singular, not plural. There's not multiple fruits. There's one. That's why I love this translation that the fruit produced by the Holy Spirit within you. Is Divine Love in all its varied expressions. So now we're talking about love. Where else do you recall what the Bible says about love? We're talking about. This is Paul talking about different things and he said about love. [00:35:43] First Corinthians 13, I think. Yeah. The love. We call it the love chapter in our house. [00:35:49] Okay, good. All right. And it says that above all. [00:35:54] First, love is, love is, and in fact, there's here's something else, it says Faith, hope and love abide. But the greatest of these is love. What are you saying? There is that of everything he's been talking about, faith, hope and love. By that means that they are eternal. [00:36:17] They never go away. Gifts go away. But faith, hope and love abide. But of all of those, the greatest of them is love. This is what Jimmy. This is who God is, representative. Mostly by the character. Bye bye, love. That's what this is talking about. The fruit produced by the Holy Spirit within you is Divine Love in all its varied expressions. Okay, so now I'll let you finish the passage from there. It's now going to define and describe what that Divine Love, how that Divine Love manifests itself. [00:36:55] Okay, joy that overflows peace, that some patience that endures kindness and action, a life full of virtue, faith that prevails, gentleness of heart and strength of spirit never set the law above these qualities. They are meant to be limitless. [00:37:18] All right. So now let's go back. See this Jesus? That's what Jesus says is the word of God, right in the. Fruit is where the seed is formed. And that means really that seed, the fruit, is Jesus being formed in you and producing through you. Does that make sense? Yes. OK. So that's really what I believe the fruit is talking about, is that Jesus has been formed in you. So here's a question. If Jesus is formed in you, would you act like Jesus? We should be informed and you are going to carry the characteristics and the more he's formed and living through, you carry those characteristics. What are some of the things that Jesus did that maybe if he was formed in you, you would likely do to. [00:38:14] Oh, gosh. I mean, just naming things he did heal the sick, raise the dead. He helped all those that were oppressed. He lost. I mean, he loved first. And everything else was just an overflow of the love. [00:38:33] He went preaching the message, the kingdom of God. Okay. Yeah. All this. [00:38:38] All these things. Peace, patience, kindness. [00:38:43] So that is evidence of the fruit. The fruit is Jesus being formed. But evidence of the fruit being formed into you is a manifestation of all these things that Jesus did. Bring a little bit more clarity, right? OK. So here's the big question. If Jesus has never formed Inju, are you born again and go to heaven? [00:39:12] Tom. [00:39:15] According to all this. No. [00:39:21] It's not us that are righteous. It's Jesus, in a sense, righteous, right? Yeah, yeah. Okay. [00:39:29] Romans side, I think, says that the righteous fulfillment of the law, the righteous requirement of the law has been fulfilled. And you. [00:39:36] And then we can connect the dots because Christ is in you. [00:39:41] Who would it be safe to say that only those in soil number four. Hey, bear fruit. Which has been formed in them are the ones who are truly born again, are saved and go to heaven. Does that make sense, do you say? Yes. So now let's look at the four soils. Real quick. No one is the past. This is verse four, so read that again. Let's talk about that. [00:40:16] And that was go back to that book when we were in Matthew 20. [00:40:26] Excuse me, Matthew, 13, 13. [00:40:33] I'm going to switch translations. I'll go back to that. [00:40:35] I actually actually I got. I think this is versus it's not verse four that I want you to read is going to be verse probably 18 or 19. [00:40:45] Let me go back. Yes. [00:40:47] Okay. 18 and 19. Okay. So 19, when anyone hears the word of the kingdom does not understand it. The evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path. [00:41:02] I know that. [00:41:03] So that's the one that's sown along the path. [00:41:06] Okay, let's see. [00:41:13] So that person has heard the word of the kingdom. And they do not understand it. [00:41:18] Right. So how did they steward the seed? Or did they stay where the stayed at all? [00:41:26] They didn't. They didn't do it because it just says that they did not understand it. And then the evil one came and snatched it away. So that leads me to believe they didn't pursue understanding what had been spoken to them. [00:41:40] Got you. So no wonder the path does not seem see deceit at all. It's rejected. Correct. Since it doesn't stay where the seed. Does the soil accept the seed? So there are two things you've got to accept it and you, Stuart. So did the soil ever accept the seed? [00:42:07] No. [00:42:08] No. Since the seed represents Christ, does that mean that this person did not accept Christ? That's correct. And is this person born again? No. No. And how do we know that? [00:42:26] Because it says. [00:42:29] The evil one snatched it away. What was sewn in their heart? So Jesus was taken out from their heart. They can't be born again. [00:42:38] That's right. Okay, perfect. So now we have soul. No one does not accept the seed, does not therefore steward the seed. The say never forms itself in them through fruit. They are not born again. They don't go to heaven. Okay, so now let's look at soil number two, the rocky ground. This is going to be versus 20 through 21. [00:43:02] As for what was sown on Iraqi ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately received it with joy. Yet he has no root in himself but indoors for a while. And when tribulation or persecution persecution arises on account of the word, he immediately falls away. [00:43:24] So does the soil accept the seed? [00:43:32] A little bit, right? It tries to, but actually I think it's a little bit a little bit deeper. Let's go back to it and look and says yet he has no root in himself. Do you see that? If there is no. [00:43:50] Yes, go ahead. [00:43:51] If there's if there's no route, then did the soil ever accept it? [00:43:58] Go in the soil, right? [00:44:00] Yes. One head down. [00:44:04] Have you ever seen trees or plants grow on the side of a cliff where it's just wrong? Yes. Yes. Is there any. There's no soil, but they can still grow by putting roots down a little bit around the rocks. Does that make sense? So the soil does accept the seed. And we know that because there's no root and with no root, there's no acceptance. How does the soil steward the seed? [00:44:36] Well, it says as soon as he heard it, he received it with joy. Right. But because there's no route. There's nothing to anchor it when the hard things come, he falls away. He gives up. [00:44:52] Notice it says that he has no root in himself, but endures for a while. What are those passages that Jesus says? [00:45:00] What does it say about endurance to endure until the end? [00:45:05] So this guy only endures for a while, but not to the end. [00:45:09] Okay. So the soil doesn't accept the seed. The soil stewards, the seed only poorly. It's enough that it grew up, got excited. But it did not endure to the end. Here's the question. Is this person born again? [00:45:30] Now, how do we know that? [00:45:35] Well, because they had no route. And because they chose to give up almost OK. [00:45:42] So those are part of it. But the ultimate technical answers because there's no fruit. [00:45:50] Because fruit is where Christ is formed in you. And there's no fruit. Therefore, there is no Christ formed in you. And only of Christ is formed. And you are truly born again. Makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. So no one. Not a Christian. So, number two, they receive it with joy. A lot of people you share the gospel. They immediately pray the center's prayer type of thing. And you may see some life change. They're all excited, but they don't endure. [00:46:21] That wasn't a what we would call in our Christian, these terms a true salvation. Christ was never formed in them. Now let's look at soil number three. This is the one with the thorns. And this is going to be verse 22. [00:46:35] As for what was done along with thorns, this is the one who hears the word. But the cares of the world and deceitfulness of riches choke the word. And it proved unfruitful. [00:46:49] Turn also real quick, I want to show you one other passage on this that it gives a little bit more information. Luke Eighty-seven. It's the same Jesus describing this, but he gives Luke eight, seven, gives one more piece of information. Let's see if you can find that piece of information. [00:47:06] And some fell among thorns and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. So this one. Thorns are growing up with the. [00:47:17] Which means the seed is growing. Right. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Okay. So now let's ask our questions, our diagnostic questions on this. Does the soil accept the seed? [00:47:30] Yes. Yes. [00:47:32] Okay. Now, remember, the soil represents people, represents your heart. The seed represents Jesus. So this soil accepts Jesus. [00:47:44] Yes. [00:47:45] Follow me. Okay. Okay, so the soil accepts Jesus because the soil accepts the seed. [00:47:56] How does the soil steward the seed? How well is that seed stewarded? Well, it does it does the soil steward the seat at all. Let's start with their. [00:48:15] No. [00:48:17] Maybe a little bit in the beginning, because it says when the cares of the world and deceitfulness come and you choke it. [00:48:26] Okay, okay. Go back to Luke eight, seven. [00:48:32] And some fell among thorns and the thorns grew up with it. Grew up with a plant that the seed produced but choked it. So this means that. They grew up means that it actually grew into a plant, which means that the soil did steward the seed enough to produce a plant. Okay, so here soil number three, except the seed. If we put this in human terms, someone accepts Jesus. It's two words. [00:49:03] The seed enough that it forms a plant. And that plan looks exactly like the replica of what the seed was reproducing, because it is. But is this person born again? [00:49:22] No, because they do not endure to the end almost. [00:49:27] Not that they don't endure it to the end. There's the key element. What's the defining moment of whether someone's born again? [00:49:37] They don't produce fruit. [00:49:38] It's Christ in you. Right. And the only way to have Christ in you that you have fruit. Where the seed is produced. [00:49:51] You say that it was unfruitful. [00:49:53] That's right. There was no fruit. And now here's a person who accepts Christ. Who manifest Christian type of behavior? Because the fruit grows up. But produces no fruit, which is evidence that Christ was never formed in them. [00:50:17] They did not endure to the end. You had to endure longer for the verb to be formed, that may be one way to describe it. I don't think that's really an accurate statement. But there's something else here. Why was fruit never produced? [00:50:32] Because of the sarin. [00:50:35] What are the odds? Come check it out. What do Soren's come from? [00:50:42] We the ground. [00:50:48] All blind reproduces after its own time. [00:50:51] What is blind going? I'll see. There you go. Okay. [00:50:58] There you go. So here here we have a number three person receives and accepts the seed of the word. But they're also accepting all kinds of other seed and they stoo or the other seed more diligently than they steward the Christ seed. [00:51:19] And by stewarding other seeds, Jesus calls them the cares of the world. There's this staple ness of riches by stewarding those seeds more. This all number three person allows that stewardship to choke out the Christ. That's pretty interesting. Yeah, that's really good. So is it possible to accept Christ? Had the appearance of growing as a Christian. And yet not actually being born again, having Christ formed into you and ultimately going to heaven. Yes, it is. And this is startling and this interesting. [00:52:05] Oh, it's going to get a whole lot better. This is setting the stage. [00:52:12] Now, let's go to soil number four. This is the good soil. This is verse 23. [00:52:19] As for what was done on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands that he indeed bears fruit and yields in one case a hundredfold and another 60 in another 30. [00:52:36] All right, great. So does the soil accept the seed? How is the seed stewarded? Very well, very well. Is this person first off, what happens with the sea? [00:52:55] Cared for. It's your word. It's helped nurture so that it can grow. [00:53:02] All right. Is this person born again? Yes. And how do we know? Because they bear fruit. Okay. In terms of fruit. Some hundred, some 60, some 30. Notice also. It's not the soil that bears fruit. What bears fruit? The seed is the seed that bears the fruit, not the soil. The soil is merely the womb in which the fruit is produced that produces more seed. The seed producing the fruit. In other words, it's not us, it's the Lord. [00:53:52] Now, we've already been to always been taught. It's Christ living through us. There's nothing we can do of our own. The fruit of the spirit is not what we do. It's Christ in us. This is what's going on. It's the sea that reproduces the fruit. [00:54:06] It's not the soil. We're just the container. [00:54:12] So now as we start to wrap up, I wanted to talk on two things. The first one is Convert's versus Disciple's, because I think this is what is this is kind of where where a lot of this starts to focus in on. I want to set the definition first off, let me ask you if I were to ask you to define the difference between a convert and a disciple, what would you tell me? [00:54:40] A disciple to me is one who has a desire and longing for teaching. [00:54:46] And then. [00:54:48] Finding someone else and seeing that same quality in someone else. [00:54:53] Kind of like a leader, a good leader is going to look for someone who also wants to be a leader. And they're going to raise up that leader. [00:55:01] Right. Let me. [00:55:08] Give a simple definition that that I like to include a convert is going to be someone who accepts Christ right. [00:55:21] But a disciple is going to be someone who follows Christ. And I think there's a difference. [00:55:29] Does that make sense? Absolutely. I was watching this great documentary on the underground Iranian church and they had people from the church talking and everything and sharing, and it was really cool. But one of the guys made a really interesting comment, Converts versus Disciple's. Here's what he says. Disciples for the world and cling to Jesus till he comes. [00:55:57] Converts don't. Disciples are not engage in a culture war. Converts are disciples. Cherish, obey and share the word of God. Converts don't. Disciples choose Jesus over anything and everything else. Converts don't. Converts run when the fire comes, disciples don't mean that cool. So can you see a difference between merely accepting Christ, which is a convert, versus following Christ? Can you see that difference in the four soils? [00:56:35] Sure. Absolutely. Okay. [00:56:38] So the obvious question, but which of those soils are the disciples? [00:56:45] The last one. [00:56:46] Number four, which went to their convert's. [00:56:57] I would say probably number two. It could be three or four years. [00:57:06] So technically, I guess you could say was two, three and four. The converse, because they all accept Christ to a degree. They all received the word with joy, but only soil for is the disciple who actually pursues Christ. So back to my original question. Does everyone who accepts Christ go to heaven? No. Okay, so you change your answer now, right? [00:57:35] Okay. So wrapping up. Let me share what this parable I think teaches us. No one's really kind of cool. [00:57:43] I think there shows that to a degree. Now, these aren't exactly accurate. But we can kind of pull some some things out of this parable shows that there are actually two stages of obtaining eternal life, two stages of the kingdom of heaven within us. [00:58:02] First is the seed is sown and the soul has to accept it. But second, after accepting the soul has to steward, it produces Morsey. And without that stewarding and without the production of fruit. [00:58:21] Which is the seed being reformed in you then? Then your you haven't gone that second stage of stewarding it. Let me show you this also turned to Matthew three eight two three eight. This is John the Baptist. He's talking the Pharisees. And if you remember, John the Baptist comes baptizing with water for forgiveness, basically repentance leading toward forgiveness. A little bit different type baptism than baptism as a new believer. But reading Matthew three eight. [00:58:59] Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. [00:59:03] So now we have fruit again. Do you think this fruit might be similar to the fruit that Jesus is talking about? [00:59:09] Yes. [00:59:11] And then you have bear fruit in keeping with what? [00:59:14] Repentance. [00:59:16] And what was the key message that Jesus came preaching or intent for the Kingdom of God is near. [00:59:23] So we see all these all these same characters keep coming back up and cycling around. [00:59:27] Does that make sense? Yeah. So if we have repented. We will bear fruit if we have not repented. We won't bear fruit. Repentance is a key to bearing fruit. I would say repentance is a key to stewarding the sea. [00:59:47] Right. So when I started this study, I was kind of amazing what I found. And as I started to pursue it further, what's really cool is I start to see this pattern throughout all of scripture, but specifically in the New Testament where this is highlighted. So what we're going to do not on today's call is because we're at the end of the time. But as we go through, I want to start to dissect and open up a lot of these not only the parables, but the epistles and some more things that Jesus says and just kind of show this whole picture of what's going on. And here's to value. So the question is, well, what's so important about this? [01:00:28] Well, obviously, it's important if God puts it in there, but how does it change what we do not want to share? Kind of how it changed for me. But first, let me ask you, do you remember there is a section in the Bible that is called the Great Commission. You remember the great commission. Do you remember the first you know where it is? [01:00:48] I feel like it's. Go go to Matthew. 28 a day. [01:00:58] Well, it is the very end, Matthew, in Revelations is the end of God's word. So you could have the end, right. [01:01:06] The great commission, verse sixteen through twenty. [01:01:11] Looks like somewhere in there. Let's begin with all the authority has been. [01:01:20] Jesus came and said to the disciples, all authority and heaven on earth has been given to me. Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I had commanded you. And they hold. I am with you always to the very end of the age. [01:01:41] Great. So where did go out and share the gospel. Is that right? Go out and evangelize. Yeah. Okay. Now that's different than sharing the gospel. [01:01:56] Make disciples go therefore make disciple. [01:01:59] Yeah. Okay. So you're going to heaven. Is not the reason Jesus came. But it's a part of the kingdom of God. Sharing the gospel is not the great commission, but it's part. Of making disciples. You got to share the gospel to make a disciple. Yeah, that's true. So this is the focus. This is the thing that really hit me as I've come through here. Our focus isn't let's go evangelize. That's important. It's not the focus of what the Lord is called us to do is to make disciples. And the reason it's so important is only the disciples are the ones for Christ has formed in them. It's not enough just to go share the gospel. It's not enough just to quote unquote live as a Christian. We've got to help those people that we are around to steward the seed well, and we have to be careful that we steward the seed well as well. And if we're stewarding our say, well, it will produce fruit and fruit will manifest itself by the fruit dropping off a tree, say, going back in the ground and reproducing. So we're going to see more of this. But anyway, we'll stop there. But before we wrap up the call, any thoughts or observations that are hitting you? [01:03:26] Gosh, as always, just eye opening to see scriptures revealed in a way that you don't necessarily ponder and consider on a regular basis. [01:03:39] I thought it was great. I love the just the analogies between the seed and Jesus and the fruit. And it was really good. It was really good. I enjoyed it. Great. All right. Thank you so much for today. Thank you so much for your expertise. The time again that you put into studying and preparing this message for the listeners. Anything else that you want to share with our listeners before we say goodbye? [01:04:09] Just make sure you listen to. If you're not listening to our podcast, but you're just kind of get this on the Web site. Go to depending on which podcast you're on. Get cellar's calling you what we do for real estate or we have get radical faith, which is just the radical faith podcast by himself. Go back. There's a lot of great content there. And the other thing I would really encourage is there's a lot of stuff here. Don't listen to one time and say, I got it. Go back and really absorb it. Take some time. Pull out your Bible, read and see what you can see the words in print as you go through this and you'll get a lot more out of it. [01:04:49] Yes. Such great wisdom. Such great wisdom. Well, thank you. And we thank you to all of you who are listening. And we hope you all have a blessed day. And we'll see you next time. [01:04:59] Thanks, Beatty. Thank you. Be blessed. Thanks. P066 [/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
Transcription (was completed by automated process. Please ignore any speech-to-text errors) [00:00:04] All right. Well, hello, everyone. Thanks for joining us. My name is Penny and we're so glad that you're here with us today for this next session of Get Sellers Calling You. Beatty Carmichael is the CEO of Master Grabber, the creator of Agent Dominator and one of the top marketing experts in the real estate field. Beatty, I'm really excited about our call today. What do you have for us? [00:00:27] Well, I'm excited, too. And for those listening, this a quick disclaimer and heads up, we do two types of calls. One focused on growing a real estate business. By the way, we'll be doing more on that in the commercial sector as well. So you have commercial business. We got some really cool things on that. But the other type of topic we cover is on a spiritual nature. We call it radical faith. And it's where we talk about Jesus talking about Jesus offense. You you don't want to listen. Then you are forewarned and you can turn off this episode and come back to the next one. So that's what we're going to be talking about. [00:01:10] Awesome. I'm so excited. [00:01:12] Yes. Well, I'm kind of excited about this on this call, too, because this is, again, one of those studies I've done that I thought I'm going down this path and I know the answer. And then I start to search scriptures and I go, Huh? That's not the answer I was really expecting. [00:01:31] So kind of as a way of an intro, things are not always as they may seem. Okay, well, let me ask you a question. Jesus is up on the cross. [00:01:44] You remember that. You remember Jesus Christ. Just making sure that Jesus is up on the cross. And the question is, did God forsake him while he was there? [00:01:57] What do you think? No. No. [00:02:04] Yes. Yes. Well, yes, because I know that God turned his back on the thing. He wasn't turning his back on Jesus. [00:02:14] He was turning his back on the sin that was upon Jesus. And Jesus cried out, Why have you forsaken me? [00:02:23] So I could be both of you. You may be right, because a lot of times there's multiple dimensions and God's kingdom. [00:02:37] So it's not always linear and black and white. But for the sake of discussion, just kind of go down this path. [00:02:45] If you had to choose one or the other. Most likely. Did God forsake Jesus while he was on the cross or did God not forsake him? He did not. [00:02:59] Okay, give me your reasoning behind it. Do you have any scripture to back that up? [00:03:06] I can't think of any off the top of my head. I'm basing it on just what I know to be the nature and character of God. [00:03:14] Okay, great. Good God. Good woman. All right. So now Jesus does say, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? So does that mean that Jesus was wrong? [00:03:30] No. [00:03:32] Jesus was right. [00:03:34] If that's what he was feeling in the moment. We know that Jesus was perfect. So even though sometimes our feelings can lie to us. [00:03:46] That's a good question. That's a good question. [00:03:50] It is because a lot of people say, well, God, obviously for Jesus on the cross because Jesus said he did. You actually have a more accurate answer in reasoning behind it than you may realize. So this is where things are not always as they seem. You have to really look deeper underneath the surface and try to understand what's going on. So let me get you real quickly to turn to Psalm 22. [00:04:22] Let me give you a little background on Psalm 22. This is David in the Spirit, writing about the crucifixion. This is David watching. I'm assuming he's seen it take place or it's a vision, but he is see, he is writing down what the Lord has shown him. Just start reading the beginning of Psalm 22. And I just want to set the stage of what's going on here. [00:04:54] My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me so far from my cries of anguish? Oh, my God. Okay. [00:05:06] So Jesus is quoting Psalm 22? Actually, no. David is writing what Jesus says. And so David is actually quoting Jesus as opposed to Jesus quoting David. Does that make sense? Mm hmm. So here we have Jesus saying, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? As you read through Song 22, you see all the things about the crucifixion. You see them. They take my clothes. They cast lot from my clothes. They split them among I am pierced my my ribs, stand out, all these things that happen in crucifixion. So we know very clearly this is the crucifixion. But down real quickly to verse 24 and tell me. But first, 24 says was 24. [00:05:58] He has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one. He has not hidden his face from him, but has listened to his cry for help. [00:06:09] So this is talking about God. And it says that he has not hidden his face from him. Jesus says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? [00:06:19] And down here, it says that God never forsook and he never hid his face. [00:06:27] What in the world could be going on in this interesting. Fascinating. Thanks are not always as they seem, are they? [00:06:36] No, definitely not. [00:06:37] You got to dig a little bit deeper, especially when you want to really understand what's really going on and how to apply it in your life, how to live in a way that the Lord called us to live and what actually is going on. You've got to dig deeper to tap into a session we just recently did on when bad things happen. Is it God's will? Got some interesting observations there. So let me share it, because this is not the focus of the call. But I thought this was an interesting way to start it. Let me share kind of what's going on. [00:07:10] Have you ever heard the top concept that thin blinds you from the truth? Scene creates a veil over our eyes. And this is the whole idea of the wedding ceremony. The bride wears a veil and the bridegroom takes the veil off. And now she can see clearly as a as a foreshadowing of the spiritual. Ceremony with Jesus. And where the bride takes the veil of sin that blocks our vision. So when Jesus is on the cross, he became sin. And as soon as he became sin, a veil came over his eyes and he could no longer see the father. My God, my God, why do you forsaken me? David is saying, I'm right here. God never first took you sin blocks. Okay. So a lot of times we all believe what we've been told. But sometimes we don't really know why we believe it. Other times we believe a certain way because we read God's word and it says this and someone else reads that word and they get something totally different out of it. And the question is kind of flood what's right. So I want to move into the topic now because it's a bigger topic. Here's a question. [00:08:49] Does everyone who accepts Christ go to heaven? In other words, once you've accepted Christ, can you lose that salvation? [00:09:00] Oh, gosh, that's one of those questions that just gets so there's so much controversy. [00:09:09] Let's go. Let's go back. Let's go back to the root of the question. Does everyone who accepts Christ go to heaven? [00:09:16] Yes. [00:09:18] Why do you believe that? [00:09:23] Because the Bible says. [00:09:28] It says, if you believe in the Lord Jesus, he will be saved. [00:09:34] Is that accepting or believing or are those the same? [00:09:39] Well, maybe that's the translation I learned. [00:09:43] So let me let me ask you. Are you absolutely positive? That everyone who accepts Christ go to heaven. [00:09:56] I have to be honest, I'm not actually positive now that we're doing this call and I'll catch you on a number of things in the past, you're starting to think Beatty may know something. I don't. I'm not going to be quite so positive. Right. Right. Okay. Well, good job. Don't be positive. Okay. Okay. [00:10:19] So the topic of this series that we're going to do, and it's going to be multi part because it's really threw out all scripture, especially New Testament. And that is the question does do all who accept Christ go to heaven? [00:10:35] This call is going to be part number one. We're going to lay the foundation and then we're going to start to dissect it. And this isn't for just simply an intellectual pursuit of just saying, here's what scripture say. But really to try to understand. What is God calling us to do and why? And as I've gone through this myself, here's the net result. I've changed my perspective of what's most important. It's really amazing. Okay, just a quick disclaimer. I don't have all the answers. This is one of those topics that you mentioned. Everyone has all kinds of different opinions. Scripture is constantly, consistently true is the question of what are we and how we interpreting and why. So we don't want to share is is what I believe the Lord is directing me in understanding. So I want to talk about some of the controversial versus real quickly. So this kind of tees up why this is such a difficult topic. So let's go to Matthew ten, verse 22. [00:11:39] Okay. All right. [00:11:43] By the way, this is this is all these things we're going to go through for passages. And they're all Jesus talking. So go ahead, Matthew, 10 22. [00:11:52] You will be hated by everyone because of all. But the one who stands firm to the end will be saved, stands firm to the end. [00:12:02] Okay, that's interesting. Let's use also ESV translation on these. Let's now go to Matthew 24 and we're going to read verses 10 and 13, 10 and 13. [00:12:21] 24, verse 10 and 13 percent says and then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And then verse 13 says, But the one who endures to the end will be saved. [00:12:37] And they translates that first verse. And then many will fall away from the face. Okay, here we see. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. Let's now go to mark 13. [00:12:53] Martin, 13 versus 12 and 13. Let's see what that says. [00:12:58] All right. Verse twelve. And brother will deliver brother over to death. And the father, his child and the children will rise against parents and have them put to death. And you will be hated by all for my name's sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. [00:13:17] We see that again. The one who endures to the end. Makes you wonder, well, does that mean not all people who accept Christ? Go to heaven because why would Jesus keep talking about enduring to the end? Let's look at one more loop, 21, 17 through 19. [00:13:42] All right, 17 to 19 says you will be hated by all for my name's sake, but not a hair of your head will perish by your endurance. You will gain your lives. [00:13:56] There we have it again. Here's the question. When Jesus teaches that you must endure to the end to be saved. Does that mean that some people don't endure to the end? [00:14:09] Yes, I could see how some people probably give up or decide that I'm done with this. Okay, okay. [00:14:17] But the fact that Jesus is teaching that you had to endure to the end indicates that there are obviously those who don't endure to the end. Does that make sense? Yes. By the way, here's something else interesting. This was so important, apparently, that God put it in. The scriptures four separate times just by Jesus. We're going to say that this concept is pervasive. [00:14:43] But four separate times by Jesus. [00:14:45] If people don't endure to the end, then does that mean that they don't go to heaven? [00:14:53] I'd like to investigate that a little further. [00:14:56] Okay, so let me ask this question. Does being Sayed. [00:15:00] Does that. Men going to heaven. Do you think? [00:15:05] According to what we just read. No. [00:15:09] Okay, can you give me some scripture to back up? We're saved in heaven. Don't necessarily go together. [00:15:18] Well, the ones we just read, Jesus was speaking in reference to being saved and said those who Indore to the end. So three times we read that right. [00:15:30] So those who who endure to the end will be saved. Can we probably transliterate that? Those who endured to the end will make it to heaven. Probably is just kind of lame, the fact that Jesus is talking about being saved. Going to what we talk about going to heaven. Probably one in the same with that. Would you agree with that? [00:15:52] Yes, I would. [00:15:54] Okay. So if Jesus is saying. Or so is Jesus saying that whether or not they endure determines whether or not they are saved? [00:16:11] That's a very deep thought. I think so. I think that would go hand in hand. Okay, one influences the other. [00:16:24] Right. So what we're going to find out as we go through it, it's either a determining factor or an indicative factor. It's either the evidence had been saved or they determine that they are to be saved. So we're going to see what the scripture talks about a little bit more. So when Jesus came to Earth, here's another question. What was the main message that he preached? In other words, why did he come to Earth? [00:16:50] He preached the kingdom of heaven is near. He preached to be safe so that you could go to heaven. That was his message, to believe him to get right there. [00:17:02] So true. So he never really preaches forgiveness. [00:17:07] Have you ever noticed that he didn't have to come to Earth for forgiveness because God gave people all through the Old Testament. [00:17:16] He didn't come to Earth specifically for salvation. You said that on. He came to preach the kingdom of heaven. In fact, this is his common theme. If you can finish the sentence, repent for the kingdom of heaven is near or near here at hand. It's right here in our midst. Okay, so we had this thing called repentance and forgiveness, salvation going to have been saved. All these things are part of the kingdom of God. But what Jesus came to do was much more holistic than just being saved or forgiven. And I think that if we start to then understand what the kingdom of God really means. And understand more about that make more sense. Why? What Jesus talking about enduring to the end really means if we want to understand what Jesus means, the one who endures to the end. We have to go back to his core message that he's always teaching repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. And if we understand the kingdom of God, then we can then figure out what he really means about enduring to the end. Does that hurt? So with that then the question is. When Jesus taught on the kingdom of God, because that's most of what he taught on what was his primary method of teaching about the kingdom of God. [00:18:52] Do you recall the parable parables? Good job. Okay. So if we want to understand the kingdom of God, let's look at some of the parables, because that's what he teaches through which other parables is the most important in understanding. [00:19:11] All of the parables. Do you recall which one? [00:19:15] Oh, gosh. He had so many. The one that's popping out is the seed and the sower. But that might not be the one you're thinking of. [00:19:28] Did many good jobs go to Mark for verse 13? This is a commentary of Jesus on the parable of the seed in the summer. [00:19:41] Okay. [00:19:42] Four, verse 13. And he said to them, do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? [00:19:53] So here's something here's something real interesting. The parable of the seat in the Sower, I believe I'm correct, is the only parable in all three of the synoptic gospels. That's the same. And it's the only one where Jesus gives a parable and gives the interpretation. In fact, I think it's the only one that he gives the interpretation on. And he says here that if you don't understand this parable, you cannot understand any of the parables because this parable unlocks all the other parable. So this is a pretty important message on understanding the kingdom of God. Makes sense. Yes. Okay, so now let's read into this. Let's go read the parable of the Sower, and we're going to do this in Matthew. Okay. Okay. So, Matthew, 13 versus three through eight. [00:20:53] All right. And he told them many things in parables saying a sower went out to sow as he sowed some seeds, fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground where they did not have much soil. And immediately they sprang up since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain. Some 100 fold. Some 60, some 30. He who has ears let them hear. [00:21:37] Very good. So now we have the soil where the seed goes out. And now we're going to replay what Jesus says this means. That's going to be verses 18 through 23. [00:21:53] Here, then, the parable of the sower, when anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it. The evil one comes and snatches away what has been found in his heart. This is what was sown along the path. As for what was shown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately received it with joy. Yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while. And when tribulation or persecutions persecution arises on account of the word immediately, he falls away. As for what was sown amongst thorns, this is the one who hears the word. But the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word. And it proves unfruitful. As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands that he indeed bears fruit and yields in one case a hundredfold and another 60 in another 30. [00:22:51] All right, great. So now we're going back to the Requestion. Does everyone who accept Christ go to heaven? We say that Jesus says only the one who endures to the end will be saved. [00:23:05] We now go into this parable. He starts to describe it. So now let's get an understanding of this parable as we go in. So there are several parts about this parable that we need to break down first just to really kind of understand a little bit more. The first one is the seed. Okay, this is the seed and the seed is a key part. Here's the question. What is the seed? [00:23:33] The word. [00:23:34] Okay, so, Jesus, the seed is the word, the word of the kingdom. And what is the word Jesus? [00:23:45] Yeah. Okay, John, one one in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. [00:23:52] So the seed is Jesus. Right. Okay. Very interesting. So then we have the next. Let's look at the four soils. Okay. What did the soils represent? [00:24:07] The beginning part where he described it, yes. [00:24:12] When he's throwing when you're trying to sort out what do the soils represent, there are four types of soil. So what what did they representative of? [00:24:21] A person's heart, a person's heart. Okay, so four types of heart, four types of people, right. What separates one heart from another? What separates one group of people versus the other group of people? [00:24:39] The state or the beating of their heart? The state of their heart. [00:24:45] But less and less narrowed a little bit more. Okay. Okay. I'd like to suggest the stewardship of the seed, which is it represents, to say, the heart, but the state of heart is exemplified and evidenced by how its stewards see. Does that make sense? Okay, so what differentiates one soil from another, one type of person from another is stewardship of the seed. And then if the seed is Jesus and the soil represents the different types of people. What does that mean, that all people receive Jesus? [00:25:27] No. [00:25:33] Goes out, the soda goes out and sows the seed. Jesus. Yes. And does the same get sewn on all four soils? [00:25:47] Yes. [00:25:49] All four soils receive the seed sown. [00:25:55] Correct. [00:25:56] Okay. [00:25:58] So let me ask the question again. If they did this soil, it's not a trick question. It's a question that. [00:26:06] We usually don't consider because it doesn't make sense based on what we've been taught. But we have to do is we have to dig deeper than what we've been taught and see what the word says. Because what we've been taught may not be. What the world says, it may be something slightly different. So here's the question at the seat is Jesus and the soul represents people then does that mean that all people receive Jesus? Yes, it does. In fact, Romans, what does it Romans one tells us that everyone has the heart of the law of the Lord written on their hearts already. They see God's law in the skies and in everything. So everyone has received the truth. Jesus says the high priest prayer when he's praying to the Lord of the tables. He says, Die word is truth. God's word is truth. Jesus is the word. Jesus is the seed. And we see truth everywhere in nature that that proclaims God. So everyone has received that seed. But that doesn't mean they've done anything with it. That's the key. So now we've got the seed. We've got the soils. Now we have. Fruit, fruit is really the key message that Jesus is teaching about. And he basically basically says that here's my way of just kind of transliterating a little bit. Only those who produce fruit or are going to be. [00:27:46] Right, that's basically what we can start to see in his message, and I want to unpack that with fruit. [00:27:55] Fruit is the key to this parable. Fruit is only found in one soil. Soil is that good soil, the good soil. Okay, great. [00:28:05] And I want it just for sake of purpose. I'm going to label these soils as soil one, two, three and four soil. One is the path to the rocky soil soil. Three is the thorns and soil for the good soil. And then that way we can just kind of keep keep it simple. [00:28:23] Okay, so what we had to do is understand what is fruit. So if I were to ask you, what is fruit? This is the kid. This is the key to understanding everything is this fruit? What is it? [00:28:40] Fruit is what is produced from the seed. [00:28:47] Very good. [00:28:49] But what is it that's the prize? What can we call it the result? The seed managed and held and cared for properly. [00:29:08] All right. All right. We're gonna get there. Let me back up and just kind of bring us into this, because I think this is kind of fun. So seed one of the times another sessions. I was talking about the Bible has been written by one author. Would you agree with that? Yes. Okay. Now, that author inspired many men to actually pen that one author's thoughts, but it's all one author, which is God himself. Exactly. So anytime you have a book, you have characters in the book and those characters keep coming up and they always are the characters that they were. [00:29:54] In other words, if I'm reading a book and let's say, say, a Tom Clancy novel, I used to read those years back and he introduces a guy named Gosh, I forget the guy, but he introduces a couple of guys up front in the novel. [00:30:13] Then throughout the novel, every time he calls that person up by name. John did this or John did that. [00:30:19] It's always that person that he introduced and described at the beginning. Does that make sense? Yes. So the character goes throughout. So we see that same thing in the scriptures. [00:30:31] We see it with fig trees, olive trees. We see it with light, darkness. We see it with soils. We see it with seed. We see all kinds of thing. So the question is, what does seed represent? What is the character of seed? I like to show you something because this is really cool. [00:30:46] Where does God first introduce his character seed? [00:30:54] In the Garden of Eden, if I'm not mistaken, a little bit before. [00:31:00] Oh, you'll have to tell me. [00:31:05] Let's go to Genesis 111. [00:31:10] During creation, now, Save was obviously present in the Garden of Eden, but he introduces what it is. [00:31:19] During creation, Genesis one 11 with 11 and God said, let the earth sprout vegetation plants yielding seeds and fruit trees bearing fruit and which is their seed, each according to its own kind on the earth. [00:31:36] And it was so seed reproduces after its own time. We used today's technology words that carries all the DNA to reproduce an exact replica of whatever it is, whatever it came from. Does that make sense? Yeah. And then where is seed formed? [00:32:03] Well. See, far and within the fruit. [00:32:08] The fruit is the womb of the seed. Interesting, isn't it? [00:32:15] I mean, we know that it is insane to think of it that way. [00:32:18] Okay, so this makes sense. A seed is planted. It has to die. Once it dies. It's burst again. Into a new plant after its own kind, as that plant matures, it produces fruit. And inside, the fruit seed is created so that the plant through the fruit can reproduce itself again. Does that. Soun. [00:33:00] Similar to something else that we would think about in Christian terms. And that's just what Jesus did. He came as a seed of God. Right. The exact replica. He dies and he's planted into the ground, right into the temple. And then when he dies, he becomes born again into a exact replica. And he produces through. Okay. So we see this this pattern of the seed. And the fruit is the womb that causes that seed to produce fruit is in the process of where seed has been reproduced. Making sense? Yes. Okay, so then why does the characteristic of the seed. What is the characteristic of the fruit? It's kind of an aside, but it kind of ties into this. If I were to say, what is the fruit of? Can you finish that sentence? [00:34:13] What's it called fruit of? Prudent spirit. [00:34:19] So let's look at that real quick. This is Galatians five. 22, 23. But I want you to do it in The Passion translation on this one, because I think this song articulates what it's really saying. [00:34:33] And you said the Galicians five, five, 22 and 23. [00:34:50] All right, here we go. 22 and 23 says the fruit produced by the Holy Spirit within you is Divine Love in all its varied expressions. [00:35:04] Such a perfect moment. [00:35:07] A lot of times people say the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace. [00:35:12] But I think what the term love is, the fruit of the spirit is singular, not plural. There's not multiple fruits. There's one. That's why I love this translation that the fruit produced by the Holy Spirit within you. Is Divine Love in all its varied expressions. So now we're talking about love. Where else do you recall what the Bible says about love? We're talking about. This is Paul talking about different things and he said about love. [00:35:43] First Corinthians 13, I think. Yeah. The love. We call it the love chapter in our house. [00:35:49] Okay, good. All right. And it says that above all. [00:35:54] First, love is, love is, and in fact, there's here's something else, it says Faith, hope and love abide. But the greatest of these is love. What are you saying? There is that of everything he's been talking about, faith, hope and love. By that means that they are eternal. [00:36:17] They never go away. Gifts go away. But faith, hope and love abide. But of all of those, the greatest of them is love. This is what Jimmy. This is who God is, representative. Mostly by the character. Bye bye, love. That's what this is talking about. The fruit produced by the Holy Spirit within you is Divine Love in all its varied expressions. Okay, so now I'll let you finish the passage from there. It's now going to define and describe what that Divine Love, how that Divine Love manifests itself. [00:36:55] Okay, joy that overflows peace, that some patience that endures kindness and action, a life full of virtue, faith that prevails, gentleness of heart and strength of spirit never set the law above these qualities. They are meant to be limitless. [00:37:18] All right. So now let's go back. See this Jesus? That's what Jesus says is the word of God, right in the. Fruit is where the seed is formed. And that means really that seed, the fruit, is Jesus being formed in you and producing through you. Does that make sense? Yes. OK. So that's really what I believe the fruit is talking about, is that Jesus has been formed in you. So here's a question. If Jesus is formed in you, would you act like Jesus? We should be informed and you are going to carry the characteristics and the more he's formed and living through, you carry those characteristics. What are some of the things that Jesus did that maybe if he was formed in you, you would likely do to. [00:38:14] Oh, gosh. I mean, just naming things he did heal the sick, raise the dead. He helped all those that were oppressed. He lost. I mean, he loved first. And everything else was just an overflow of the love. [00:38:33] He went preaching the message, the kingdom of God. Okay. Yeah. All this. [00:38:38] All these things. Peace, patience, kindness. [00:38:43] So that is evidence of the fruit. The fruit is Jesus being formed. But evidence of the fruit being formed into you is a manifestation of all these things that Jesus did. Bring a little bit more clarity, right? OK. So here's the big question. If Jesus has never formed Inju, are you born again and go to heaven? [00:39:12] Tom. [00:39:15] According to all this. No. [00:39:21] It's not us that are righteous. It's Jesus, in a sense, righteous, right? Yeah, yeah. Okay. [00:39:29] Romans side, I think, says that the righteous fulfillment of the law, the righteous requirement of the law has been fulfilled. And you. [00:39:36] And then we can connect the dots because Christ is in you. [00:39:41] Who would it be safe to say that only those in soil number four. Hey, bear fruit. Which has been formed in them are the ones who are truly born again, are saved and go to heaven. Does that make sense, do you say? Yes. So now let's look at the four soils. Real quick. No one is the past. This is verse four, so read that again. Let's talk about that. [00:40:16] And that was go back to that book when we were in Matthew 20. [00:40:26] Excuse me, Matthew, 13, 13. [00:40:33] I'm going to switch translations. I'll go back to that. [00:40:35] I actually actually I got. I think this is versus it's not verse four that I want you to read is going to be verse probably 18 or 19. [00:40:45] Let me go back. Yes. [00:40:47] Okay. 18 and 19. Okay. So 19, when anyone hears the word of the kingdom does not understand it. The evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path. [00:41:02] I know that. [00:41:03] So that's the one that's sown along the path. [00:41:06] Okay, let's see. [00:41:13] So that person has heard the word of the kingdom. And they do not understand it. [00:41:18] Right. So how did they steward the seed? Or did they stay where the stayed at all? [00:41:26] They didn't. They didn't do it because it just says that they did not understand it. And then the evil one came and snatched it away. So that leads me to believe they didn't pursue understanding what had been spoken to them. [00:41:40] Got you. So no wonder the path does not seem see deceit at all. It's rejected. Correct. Since it doesn't stay where the seed. Does the soil accept the seed? So there are two things you've got to accept it and you, Stuart. So did the soil ever accept the seed? [00:42:07] No. [00:42:08] No. Since the seed represents Christ, does that mean that this person did not accept Christ? That's correct. And is this person born again? No. No. And how do we know that? [00:42:26] Because it says. [00:42:29] The evil one snatched it away. What was sewn in their heart? So Jesus was taken out from their heart. They can't be born again. [00:42:38] That's right. Okay, perfect. So now we have soul. No one does not accept the seed, does not therefore steward the seed. The say never forms itself in them through fruit. They are not born again. They don't go to heaven. Okay, so now let's look at soil number two, the rocky ground. This is going to be versus 20 through 21. [00:43:02] As for what was sown on Iraqi ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately received it with joy. Yet he has no root in himself but indoors for a while. And when tribulation or persecution persecution arises on account of the word, he immediately falls away. [00:43:24] So does the soil accept the seed? [00:43:32] A little bit, right? It tries to, but actually I think it's a little bit a little bit deeper. Let's go back to it and look and says yet he has no root in himself. Do you see that? If there is no. [00:43:50] Yes, go ahead. [00:43:51] If there's if there's no route, then did the soil ever accept it? [00:43:58] Go in the soil, right? [00:44:00] Yes. One head down. [00:44:04] Have you ever seen trees or plants grow on the side of a cliff where it's just wrong? Yes. Yes. Is there any. There's no soil, but they can still grow by putting roots down a little bit around the rocks. Does that make sense? So the soil does accept the seed. And we know that because there's no root and with no root, there's no acceptance. How does the soil steward the seed? [00:44:36] Well, it says as soon as he heard it, he received it with joy. Right. But because there's no route. There's nothing to anchor it when the hard things come, he falls away. He gives up. [00:44:52] Notice it says that he has no root in himself, but endures for a while. What are those passages that Jesus says? [00:45:00] What does it say about endurance to endure until the end? [00:45:05] So this guy only endures for a while, but not to the end. [00:45:09] Okay. So the soil doesn't accept the seed. The soil stewards, the seed only poorly. It's enough that it grew up, got excited. But it did not endure to the end. Here's the question. Is this person born again? [00:45:30] Now, how do we know that? [00:45:35] Well, because they had no route. And because they chose to give up almost OK. [00:45:42] So those are part of it. But the ultimate technical answers because there's no fruit. [00:45:50] Because fruit is where Christ is formed in you. And there's no fruit. Therefore, there is no Christ formed in you. And only of Christ is formed. And you are truly born again. Makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. So no one. Not a Christian. So, number two, they receive it with joy. A lot of people you share the gospel. They immediately pray the center's prayer type of thing. And you may see some life change. They're all excited, but they don't endure. [00:46:21] That wasn't a what we would call in our Christian, these terms a true salvation. Christ was never formed in them. Now let's look at soil number three. This is the one with the thorns. And this is going to be verse 22. [00:46:35] As for what was done along with thorns, this is the one who hears the word. But the cares of the world and deceitfulness of riches choke the word. And it proved unfruitful. [00:46:49] Turn also real quick, I want to show you one other passage on this that it gives a little bit more information. Luke Eighty-seven. It's the same Jesus describing this, but he gives Luke eight, seven, gives one more piece of information. Let's see if you can find that piece of information. [00:47:06] And some fell among thorns and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. So this one. Thorns are growing up with the. [00:47:17] Which means the seed is growing. Right. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Okay. So now let's ask our questions, our diagnostic questions on this. Does the soil accept the seed? [00:47:30] Yes. Yes. [00:47:32] Okay. Now, remember, the soil represents people, represents your heart. The seed represents Jesus. So this soil accepts Jesus. [00:47:44] Yes. [00:47:45] Follow me. Okay. Okay, so the soil accepts Jesus because the soil accepts the seed. [00:47:56] How does the soil steward the seed? How well is that seed stewarded? Well, it does it does the soil steward the seat at all. Let's start with their. [00:48:15] No. [00:48:17] Maybe a little bit in the beginning, because it says when the cares of the world and deceitfulness come and you choke it. [00:48:26] Okay, okay. Go back to Luke eight, seven. [00:48:32] And some fell among thorns and the thorns grew up with it. Grew up with a plant that the seed produced but choked it. So this means that. They grew up means that it actually grew into a plant, which means that the soil did steward the seed enough to produce a plant. Okay, so here soil number three, except the seed. If we put this in human terms, someone accepts Jesus. It's two words. [00:49:03] The seed enough that it forms a plant. And that plan looks exactly like the replica of what the seed was reproducing, because it is. But is this person born again? [00:49:22] No, because they do not endure to the end almost. [00:49:27] Not that they don't endure it to the end. There's the key element. What's the defining moment of whether someone's born again? [00:49:37] They don't produce fruit. [00:49:38] It's Christ in you. Right. And the only way to have Christ in you that you have fruit. Where the seed is produced. [00:49:51] You say that it was unfruitful. [00:49:53] That's right. There was no fruit. And now here's a person who accepts Christ. Who manifest Christian type of behavior? Because the fruit grows up. But produces no fruit, which is evidence that Christ was never formed in them. [00:50:17] They did not endure to the end. You had to endure longer for the verb to be formed, that may be one way to describe it. I don't think that's really an accurate statement. But there's something else here. Why was fruit never produced? [00:50:32] Because of the sarin. [00:50:35] What are the odds? Come check it out. What do Soren's come from? [00:50:42] We the ground. [00:50:48] All blind reproduces after its own time. [00:50:51] What is blind going? I'll see. There you go. Okay. [00:50:58] There you go. So here here we have a number three person receives and accepts the seed of the word. But they're also accepting all kinds of other seed and they stoo or the other seed more diligently than they steward the Christ seed. [00:51:19] And by stewarding other seeds, Jesus calls them the cares of the world. There's this staple ness of riches by stewarding those seeds more. This all number three person allows that stewardship to choke out the Christ. That's pretty interesting. Yeah, that's really good. So is it possible to accept Christ? Had the appearance of growing as a Christian. And yet not actually being born again, having Christ formed into you and ultimately going to heaven. Yes, it is. And this is startling and this interesting. [00:52:05] Oh, it's going to get a whole lot better. This is setting the stage. [00:52:12] Now, let's go to soil number four. This is the good soil. This is verse 23. [00:52:19] As for what was done on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands that he indeed bears fruit and yields in one case a hundredfold and another 60 in another 30. [00:52:36] All right, great. So does the soil accept the seed? How is the seed stewarded? Very well, very well. Is this person first off, what happens with the sea? [00:52:55] Cared for. It's your word. It's helped nurture so that it can grow. [00:53:02] All right. Is this person born again? Yes. And how do we know? Because they bear fruit. Okay. In terms of fruit. Some hundred, some 60, some 30. Notice also. It's not the soil that bears fruit. What bears fruit? The seed is the seed that bears the fruit, not the soil. The soil is merely the womb in which the fruit is produced that produces more seed. The seed producing the fruit. In other words, it's not us, it's the Lord. [00:53:52] Now, we've already been to always been taught. It's Christ living through us. There's nothing we can do of our own. The fruit of the spirit is not what we do. It's Christ in us. This is what's going on. It's the sea that reproduces the fruit. [00:54:06] It's not the soil. We're just the container. [00:54:12] So now as we start to wrap up, I wanted to talk on two things. The first one is Convert's versus Disciple's, because I think this is what is this is kind of where where a lot of this starts to focus in on. I want to set the definition first off, let me ask you if I were to ask you to define the difference between a convert and a disciple, what would you tell me? [00:54:40] A disciple to me is one who has a desire and longing for teaching. [00:54:46] And then. [00:54:48] Finding someone else and seeing that same quality in someone else. [00:54:53] Kind of like a leader, a good leader is going to look for someone who also wants to be a leader. And they're going to raise up that leader. [00:55:01] Right. Let me. [00:55:08] Give a simple definition that that I like to include a convert is going to be someone who accepts Christ right. [00:55:21] But a disciple is going to be someone who follows Christ. And I think there's a difference. [00:55:29] Does that make sense? Absolutely. I was watching this great documentary on the underground Iranian church and they had people from the church talking and everything and sharing, and it was really cool. But one of the guys made a really interesting comment, Converts versus Disciple's. Here's what he says. Disciples for the world and cling to Jesus till he comes. [00:55:57] Converts don't. Disciples are not engage in a culture war. Converts are disciples. Cherish, obey and share the word of God. Converts don't. Disciples choose Jesus over anything and everything else. Converts don't. Converts run when the fire comes, disciples don't mean that cool. So can you see a difference between merely accepting Christ, which is a convert, versus following Christ? Can you see that difference in the four soils? [00:56:35] Sure. Absolutely. Okay. [00:56:38] So the obvious question, but which of those soils are the disciples? [00:56:45] The last one. [00:56:46] Number four, which went to their convert's. [00:56:57] I would say probably number two. It could be three or four years. [00:57:06] So technically, I guess you could say was two, three and four. The converse, because they all accept Christ to a degree. They all received the word with joy, but only soil for is the disciple who actually pursues Christ. So back to my original question. Does everyone who accepts Christ go to heaven? No. Okay, so you change your answer now, right? [00:57:35] Okay. So wrapping up. Let me share what this parable I think teaches us. No one's really kind of cool. [00:57:43] I think there shows that to a degree. Now, these aren't exactly accurate. But we can kind of pull some some things out of this parable shows that there are actually two stages of obtaining eternal life, two stages of the kingdom of heaven within us. [00:58:02] First is the seed is sown and the soul has to accept it. But second, after accepting the soul has to steward, it produces Morsey. And without that stewarding and without the production of fruit. [00:58:21] Which is the seed being reformed in you then? Then your you haven't gone that second stage of stewarding it. Let me show you this also turned to Matthew three eight two three eight. This is John the Baptist. He's talking the Pharisees. And if you remember, John the Baptist comes baptizing with water for forgiveness, basically repentance leading toward forgiveness. A little bit different type baptism than baptism as a new believer. But reading Matthew three eight. [00:58:59] Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. [00:59:03] So now we have fruit again. Do you think this fruit might be similar to the fruit that Jesus is talking about? [00:59:09] Yes. [00:59:11] And then you have bear fruit in keeping with what? [00:59:14] Repentance. [00:59:16] And what was the key message that Jesus came preaching or intent for the Kingdom of God is near. [00:59:23] So we see all these all these same characters keep coming back up and cycling around. [00:59:27] Does that make sense? Yeah. So if we have repented. We will bear fruit if we have not repented. We won't bear fruit. Repentance is a key to bearing fruit. I would say repentance is a key to stewarding the sea. [00:59:47] Right. So when I started this study, I was kind of amazing what I found. And as I started to pursue it further, what's really cool is I start to see this pattern throughout all of scripture, but specifically in the New Testament where this is highlighted. So what we're going to do not on today's call is because we're at the end of the time. But as we go through, I want to start to dissect and open up a lot of these not only the parables, but the epistles and some more things that Jesus says and just kind of show this whole picture of what's going on. And here's to value. So the question is, well, what's so important about this? [01:00:28] Well, obviously, it's important if God puts it in there, but how does it change what we do not want to share? Kind of how it changed for me. But first, let me ask you, do you remember there is a section in the Bible that is called the Great Commission. You remember the great commission. Do you remember the first you know where it is? [01:00:48] I feel like it's. Go go to Matthew. 28 a day. [01:00:58] Well, it is the very end, Matthew, in Revelations is the end of God's word. So you could have the end, right. [01:01:06] The great commission, verse sixteen through twenty. [01:01:11] Looks like somewhere in there. Let's begin with all the authority has been. [01:01:20] Jesus came and said to the disciples, all authority and heaven on earth has been given to me. Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I had commanded you. And they hold. I am with you always to the very end of the age. [01:01:41] Great. So where did go out and share the gospel. Is that right? Go out and evangelize. Yeah. Okay. Now that's different than sharing the gospel. [01:01:56] Make disciples go therefore make disciple. [01:01:59] Yeah. Okay. So you're going to heaven. Is not the reason Jesus came. But it's a part of the kingdom of God. Sharing the gospel is not the great commission, but it's part. Of making disciples. You got to share the gospel to make a disciple. Yeah, that's true. So this is the focus. This is the thing that really hit me as I've come through here. Our focus isn't let's go evangelize. That's important. It's not the focus of what the Lord is called us to do is to make disciples. And the reason it's so important is only the disciples are the ones for Christ has formed in them. It's not enough just to go share the gospel. It's not enough just to quote unquote live as a Christian. We've got to help those people that we are around to steward the seed well, and we have to be careful that we steward the seed well as well. And if we're stewarding our say, well, it will produce fruit and fruit will manifest itself by the fruit dropping off a tree, say, going back in the ground and reproducing. So we're going to see more of this. But anyway, we'll stop there. But before we wrap up the call, any thoughts or observations that are hitting you? [01:03:26] Gosh, as always, just eye opening to see scriptures revealed in a way that you don't necessarily ponder and consider on a regular basis. [01:03:39] I thought it was great. I love the just the analogies between the seed and Jesus and the fruit. And it was really good. It was really good. I enjoyed it. Great. All right. Thank you so much for today. Thank you so much for your expertise. The time again that you put into studying and preparing this message for the listeners. Anything else that you want to share with our listeners before we say goodbye? [01:04:09] Just make sure you listen to. If you're not listening to our podcast, but you're just kind of get this on the Web site. Go to depending on which podcast you're on. Get cellar's calling you what we do for real estate or we have get radical faith, which is just the radical faith podcast by himself. Go back. There's a lot of great content there. And the other thing I would really encourage is there's a lot of stuff here. Don't listen to one time and say, I got it. Go back and really absorb it. Take some time. Pull out your Bible, read and see what you can see the words in print as you go through this and you'll get a lot more out of it. [01:04:49] Yes. Such great wisdom. Such great wisdom. Well, thank you. And we thank you to all of you who are listening. And we hope you all have a blessed day. And we'll see you next time. [01:04:59] Thanks, Beatty. Thank you. Be blessed. Thanks. P022
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Please ignore any speech-to-text errors) Hello, everyone. My name is Penny. I'm so glad you joined us today and welcome to this next session of Get Sellers Calling You with Beatty Carmichael. Beatty is the CEO of Master Grabber, the creator of Agent Dominator and one of the top marketing experts in the real estate field. Beatty, I am super excited about this call with you today. What do you have for our listeners? [00:00:29] Well, I've got a really exciting call for today, and that is it may sound kind of boring, but when you really understand the impact, it's really exciting and is how to do marketing right. [00:00:41] Because, you know, in real estate, I love what Gary Keller says in all of his books -- millionaire real estate agent, Shift and others. He says the most important thing in real estate is lead generation. And then he says the second most. Would you like guess what? The second most important thing is in real estate. If the first generation was the second most important thing. [00:01:09] Has to be. If I were to guess something to obtain buyers. Almost, yes. [00:01:16] So it's tied to that second most important thing in real estate is lead generation. He says the third most important thing. Would you like to guess the third most important thing in real estate is. [00:01:28] Let me guess. [00:01:29] Lead generate lead generation. Right. In commercial real estate. Location, location. Location is very real estate business. Lead generation is everything. So we're going to talk about today is how do you generate leads not on a tactical process, but more a strategic process. [00:01:52] Does that make sense? Yeah, sure. [00:01:55] Okay, so let me give you a background on this. I was speaking just a couple weeks ago with a real estate agent named Mike. He's not the typical real estate agent. He also has his investment license and his primary business is a financial advisor. So he has a block of clients that he manages their assets on. He makes a lot of money from that, but he also works in the real estate world and helps buy and sell real estate because part of his financial advising is to purchase investment properties in real estate. Do you see the connection? Yeah, sure. Okay, so he had the perfect fit. He had this brilliant idea. And I want to share this idea because I know there is some real estate agents out there who may not be a series six. I think it is a financial adviser, but they are friends who are that they can partner with because this is a beautiful partnering opportunity. We're talking about lead generation. You typically think out of the box if you do what every real estate agent does to generate leads, you're going to be like every real estate agent, which is working 60, 70 hours a week, scrapping for every deal you get. And when a shift in the marketplace happens, like what's happened recently with Cobian 19 and the corona virus pandemic stuff, your business falls apart because you're doing what everyone else does. By the way, I've got I've got to make this one comment. We have a number of clients whose business has not faltered at all during this period of time. We have other clients whose business has fallen apart. And you know the difference between the two. [00:03:50] Personal connection with the agent. I was going to get personal connection with the agent and their client. [00:03:58] A little bit deeper than that. That is a tactical part. [00:04:01] But strategically, those whose businesses have not faltered, they've built their business on right principles that always drive in business. Those whose businesses have faltered are what I'm gonna call hacks at real estate. [00:04:19] They they just because the market was good, they were able to pick up business, but they really had no process in place, whether it's those personal contacts and relationships or whether it a strategic marketing plan. They just had nothing. They just kind of threw stuff out and it worked. But now that their shift has happened, or at least a shift in their business has fallen apart. So they had no foundation. They had no foundation. So I digress. But I want to bring it back to the comment of where I was going. And that is, if you do what all other agents do, your business is going to look like all other agents and all other agencies average. And if the definition of averages is the cream of the crop and the crap or the cream, I don't want to be there. If you want to if you want to have a above average business, you got to think outside of the box and do what others are not. So here's an idea. Thinking out of the box, it's this connection between you as a real estate agent and a financial adviser. And so let me share the story that this guy sharing. I thought it was brilliant. And then I want to use this to start to talk about the marketing topics, marketing concepts and understanding to really bring something like this together. [00:05:39] So Mike has a financial adviser. He's helped his clients buy investment property. So this is like duplexes, small apartments, retail stores and things of that sort. And so that's where he's used his his real estate license. And so he makes a commission off of the transaction. He also makes commission off of managing their assets. But he's kind of tapped out most of his clients on the things that he would honestly recommend for them. And he's looking to grow his business. He wants to grow his client base. So he had this brilliant idea. A lot of people have for one case, he wanted to market to people with one case, get them to convert it to a self directed irae. And then he could help advise them on their when they do that, he would become their financial adviser. So now he gets their assets and then he could advise them on investments that they can do to their self directed. Right. And if it's a real estate investment, he's going to be in the deal as well. So, first off, just make sure we're on the same page. Do you know what a self directed IRA is? [00:06:53] I believe that when you've got investments, you get to choose delegates, a percentage of the account or type of account that you put your your money into. [00:07:06] Very close. So it's a little bit different, but very close. So if you think about a faurot one K, you get to have some choice in what type of investments you do. Right. But someone else is managing the investment, meaning you buy a mutual fund or you buy or something like that in a self directed IRA. You get to manage the money yourself. So if you want to buy a piece of property or buy stock, you're actually directing it one hundred percent. And to a degree, you're managing it. There are some restrictions, but you're fully in charge of it. Okay. So it gives you much greater leeway on what you do. So brilliant note for professional real estate agent out there. This is a source of great money to then sell investment property. Okay, so this is the connection. So that's what he wanted to do. And then we started to talk about this and he said, I want to mail 10 or 15 thousand people and start generating more business. And so we started talking about it. I said, well, I'd probably I'd start something smaller than ten or fifteen thousand people. And he said, Why is that? He said, Because you don't really know what works. And he thought about that for a moment. I said, well, that's interesting. But I don't fully understand. He said, all you do is you put together a postcard and you put a call to action on it. I said, well, call the actions or know all that they're cracked up to be, say most agents. They hear these words. And the purpose of this call is, I want to get away from what you hear and you think, you know, to really helping you understand. Have you heard? Do you know what a call to a CPA or call to action is? Have you heard that term? [00:09:00] I've heard the term, but I honestly probably could not define it properly. [00:09:05] So let's define it because it's important. A CPA, as it's called, Call to Action, is simply a statement you make to call your prospect to action. Pick up the phone and call me thinking about selling your property. Call me now. That's a call to action. And what happens is most real estate agents, they pick up these terms, they see they see something. That's the secret. It's all about a call to action. And the people that are making money with their marketing because they have a call to action. I don't need to put a call to action there. And I was telling my ex said, call the actions are worthless unless you do it right. So now I caught him at this point that he's now ready to learn and understand what he has no clue in. [00:10:00] Now, remember the comment one of my friends was sharing? I went to a real estate training class that he did years back and he put up a slide for the realtors in the room. [00:10:11] And it basically said and he was talking about this is kind of how you approach when you're engaging a property owner to sell their property. The statement was, if you think hiring a professional is expensive, try hiring an amateur. And in marketing, that really applies because my mike was willing to go spend 30, 40, 50 thousand dollars his first year thinking all it was was a call to action and he would make money. So with that, let me get real this in and start talking a little bit about marketing. Does that work with you? [00:10:49] Yeah, absolutely. [00:10:52] So the first thing in marketing is you've got a test. And the reason why. Can you guess why you want to test? [00:11:03] You don't know what works. [00:11:04] That's right. That's right. Not everything works, okay, until you've tested it. You don't know if it works or not. [00:11:13] And so this is why a lot of times if we take postcards, for example, because this is a common thing, a lot of mail postcards and they don't work. No e-mail postcards. And what you put on the postcard did not work. Not the postcard postcard system. Delivery method. Oh, I did online advertising. It doesn't work. No online advertising works. What did you say? Okay, so the first step is you have to understand that marketing is two components. What you say and how you deliver what you say. A postcard. Pay per click and funnel sales funnel into ads that drive into that. All of that is just a delivery. It's the mechanics. But what you say is the most important, in essence, marketing, is salespeople. You've automated the sailing the selling process and you push it out in mass. And just like salespeople, one salesperson is going to get higher results than another salesperson, for one thing. Would you like to guess with that? [00:12:24] One thing is I'm scared to guess. [00:12:29] They say things differently. They say things differently. They know what to say and they know how to say it. Does that make sense? Yeah. Okay. Okay. So there's a lot behind what they say and how they say it. But ultimately it's what they say and how they say that causes a sale to happen or not. [00:12:48] And that's the same thing it is with your marketing. So the reason you want to test is not everything works. So you want to you want to test small. Okay. And then once you know something works, then you can scale it up with the delivery, the delivery. [00:13:06] I mean, I think about like when you said that, like, I went to buy a car, for instance, and I went to two different car lots and they both told me the same thing as one of them. The way they spoke, the message to me and gave me that information, their delivery was better and more convincing. Well, then I'm going to buy the car from them. [00:13:26] That's exactly right. If they're selling the same car, but you resonate with one person and the other person to finish you with what he says. There you go. It's what you say and how you say it. Okay. But then there's something else in there. So it's not just what you say and how you say it, what it is. But if you go if you dissect that a little bit further, is are you saying it in a positive format or negative format, meaning let's say if I wanted to focus on home sellers, I could say the same thing in a positive statement or a negative statement. The positive statement, if you're thinking about selling your home. Here are four things you can do that will get you a lot more money. I can make the same statement in a negative if you're thinking about selling your home. If you don't do these four things, you will lose a lot of money. [00:14:35] They're really the same things. It's just a matter of time. Does that make sense? [00:14:39] Yes. Yes, it does. [00:14:41] So here's one reason to test. If I come to you as a homeowner and I say if you're thinking about selling your home these four secrets. We'll get you 20 percent, more or less say that your three hundred thousand dollar home as much as 60 thousand dollars more for your home. Or I come to you and say, if you're thinking about selling your home, Veith, if you fail to do these four things, you will lose as much as 60 thousand dollars on your home. Are you going to respond the same way or do you think one generates a different response than the other? [00:15:25] I feel like one of those would be more convincing to me. [00:15:30] Okay, so for you. Which one would be more convincing? Which one would. If that's all you saw. And right now, we're just talking about the offer articulated as a headline. Okay. The positive offer or the negative offer? Which one motivates you more than the positive. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Interesting survey says when you survey we actually did this test. Okay. [00:15:56] We tested positive versus you're going to tell me that I don't fit in the box. Do I. [00:16:03] I'm not I haven't said anything yet. I'm just I'm just laying you up, okay. I'm just letting you off on this question. When we tested this, we tested thousands and thousands of postcards and what we call split a marketing test, which you take we would take a farm and we just randomize half the addresses would get a positive offer. Half the addresses would get a negative offer. And then we did that all across the country. And then we tabulated the results to see which offer positive or negative increased results and which ones decrease. [00:16:41] Would you like to guess what the offer? Produce more results. [00:16:49] Based on that, I'm going to go negative. [00:16:53] You don't have much confidence in yourself, any positive offer outperformed the negative, just like you said you would find it more positive. Okay. Now, here comes a big question. Okay. So positive Forfar outperforms negative. The question is by how much? What would you guess would be the difference? In other words, how much more likely are you to respond to that positive offer versus if it was a negative offer, just a little bit more or a lot more? [00:17:28] Yeah, it's really more like I feel like I would. Yeah. [00:17:33] And how much would you say would you think that would be for you? [00:17:38] Percentage wise, I would probably be 90 or more percent more likely to respond. [00:17:47] Okay, so here's the thing. Until you test it, you really don't know which way to go. And this is what I was telling Mike. He wants to spend a lot of money going after all of these strangers to try to get them to come to him. Give him all of their money and then invest in property. Okay. It makes a big impact if you spend forty thousand dollars in a year, whether you get if you've got one cell versus 400 cells, that would be a big impact difference. Okay, so what we found is the test and the homeowner market is eight hundred percent difference. In other words, we got eight times more people responding to the positive offer than the negative offer. But think about this. That's going to a homeowner. Now, if we're doing this for Mike and sharing this with Mike, I said someone with an investment. [00:18:47] Are they more interested in gaining money or or more interested in not losing money? We don't know. I know in business. More businesses are motivated by risk mitigation, which is not losing as opposed to opportunity to gain. So in a business environment, the negative offer would likely outperform positive offer. But in the homeowner market, the positive outperforms. So these are the things you have to test. Maybe it's another thing to test is the offer. Okay, so homeowners. [00:19:25] Is the offer these for seekers will get you more money? Or is the offer I can sell your home immediately. Or is the offer something different. Okay, so you test these different things, you start to figure out what it is that your market is going to be most likely to respond to. And then when you know what that is and you test it and you start to get results, then at that point you start to scale it up. [00:19:51] So that's why you test. That makes sense. Yes, it does. [00:19:55] And without testing, you really just don't. You're shooting in the dark. If you don't test, you're an amateur. [00:20:03] And that's a lot more expensive than hiring a professional. So then the second thing you want to do is, is how do you test? So it's easy to say let's test it. Next question is how? And this is what Mike was saying. How do you do it? And so what I was telling Mike is I said, look, you've got the budget to do 15000 homes. Then the best thing to do, because 15000 prospects for him said the best thing to do is let's maybe do a marketing test of 2000 people where we can do a thousand with one and a thousand with another and test two things. And he said, well, why do you want to test two things? I said, because if you test more than two, you don't know what's causing the difference. So think about this. If I if I test a if I test a positive offer. For secrets to make more money and I test a negative offer. The five biggest mistakes most people make when selling their home. I get different results. I don't know if it's the offer for secrets or mistakes or if it's the positive, make more money or the negative. Lose everything you have in your house and end up destitute so you can't test multiple variables at one time. You have to do a test. It has to be only one difference between the two so that if there is a change in results, you know, there is only one change in what you did and therefore you can tell which one produces more. Does that make sense or did I can you know, that makes perfect sense. [00:21:53] I mean, the more information that you're putting out there in order to test something, the harder it's going to be for you to come to conclusion. Like you said, which one was the actual one that worked or didn't work? [00:22:06] And so in the whole world of testing, you want to eliminate every opportunity for. An unknown variable to influence it. Let me give you a simple example of how this can be done wrong. So you have someone doing, let's say, geographic farming, for example. And they want to test two offers. So they test one offer to one farm and they test another offer to a different farm. And they get one offer, outperforms the other offer. Is that a valid test? Yes. Wait. Okay. All right. Different types of people live in each of those farms. Yes. Could it be that one type of person has an average income of 100000? The other type of farm has an average income of fifty thousand? Yes. Do you think that could make a difference in how they respond? Absolutely. Do you think if one neighborhood is black and the other neighborhood hood is white? Do you think that could make a difference? Yes. So what happens if you test one farm against another? By changing your offers, then you've mis unknowingly you've included another variable that you didn't know was there. And that is one farm is a different type of person than the other farm, potentially. So it could really skew your results. So if you wanted to. Good test. You want to either do one farm and randomize the addresses and then 10 one offer to one set of addresses, the other offer to the other set. [00:23:58] Or if you're going to do both farms you randomize each farm into individually and then you send it out. In other words, you have to eliminate every opportunity for another variable to accidently crop up. Then people ask, well, how do you how do you randomize? Really easy. This is the easiest part I found. The easiest way to randomize is if you've got first name, last name and address, sort by first name. [00:24:33] Totally randomise is everything. You take the first half of first names and you send them off for one in the second half of the first things and send them off or two. And now you have no variance in what is going on. So the first step is, is in testing, the best way to test is going to be the split test. We call it marketing A split a B test. Everything is totally the same except offer A versus offer B.. [00:25:05] This also means you have to have a simple way to track it. An easy way to track. Which one do you get the most phone calls from? Okay, you get that person's name and address and you look it up in your list and you figure out which offer they came from. Okay. [00:25:22] More sophisticated the way we track because we have more technology, as you know, we have a what we call stealth tracking technology. So we send into a Web site. And instantly when they go to the Web site, we're able to pinpoint the address that they responded to. So this is if we're doing a postcard that matches it back, if you're doing online advertising to do split marketing like PPC, paper, click type advertising, you can set all of those to do split tasks. You just have to have a little bit more difficult than just running an ad. You have to do a few things more. But they will actually alternate the ads for you, send them to a Web site. And there's code that you put on the Web site that goes back into, let's say, Google AdWords, and I'll let you know which offer is working better. So lots of ways to do it. There's another real simple way to testing. It's not as good as the split marketing test, but it's a lot less complicated to do that simply. This is why most people do it. They put a postcard or an ad together and they run it. [00:26:39] And if it gives good results and they just keep running, it doesn't get good results. They stop and say, well, that didn't work. So you can just do what I'll call it either worked or it didn't type of work. But if you can test it, test two different things, you'll find that one thing will always outperform. [00:26:56] The other thing I remember, this is real interesting. So one of the things that is important and testing is the offer. In fact, this is the most important thing. And they offer to see if I can clarify this for you and simplify it. It's the. What do you say that gets them to respond? Maybe this is an easy way to understand. Ghuneim Gary Helbert taught this to me not personally, but vicariously through his marketing training. And he was talking about the offer. Any expressed it this way. Imagine for a moment that your very best friend or your daughter, depending on how old you are and your very best friend is a woman and she's pregnant and she's really close to giving birth. [00:27:57] I mean, it's like any day now you're out shopping someplace. And this stranger comes up here in Birmingham. [00:28:11] You have the car, basically, you have the Americans and you have the car and the Mexicans. But basically the Spanish speaking Latinos, they come from south of the border. And there's a big group of Spanish speaking folks here. [00:28:30] So this stranger who doesn't speak any English, only speaks Spanish. He comes up to you and he points to his watch and he points way, a way somewhere else. And he puts this great big makes his ball over his tummy like a great big basketball. And he's pointing over in the direction of the hospital. What immediately comes to mind is. [00:28:55] His wife is about to have her Beatty. His wife. [00:29:00] Or maybe your best friend. My best friend. Yes. Right. Okay. Okay. So without saying any words, he's able to express an offer. Instantly. You know what it means. Instantly you have interest because it's important to you. Does that make sense? Okay, so that's the offer. Now, assume that the same person then says Penny, your best friend Suzy is in labor right now. The hospital get there immediately. Do you act faster if he's able to articulate it better? Yes. But it's the same offer said a different way. Okay, so you had the offer and you had the headline. The offer is what you're communicating. The headline is how you communicate it. So most important part is the offer. If we go back to Mike. With his prospects that he wants to target is the offer. I can get you a better return on your Faurot one K money. Or is the offer? How to protect your investment and your four one K. With a rock solid recession proof. Financial investment income stream. Do you see how those may be two different offers total? Because that was his whole approach. Hey, right now stock market is crazy. It's going nuts going down. People are losing money in there for one case. How do you protect that? How do you protect it in an investment that is recession proof? His ideas, you invest in multi-family housing. People are always going to pay their rent. And if they don't, they move out and someone's going to take their spot. So this is the that's the offer. And then the question is, how do you phrase it? So another guy was talking about how to write a headline. [00:31:05] And this is something that is important in your messaging. So in terms of what do you test, you're going to test the offer. So let's say if we go back to the fourth secrets, for example, for secrets, these four, if you're thinking about selling these secrets, we'll get you up to 18 percent more money on the sale of your home. So the offers for secrets that get you more money. [00:31:33] The headline, how you write the OP. Here's another way to write it. If you're planning to sell your home, these four secrets can get you as much as twenty eight thousand dollars more on your home. Or another way to write it. If you're planning to sell your home and normally sell for three hundred thousand dollars, these four secrets will get you as much as three hundred and thirty two thousand dollars for it. It's all the same offer expressed differently. Do you see how that works? [00:32:04] I sure do. [00:32:05] What do you want to do? You want to take that offer that you've tested. So when you're testing one offer against another, doesn't really matter how you write, you want to write it as well as you can. But generally, when you write out the copy for the offer. What I do is I'll write fifteen or 20 different ways of saying that same message. And then I'm going to analyze those and say which one articulates it better? It's just like that guy who comes up to you who can't speak English. [00:32:36] So he just kind of points that things and show you a sense of urgency vs. being able to better articulate it. So here's an idea. I want to just show you how this applies. Back in the 80s when we were having a major recession. Gold and silver were going through the roof financially. And so there was a company called Numismatic Company. They sell gold and silver as investment. [00:33:06] And they had relationships with some financial institutions that would actually loan investors up to two thirds of the purchase of gold and silver as an investment. [00:33:18] So they were running an ad in The Wall Street Journal and the ad said two thirds buying financing on gold and silver. And then they were making money, but then they hired a professional and that professional started testing different headlines because in your marketing, your headline is the most important part of your entire marketing piece, because if it doesn't grab their attention, they're not going to go any further. [00:33:48] Does that make sense? Yes. And also, by the way, in lead generation, because we started the most important thing in real estate is lead generation. Right. Lead generation is almost entirely headline based. The call to action only is effective once you grab their attention. Created interest and create an environment that they now want to respond. Then you give them a call to action. And that's where Mike was missing it. He'd heard this term call to action. Well, that's all it is. Those people making money have a call to action. Those people not making money. Don't need a call to action. No, there's a lot that goes before it. The call to action is the final stage. So this company hired a professional marketer. He tested different headlines and a headline that outperformed everything else, said this. Okay, first, let me give you the headline again. Two thirds financing on gold and silver. [00:34:48] The next headline that outperformed it by 20 times said this If gold is selling for three hundred dollars an ounce. Give us just one hundred dollars an ounce. We'll buy you all the gold you want. [00:35:03] Do you see the difference? So. [00:35:08] The differences. If your headline can more clearly articulate what the offer is, you grab a lot more interest. So this is when you start putting down what is my offer as a real estate agent? [00:35:24] Well, my offer what do I do? I sell a house. My offer is no different than anyone else. Well, then you're just going to be average. If you're offering, it is no different. You've got to come up with something that's different. You've got to think it through. [00:35:40] This is where you and I with our clients. We talk about what's called a USP, a unique selling proposition, which ultimately is a unique offer. Does that make sense to you? [00:35:52] You test the offer is most important. You figure out, okay, if I phrase this offer positively or negatively, which one is best, by the way? You don't have to do that test as a residential real estate agent. Positive always works best. So you don't have to do that. But then you have to test. Okay. How do I phrase that offer? Because phraseology determines how clear it is to the prospect, what the benefit of that offer is. Okay. What does that value to them? So two thirds financing on gold and silver that articulates very statically some sort of a value. But when I can say if gold is selling for three hundred dollars an ounce, give me just one hundred dollars. Now I'll buy you all the gold you want. Now, that creates an immediate understanding of the value. [00:36:47] Here's something else that's really interesting. What did those headlines is longer. [00:36:53] The second one. [00:36:56] I can't tell you how many real estate agents have told me. Oh, that's too much. That's too many words. [00:37:04] That's an amateur speaking right? Because that long headline was a lot more words, but more successfully convey the message. In fact, we actually tested this. Would you believe that? I tested short headline versus long headline. [00:37:22] You tested that? Yes. What were their results? [00:37:27] Long headline outperform, short headline if it better articulated the value. In fact, years back, we were doing some marketing for business opportunity companies. [00:37:40] Okay, so these are people trying to get people to respond on some sort of a business opportunity offer. And one of my clients came up with tired of living paycheck to paycheck. Question mark. And one more money question mark. OK, so one is negative, one is positive. [00:38:02] And that was a headline there, Mark. The marketing piece that they did wrote a copy underneath it. So he said, well, let's test that. Tired of living paycheck to paycheck versus are you tired of living paycheck to paycheck? And we tested may make more money versus do you want to make more money? All we did is we added some words. And in both cases, those extra words increased results because they better articulated the full concept and therefore inferred the value of what we were doing. Does that does that make sense? Yeah, it does. So wordiness is bad, but clearly articulating the offer is good and it produces more results. [00:38:56] Here's something else you can test. This is real important. Using a photo. Now, in real estate, you always you're always using photos. But the question is, does your photo make an impact, your little stamp sized photo in the corner or full size photo? Maybe if you're doing farming, you do that played a test and you have to do it over period time. But maybe one set of postcards is going to have a full set of full sized photo of you. The other one's going to have a little thumb stamp size photo. Another thing may be family photo you and your family versus not. And here's what happens. A lot of agents say, well, I'm a professional real estate agent. I don't want to get my personal life involved. But here's what happens on the consumer side. The consumer says. I want to trust the person I do business with. Okay? And what we have done and we have been watching this, but we have not done a split test on this at this point. But we've been watching. And what we have found is when we send out postcards that have a personal photo. We tend to start to get more responses from that postcard than others. When I say personal photo, I'm talking about a family photo. [00:40:26] So think about this. You're a homeowner. You're getting postcard mailing from this real estate agent. And they're all very professional. I sold this house. I knew house listed, and it's all about their business. You know nothing about the person. But then you get a postcard and you see their family. See that real estate agent has some little kids. Five, six, eight years old. [00:40:50] They go to the local school. All of a sudden, now that real estate agent becomes a real person, not just a professional does that. And sometimes that real person is all it takes to kind of break through the ice and say, I want to call this person. I can trust. In fact, I was talking to one of our clients out in California. He got a phone call from this agent offering this homeowner who wanted to sell her house. And she said, I'm thinking about selling. I got your postcard a couple of months ago with your family. And I immediately thought, oh, that's a great, sweet family. I can trust this person. Now. Yes, it makes you relatable. Okay, so these are the things that you want to be testing. Okay. So back to the whole idea is how do you do marketing, right. Well, you got to test. Because not everything works. You can't just say, well, I tried pay per click advertising, it doesn't work. I tried postcard mailings and it doesn't work. You got to test it and say what does work? Because it's not the medium, it's the message. And when you test the message is first going to be your offer. [00:42:07] It's going to be obviously in this case is always going to be a positive offer in Mike's case, where we're dealing with investments. We don't know if his positive or negative. So we have to test that. Then once you find the offer, then you test different headlines. Two thirds buying financing on gold and silver versus gold is selling for three hundred dollars an ounce. Give us just one hundred dollars an ounce. We'll buy all the gold you want. Figure out a way to articulate your offer so clearly that it drives more of those prospects into you. And then test things like making it really personal. Put your family photo there. Show picture of you on you doing your normal stuff outside of outside of being a real estate. I remember this kind of inside, but long lines here in town. There is a federal judge named Dave and most people know him as judge. Okay, I won't use his last name, but he's been on the federal bench now for many years. And he's very good. And he wields a lot of power as a federal judge. People come before him and they respect him. [00:43:25] Judge So-and-so, may I have a moment of your time, please? I know him as Dave. He was in our Sunday school class. His kids were friends with our kids. And we grew up around the corner from each other. [00:43:40] And he's just Dave. Okay, so there's two sides to judge, Dave, the professional size side and the personal side. But, you know, on the personal side, I have no problem calling to say I have a friend that's going through some legal challenges. I was wondering if you could just kind of give me some guidance on how this how the process works. And I would never call up a federal judge just out of the blue and do that, I'd be intimidated. Dave is just a friend. And I think as one of the things the test is, do they want to deal with someone who strictly in only a very professional age or do they want to deal with something that they can trust as a friend? These are the things you test. And once you do that, then what happens is a positive versus negative eight hundred percent increase, one offer versus another might be another 10 percent. Another 10 times increase or three times increase. How you write the offer may increase it by another 50 percent. So when you start adding all these things out through your testing, then you have a really well honed system that consistently works. And as we talked about earlier, some of our real estate agents. Their business hasn't missed a beat. And others right now, their business has crumbled. And the difference is one was based on solid principles that the strategy of how to grow business. And the other was a hack. If you simply throw things out there and see if it works, that's a hack. This is helping. [00:45:16] Sure. And I was thinking, too, like on the positive and the negative side. For me personally, for a homeowner, I feel like if I get a message that's more on the negative side, let's say it's, say, a real estate agent that's trying to promote themselves to be a postcard. I feel like it almost gimmicky, if I can even use that word. Positive messages, a lot more appealing to me. And it doesn't feel as much of a gimmick. And I'm sure it's not either way. But there's something about that mental connection with that negative approach that makes it feel like it's a gimmick. [00:45:54] That's that's absolutely true in marketing and copywriting marketing. There is a term, I think they call him Saper words or power words. And what they have found is in different rooms, whether it's a consumer product, a pain relief product, financial product, that they're key words that resonate and drive people to a more sense of urgent action, revolutionary new scientific clinical studies, different things. And so within the realm, even in real estate, you'll find that the word choice you use is going to resonate with the type of response you get. That's part of what you're talking about with a negative versus positive. The response of the negative offer is generating a gimmickry approach. But you can even do a positive offer and it comes across the key word selections that kind of take those emotions. So all of this is fine tuning. It works. And once you find what works. I've got a friend. We put out a podcast recently by a guy named Stuart Sutton. And what was interesting is every time the market tanked, for most people, his business always grew. Every time the reason is he understands marketing. And he has written his own marketing content very specifically with his words, selection is very specific because he's determined what words resonate best and generate the best results. And his postcards and his marketing pieces and his Web sites and stuff look to be immaturely done. But they produce amazing results. So there's a whole science behind there. I hope this is helping our listeners to figure out to take your business to the next level and to protect yourself in downturns like what we've just come through and probably still are in this Crono via stuff. How do you do it? And this is the first step in doing it. [00:48:20] While this has been so great, Beatty, I do think that this has been super beneficial for our listeners and just really, like you said, maximizing their potential to capitalize on business growth and income growth during this time and not missing. I just keep seeing this as an opportunity for them to miss out on what they think could be downfall, but could actually be the opposite, can be a way for them to increase their business. [00:48:49] Yes, exactly. And can I put a plug in? I know I can't because I'm your boss and I control this fire. Right. All right. [00:48:59] The plug unashamedly is marketing is a science, and you can't just be an amateur and do it effectively. So if we have some listeners out there that want to really do something special in marketing in their business, check us out. You can go to Agent Dominator dot com and we will do geographic farming for residential agents. We have another service that is more advanced because we do a different have a different approach market and that's for past clients and sphere of influence. We actually guarantee some tremendous results in marketing to your past clients or sphere of influence, or we'll give your money back if you are in the commercial sector investment property. Okay. So that's going to be multi-family, small retail. Then we also do Legian ratio for generating listings. And we guarantee that result there. And if you're in property management and looking for more doors under management and primarily in the single family home and small multi-family, we do specialty work there as well. So love to serve you guys. Also, if you liked this podcast and you have not subscribe to our podcast channel, please do so. If you listen to your podcasts on your mobile phone, then chances are you have some sort of podcast service, like an Apple podcast or stitcher or something. Then just go in and look up. Get cellar's calling you and just subscribe to it. If you don't do that, you can go to YouTube and just go to our video and subscribe to our YouTube channel. I don't think it's called Get Cellar's calling you the YouTube channels, but not you. Just look up, get cellar's calling you on YouTube and subscribe there. Then that way you never miss an episode. [00:51:07] That's right. All the great ways to stay in touch. Thank you so much for putting your time and effort into this call today. I think we're about out of time for this podcast call. And I do wish all of our listeners tremendous success, Beatty and I both. And that if we can help you in any way, please reach out. And we wish you all a great day and we'll be catching up soon on the next one. [00:51:30] Great. You'll be blessed. Thank you. P065 [/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
Transcription (was completed by automated process. Please ignore any speech-to-text errors) [00:00:00] All right. Welcome, everybody. We're so glad you're with us again today. This is a great week for us, celebrating the other week leading up to Easter. And I'm so excited to have lady on the phone with me again today for our next session. I was calling you. Beatty Carmichael is the CEO of Master Grabber, the creator of Agent Dominator and one of the top marketing experts in the real estate field. Beatty, I'm super excited. I always look forward to our calls. What do you have for our listeners today? [00:00:34] Well, today, Penny, we're going to do as we move into Easter. This will be coming out long after sometime long after Easter, probably. So at least now our listeners how long it is before from the time we do the call to the time they actually come out. But with that said, we're going to do a radical faith call for those who may be new on to our podcast. [00:00:57] Radical Faith is where we diverge away from talking about real estate marketing and talk about what I believe is absolutely the most important thing, and that is our relationship with Christ. So if you don't have interest in that topic, you can go in and turn this episode off. [00:01:14] Otherwise, I'd encourage you to listen and we're going to have a great discussion. This is a really cool topic that we're going to be talking about today. And Penny, would you like to guess what the topic is going to be? [00:01:31] Well, if I think about what we've been discussing, I'm going to I'm going to generally guess something along the lines of the goodness of God. [00:01:42] Well, that's a really broad statement, and I think it could definitely fit into that topic. The good thing you did. You did. [00:01:51] I knew you aren't going to get to topic, by the way, for those who know how we do these on the radical face called Penny has no forewarning of what any of the topic is. So we call it a virgin call from that point. Right. So today, I want to talk about a matter of perspective, because I think especially right now, just to kind of log down where we are, no pun intended, log down. We're all down sheltered in place with a corona virus. This is this is technically mid April, pretty much right now. And most states have put a shelter in place. Law, you can't leave your house except for essential businesses. A lot of our real estate clients in some of their states, they've damed real estate non-essential. So it's been really tough. And the question is, how do we view what's going on? That's kind of a narrow focus. A broader focus of what I really want to talk about is as Christians, we're told to in Hebrews four 11, we're told to strive to enter into God's rest. We're told to rest in the Lord. And sometimes in our own phraseology, there is a I on a phrase that we'll use. And this is kind of the focus of what I want to talk about, which is how do you work from a position of rest? And have you ever heard that term working from a position of rest? Yes. [00:03:30] Yes, I have. So in your estimation, what is that? [00:03:38] It's working, but not using my strength or my will or my mindset or preconceived notions in order to accomplish that task. It's relying on my I can do it through me. [00:03:56] It's realizing the Lord to do it through you. And what I want to do is I want to peel back the onion and really start peeling it back into a deeper and deeper layers and kind of show you at a deeper level. Working from a position of rest means what it looks like, how to begin to apply it to your life. Because as we work from a position of rest. I'm going to make a I'm going to make a statement that's going to sound a little far fetched, but I think by the time we get through this session, I'm going to be able to back it up and that working from a statement of a position of rest is always victorious. Think about this. A lot of times we work and we don't know if we're going to succeed, but when we work from a position of trust, it is always victorious. So let me start with our passage. I wanted to go through a quick overview real quickly, kind of give you a bird's eye view of the entire scope of what this whole concept of working from a position of breast is. And then I want to dig really deep into some scriptures that start to bring a lot more illumination to it. So let's turn real quickly to Hebrews three, verse 11. Hebrew. Because this is kind of where we start to see God's rest and I'll let you read it once you get there. [00:05:23] All right. Hebrews three, verse 11. As I saw in my wrath, they shall not enter my raft, so they shall not enter my rest. [00:05:33] So let me give you the backstory on this. This is pulled from the time of the exodus. This is when Moses said send out 12 spies to search out the promised land and check into it. And if you remember that God had been telling them, telling all of Israel, I'm leading you to the promised land. And in that promised land, it's going to be a land of milk and honey. It's going to be overflowing in abundance. You're going to live in houses you did not build. You're going to drink water from cisterns. You did not dig. You're going to eat grazed from vineyards that you did not plant. In other words, everything is going to be already fixed and ready for you. You remember that? Okay, then. So then Moses sent out spies into the land, 12 spies, one spy for each of the tribes of Israel. And what they wanted to do is go through, check out their land, see what's going on, and attest to the bountiful ness and abundance that was already there. The land was so fertile, if you remember. They cut a single stem of grapes and they had to carry it on a pole between two people because it was so full of grapes and so big and so heavy. This is the abundance of the land that the Lord has promised his children. So it's not just I'm going to give you a promise and your life is going to be a little bit better. The Lord sent them into this place of tremendous abundance, tremendous fruit, tremendous everything. And then do you remember what happened when those guys come back? I do not. Okay, so they give two reports, the first report is an abundant land. But do you remember the second report? [00:07:34] I think it was that they saw giants in the land. That's right. The Giants were more than they could handle. [00:07:41] That's right. So 10, 12 spies came back and gave a bad report that said, yes, it's abundant, but no, there's absolutely no way we can ever conquer. We were like grasshoppers in their eyes. And they gave a report from a man's perspective. The other two spies were a guy named Caleb and Joshua. They gave a report from God's perspective. And what do you think the difference between God's perspective versus man's perspective was? [00:08:18] God's perspective was one of rest, not worry. [00:08:23] That's right. One of rest not worry. One of, hey, we can conquer because the Lord is with us. The Lord has promised. Don't be afraid. Well, what happened is they became afraid. They believed the bad report, not the good report. And as a result, they became fearful and they would not move forward as a result. God says, well, we just read as I swore in my wrath. You will not enter my rest. And he makes them circle the mountain. All right. For now, this is about a year and a half into it, maybe two years. So he makes them circle that mountain for another 38 years. They were now in the wilderness. 40 years. One year for every day. The spies had gone out into the land. And God says those people who were afraid, who looked with their natural eye perspective. You will not enter my rest. Only those who have looked and looked from my perspective. That I'm gonna give you the land. You will enter my rest. And that's why Caleb and Josh were the only people of that generation that were actually able to cross into the promised land and enter into God's rest. So that's kind of the backstory. Does that make sense? [00:09:44] Yes, it does. Okay, so now I want to give you kind of a synopsis of of taking it from there and talking a little bit more about what it means to work from a position of rest. [00:09:57] And the key is it's work. It's not rest. Okay. So God's rest is not an attitude of cessation. Okay. It's technically it's an actual place. It's a place of abundance. Okay. But there is a there is a transition of going from the place where we are, which is a lack of abundance to the place where God has created for us that place of rest, which is abundance. And we see this in the micro and macro and the micro. We're always in a position of less abundance, moving towards God's promise of greater abundance, whether it's our spiritual life or any other part of our life. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. Okay. So it's happening as we speak. But then at the macro level, in the big scheme of things, we also see that the trajectory of our life is continuing to be, in God's rest, great abundance, ending with eternal life and being in the heavenly places and for ages to come, as it says in officiants. So what we see with this passage in Exodus is kind of an allegory of our life. And I wanted to peel back that onion a little bit for you. So when they entered the Promised Land, they did not rest physically. Do you remember what happened when they transitioned from the wilderness into the promised land? There's something that never occurred during the wilderness that now started to occur all the time. Do you remember what that might be? [00:11:43] I feel like it was. They complained a lot and they felt like their needs weren't being met. [00:11:50] Almost. Okay. So they complained before they crossed the Jordan River, once they crossed the Jordan River. Now they're actually engaging into the promised land. [00:12:02] Something else occurred. [00:12:05] It was led by the priests. That thing that occurred was war. Now they had to fight for the promised land that had been promised them. They had to fight to take over the possession that had already been given them. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. And so when we move in to our promised land, this whole lot just make sure you can hear me now, is that correct? [00:12:34] Yes. I got one little crackle there, but we're good. [00:12:37] Okay, good. So they had to start going into and they started moving into battle. I want to kind of speed this up. So what happened is in a very a very high level sense, Joshua goes and he leaves the charge. Josh Wood leads the charge. And when he's leading, he's coming at it from a perspective that God has already given them the land. Therefore, victory is assured. And therefore, when they went out to fight, they went with the perspective, we are winning because God has promised it. [00:13:14] Does that make sense that day when Joshua did that? Do you think there was any unrest in his spirit? Oh, my gosh. I wonder how this battle is going to come out. [00:13:28] I think for me personally, if I put myself in his shoes, if I came out with that kind of statement to the people that I was leading, then I would have no doubt I would have no fear. [00:13:39] He's asking me to just say that he's likely right. [00:13:43] So we could then say that he fought from a position of rest because his spirit was at rest in peace, because a victory was assured. Does that make sense? Okay, so now we're starting to see. Working from a position of rest means it means working from the perspective of what God has already promised. And therefore, you can be assured of the outcome. And it's no longer scary. Then what happened is after Joshua and the Elders died off, then everything changed. The perspective of the leaders changed. [00:14:20] This is now it gets us into the period of the judges. And if you remember, the judge's life was miserable. They were being attacked on all sides. They would try to go in and take over more of the promised land and they would lose and be defeated all the time because they no longer work from a position of rest. They worked from a position of fear. They started to see with or naturalized rather than their spiritual lives. They looked at the natural enemy that they are facing rather than looking at it from God's perspective of seeing the victory is already won. [00:14:54] And then we move down the line for a couple of hundred years, and then another man comes out and comes to the scene. And this guy named David. Do you remember anything about a guy named David? [00:15:10] Yes. Okay. And so does God, where it says that David was a man after God's own heart. Okay, so David is actually a foreshadow of Christ. [00:15:25] Think about this. [00:15:28] David was not of the line of Aaron, but yet Aaron is the priestly line. But yet, David was a priest. [00:15:38] He wore the E. He danced before the Lord. He prophesied he did all kinds of priestly things. He was also of the royal line. Juda. And he was a king. He was a royal priest. And Jesus was a royal priest. He was royalty. And he was our high priest. And we are now royal. So we see this this poor shattering, this type of Christ coming online. And what happened with David? Is he engaged in battle? He engaged the same way that Joshua did. [00:16:18] The victory was certain. Now he had some fear and some Currentzis concerns. We see that through Psalms, especially as he's been attacked by Saul. But he goes out and in faith, from God's perspective of his promise. He goes out and engages in battle and he wins. And he then conquers the promised land that God had promised his son, Solomon. Then comes on board and enters into the rest of the land. So as David goes in to the land, there's war and unrest. [00:16:55] But there's constant victory. Then as Solomon comes on line, the land is at complete rest. And now Sollom Solomon gets to focus on building up the temple. Whereas David did not have that opportunity. So that's kind of the big picture. Do you see this in the macro? Yes. Yes, I do. So what we really see with all of this is this. Working from a position of trust comes first and foremost by faith. [00:17:28] And faith being that title deed of that which is promised. [00:17:32] So when we're in our lives and we search the scriptures, we spend our time and the word and the Lord reveals certain promises to us and we can work with confidence towards those promises, knowing that victory is certain. Now, what we may not know is the timing. But we know that the certainty of victory is there. And that certainty of victory that starts to create that working from a position of rest. All this making sense. Yes, absolutely. So now let me share one more. I want to share an illustration, and now we're about to take a deep dive into the scriptures. This is just a real quick overview. Here's an illustration of working from a position of rest, which is the knowledge of the outcome versus working from a position of undress, which is seeing things in the natural. Have you ever watched a really tense movie? Were you on the edge of your seat and your heart pounding? Your adrenaline rushing? Almost all the way through the movie? Yes. [00:18:38] I hate that feeling. I know. I know. I hate it, too. So what caused that feeling? [00:18:47] Uncertainty, not knowing what was going to happen and not being able to control the outcome. [00:18:54] That's exactly right. You're looking at it from the perspective of that character. And the music, dun, dun, dun, dun dun, he's he's going into this dark room and he turns a corner and, you know, there's someone there. Right. That's about it. Okay. Now, once you watch that movie, if you were to go back and watch it the next day. Are you this tent and sitting on the edge of your seat? [00:19:22] No. Why not? [00:19:24] Because I know it's going to happen. That's right. You know the outcome. That second time through. You're watching it from a position of rest. [00:19:36] It doesn't even get your heart beat up. Why? Because the outcome is certain. And therefore, you know the certainty of each outcome that nothing's going to happen. You know, generally, if you remember well, you know, generally what's going to happen. But if you don't remember, well, you know, there's not a big deal. [00:19:56] And therefore, you're sitting watching it from a position of Resh while the person next to you. This is their first time through. They're scared to death. Do you see the difference of perspective? Yes. Okay. That's our Christian life. We can either look at this from our eyes and be scared to death. Or we can look at it from God's eyes and be a total peace. Why do you think, looking at it from God's eyes, you're at total peace? [00:20:30] Because she's not worried about anything, then I don't have the right to be either. [00:20:34] That's right. So what I want to do now, I want to show you a couple other scriptures where this gets manifested and then we're going to take a real deep dive. You ready? I'm ready. Okay, let's turn to Hebrews 11, verse 17, 18 and 19. [00:20:53] All right. 17, 18 and 19 by faith. Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said through Isaac, shall your offspring be named? He considers that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which. Figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. [00:21:24] Very good. So here's what happened. Abraham was at complete rest when he offered Isaac up as a sacrifice. Think about this in our perspective. We're going through tough times. Maybe your job, your your livelihood has been cut off because right now the shelter in place or because of other things that come up later in your life or you have situations with relationship or situations with help or with something else. And. You're scared. When you're scared is because you look at it with your own natural eyes. But think about Abraham. His only promised son. This is the son of the promise. All of his descendants is going to be name through Isaac. All of this inheritance is going to go through Isaac. And now God has told him to do something stupid and crazy for a man's perspective. Abraham, I want you to sacrifice your son to me. Your your your love of your life, the sun. I've said this is all the promises are coming through this one person. Now I want you to kill him. Do you see the turmoil that could really be going on? [00:22:49] I can't even imagine. [00:22:51] I can't either. And yet. According to scripture, there is no mention in scripture that Abraham was concerned at all. Why was he not concerned? What does it say? [00:23:07] It says that he considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead. [00:23:13] That's right. In other words, his perspective was from God's promise. Rumor says by faith, righteousness was read into Abraham, the promise. Faith is believing God's word, basically in real simple terms. So his faith in God's promise told him that the current situation had no bearing on the long term outcome. And because he had no bearing on the long term outcome. And the reason had no bearing because God's promises cannot fail. And therefore, if they cannot fail, the long term outcome is still intact, then it doesn't matter what happens right now. This is why it says that he considered that God was able to even raise him from the dead. He was fully expecting to kill his son. Stand back. And his son would miraculously come back to life. How many of us, when the Lord tells us to do something and it doesn't make sense in the natural naturalise, we say complete disaster. How many of us? Panic and cause that's not what most of us for sure. If we're going to work from a position of rest. [00:24:36] And another way to say it is we're going to work from the promise, not to the promise, we hit that in just a moment. But if we're going to work from this position of respite, from the promise, from God's perspective, we got to do what God says to without questioning because. God has a perspective, we don't all we have to do is plug into that perspective and sometimes we don't know the perspective, but we know his promise and therefore we can rely on the promises that make sense. Yes. [00:25:07] Okay, let's look at one more passage and then we're going to really take a nice deep dive. This is going to be fun. Okay. Matthew eight. Matthew eight versus 23 through 26. [00:25:21] Twenty three or twenty six of Matthew eight. When he got into the boat, his disciples followed him and behold, there arose a great storm on the sea so that the boat was being swamped by the waves. But he was asleep. And they went and Wolken saying, save us, Lord, we are perishing. And he said to them, Why are you afraid? Oh, you have little faith. Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea. And there was a great calm. And the men marveled saying, what sort of man is this? That even the winds and the sea obey him. Huh? [00:26:01] Let me ask you a question. What do you think was the perspective of Jesus? [00:26:07] Rest, he not only rest. He was so restful. He was asleep in the middle of the storm. [00:26:15] Yeah, well, it was the perspective of the disciples. [00:26:19] Fear, worry. And they mean. They take what they're doing with their natural eyes. [00:26:26] They know what was going on with their natural eyes and Jesus had a spiritual perspective. Perspective. [00:26:35] All right. So we could say that Jesus was operating from a position of arrest. The disciples were operating from a position of natural sight. We can also say position of breath is a position of faith. Faith is God's perspective. Natural side is man's perspective, and they are always opposing each other. This is where Romans, eight says that the flesh can never please God because it is always at enmity with God. This makes sense. All of this is on this matter perspective. [00:27:15] Now, let's start looking at perspective from God's perspective. This is going to be really cool. Let me let me just mention one thing. Perspective. [00:27:30] Is everything perspective determines the outcome. You have God's perspective. And that creates one outcome you have man's perspective. It creates another outcome. Now, this isn't 100 percent true, but this is, generally speaking, the pattern that God's laws operate in. And we see this with Peter walking on the water. If you remember, when he's walking on the water, his perspective was where? [00:28:04] When he was walking on the water, at first, his eyes run Jesus. [00:28:08] That's right. So his perspective was on God's word. [00:28:14] And God's word had inherent with it. A truth and that truth was you come on the water and you'll walk on the water with me. Then he changed his perspective. And what happened when he changed his flight? Where did he put his perspective in what happened? [00:28:33] He started looking at the ways around town. So I took his eyes off Jesus and started looking at the water and the waves. And he became careful. Then what have you been thinking? [00:28:48] There you go. So he changed his perspective from God's perspective, working from a position of rest to man's perspective, working from a position of natural sight, and by changing the perspective. The outcome was changed as well. [00:29:06] Pretty cool. So now let's dig deep. So let's look at since everything focuses around God's perspective. [00:29:12] Now let's look into what is God's perspective. This is going to be really cool. Let's look at a number of passages. Let's start with Revelation 13. Revelation 13. Eight. [00:29:27] Revelation 13, verse eight says to all who dwell on earth will worship it. Everyone whose name has not been written before, the foundation of the world in the Book of Life of the Lamb who was slain. [00:29:46] Let me also modify that translation just a little bit, I think this may be an I.V. I don't recall the same passage. Slight different translation that articulates a truth that is a little bit clearer. All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast, all whose names have not been written in the Lamb's Book of life. The Lamb who was slain from the found from the creation of the world. To God's perspective, is this from the foundation of the world? The lamb was already slain. [00:30:26] That promise manifestation. [00:30:31] That was to come at a minimum 4000 years later, depending on how you look at the age of the Earth, 4000 years or 40 million, it doesn't matter. God's faith says the lamb was already slain. Long before the lamb was slain in the natural, does that make sense? That's the perspective of God. Let's look at this. Go to Ephesians one versus four and five. [00:31:00] Okay. [00:31:01] All right, effusions one, verse four and five. Even as he shows us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him in love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as son through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will from the foundation of the world. [00:31:23] This is God's perspective from the foundation of the world. [00:31:27] You were already chosen in Christ. [00:31:33] Let's look at another Hebrews for three. [00:31:39] All right. Hebrews four, verse three. For he who have believed for his who have believed entered that risk and as he said, as I swore in my RAF, they shall not enter my risk. All those his works were finished from the foundation of the world. [00:32:01] So from the foundation of the world, God's perspective, all of his work had already been finished. Do you think this could be the work of Moses leading his people out of Egypt? Be. This could be the work of Christ on the cross. Yes. I think this could be the work that he's called us to do. Yes, it could. Yes, it could be all the works were finished before the foundation of the world. Let's look at Matthew 25 34. [00:32:35] All right. Matthew, 25 versus 34. Says then the king will say to those on his right come you who are blessed by my father, inherit the kingdom, prepared for you from the foundation of the world. [00:32:52] There we have it again. God's perspective is from the foundation of the world before it was created. The kingdom was already prepared for us. [00:33:05] Let's look at one more Isaiah 46 versus nine and 10. [00:33:13] Okay. All right, Isaiah 46 six, verse nine and 10. Remember the former things of old. For I am God. And there is no other. I am God. And there is none like me declaring the end from the beginning, from ancient times, things not yet done, saying my counsel shall stand. And I will accomplish all my purpose. [00:33:37] So from God's perspective. From the foundation of the world. N had already been declared and finished. Before it began. What does this tell you about God's perspective? [00:33:56] It's way bigger than our way, bigger than ours, right? [00:34:02] So God's perspective is what faith looks like. Would you agree? [00:34:07] Yes. [00:34:10] From God's perspective. Before the foundation of the world, everything had already been finished. From God's perspective, think about in this way. God's perspective is things are truth, even when they have not manifested in the natural. Remember, we talked a while back on believe that you have received what you've asked for and then it shall be granted, you are from God's perspective. It's already been done. Now, this is not a name it and claim it. This is a name it and be it, as a friend of mine shared, name it and claim it as a perspective that says I'm naming something. I do not have. But name it and be it is a perspective of knowing what I already have. As a promise from God. But God's word is already said, and I am simply walking and living this out until it's manifested in my life. Do you see the difference between that? Yes, I do. So this working from a position of rest. It says God works six days and rested on the seventh, says that all of his works were finished. Working from a position of rest is. It's been done. It's finished. The outcome is assured. All I have to do is walk in faith for that outcome to be manifested in my life. This is why this story, Peter, is so important to others. But Peter's the clearest example, walking and working in reste. Gets one outcome, walking and working in fear gets another outcome. The outcome is assured as long as we operate and walk and faith. The outcome is not assured. If we ignore. God's perspective ignored trusting him and tried to do it on her own. Is this helping? Yes, absolutely. Okay, so then let's look at faith and the perspective of God a little bit more. Let's return real quickly. Foundational principles of faith. Romans, 10 17. Can you quoted or. [00:36:49] You remember from from hearing by and hearing by what, by receiving the word of Christ. Yes. Sense 17. I get to change because I've got I've got my outline in front of me comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. [00:37:16] That's right. Through the word of Christ. What is the word of Christ? [00:37:22] The Bible. A little bit more. Everything that he said a little bit more. [00:37:30] Oh, gosh. So let's talk on it this way. Will pull it off from John in the beginning was the word, the word and the word was with God and the word was God. [00:37:48] So here we have in the beginning was the word. The word was with God. And the word was God and faith comes from hearing by the word of Christ, which is God himself. And John, 17, it says thy word is truth and where we come back to truth. [00:38:10] God's perspective is one of truth and truth manifests itself in a natural way and acted on by faith. So we see kind of this circular. Faith comes from hearing by the word of Christ, which is God's truth, which is God himself. Faith is the perspective of God. And then we now faith is let's define a little bit different. It is the perspective of God. But what is God's perspective? Hebrews 11 one. You want to pull up Hebrews? [00:38:46] Pull that up, because I do not that one off the top of my head. [00:38:50] You actually did? No, it's just a matter of recalling this specific one. [00:38:53] Yes, you're right. You're right. Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. [00:39:02] So it is the assurance of things hoped for. In Bible terms, hope for is an assured promise. It is not what we do, which is a variable that we're not sure. I hope it doesn't rain while I'm out here on my deck. Now, it is a hope, but that's not what the Bible talks about. The assurance of things, hope for the conviction of things not seen is the absolute certainty of what it is. And it's an absolute certainty because it is God's truth. Faith comes from hearing and hearing God's truth, the word of Christ. Another pass, another translation says that faith is the title deed of what has been promised. Even though we do not see it yet, we've got the title deed. So I want you to envision for a moment King David. He's out there fighting these battles. And I want you to picture this little caricature of King David. He's got a sword in one hand leading his army, charging in his other hand. He's got a crumpled up title deed that says the promised land is ours. This victory is mine. He's charging into battle, holding faith by one hand, holding the sword. And the other hand, because that faith, that title deed gives him the assurance of victory makes sense. Yes, that is working from a position of rest. Fighting for victory from a position of rest. It is working from from the promise. He's carrying the promise with him. And he's going into battle. The outcome is certain, those particular path of the battle. [00:40:58] How many of his men he may lose? What's going to happen at any given moment? Those things are uncertain, but the outcome is guaranteed because it is the truth of God. So faith is when you look at things from God's perspective, not man's perspective. When you look at it from the promise, not to the promise. There's a number of different types of faith mentioned in scripture. I'm just going to kind of throw these out, see if this rings a bell by faith of faith through faith in faith. You remember those kind of passages used throughout scripture. So if faith comes from hearing the word of Christ is faith, therefore is the word of Christ. Faith, therefore, is Christ himself. And what we can translate with these is faith is Jesus, then it's by Jesus of Jesus, through Jesus. And Jesus. In other words, when we operate in faith, we're operating. In Christ, from Christ. And it's literally and technically Christ operating through us. We're abiding in him. He's abiding in us. We do nothing. He does it all. It's him living through us. What is it, Galatians? Three, two, twenty three. Twenty one of those. I'm crucified with Christ and is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me and through me. Okay, so that's kind of this perspective. So now I want to come back and I want to bring another perspective and kind of tie this together. We're almost finished, by the way. Is this exciting so far? Is this interesting? [00:42:58] Yes. Love it. I love it. [00:43:01] Okay, so now I want to talk about an old covenant versus new covenant. Old Covenant is the covenant given to Abraham, and that includes the law, the new covenant. The law has been fulfilled in us. The law is still in us. That's what Romans says. But the rightest requirements of the law have been fulfilled. Those of us in Christ. So the law is still present, but it's now fulfilled. But the covenant is a little bit. I want to I want to shift the focus of the covenant from the law to the promise of the fulfillment of that. So let's talk about the old covenant. First time with me to Hebrews 11, verse 13. So this is the Hall of Fame. Faith, the Hall of Fame. And this is a statement put in between as it kind of wraps up. What's going on in Hebrews 11 13? [00:44:04] These all died in faith, not having received the things promised. But having seen them and greeted them from afar and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the years. [00:44:18] Okay, so in the old covenant says that they were looking towards the promise, not from the promise, they were working towards the promise, the promise of the Messiah and of sonship being brought into the kingdom. Does that make sense? Yeah. Everything they did was from the outside looking in outside of the promise, looking into the problems. Now, let's contrast that with the new covenant and the new covenant. Let's go to Hebrews 11, first, 39 and 40. [00:44:56] All right, 39 and 40 and all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised and God had provided something better for us. That apart from us, they should not be made perfect. [00:45:11] So now this is basically saying the promise is ours. [00:45:15] And apart from us, they were actually looking forward to us because we're the holder of the promise. So now, as the possessor of the promise, our perspective changes. We now are looking from inside a promise out rather than from them looking outside in where we work from. The promise they worked towards the promise is the same. Yes. Okay. Let's look at one more passage, Matthew, 28, verse 27 and 28. [00:45:53] All right. Twenty eight. All right. 27, 28. Wait, are we sure we don't have a verse 27 in chapter 28? [00:46:07] That's a start. It may be 26, but it starts and he took a cup and when he had given thanks. Here we found it. And he took the cup. [00:46:18] And when he had given thanks, he gave it to them saying, drink it, all of you. This is my blood. The Covenant, which is poured out from many for their forgiveness. That's all right. [00:46:30] Now, tell me the reference on that verse, if you would. [00:46:34] The verses were right, but it's chapter 26, 26. [00:46:38] That's where it was. Okay. So here's where he's going. And there's a word that sometimes you use and sometimes not. I'm going to use it here. [00:46:48] Same drink of it, all of you. This is my blood. The new covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sin. So now we had the inauguration of the New Covenant. We had the old covenant, the new covenant. [00:47:02] We are to drink the blood of the cup and drink the cup, which is his blood. And that inaugurates the new covenant as we're abiding in the promise we're now operating from the promise because now the new covenant is in us, in the old covenant. They were looking towards a promise with us. We're looking from the promise. Making sense. [00:47:29] Yes, absolutely. [00:47:31] Yes. Okay, so the old covenant operates from an outside perspective, looking in the new covenant operates from an inside perspective, looking out. And we're going to take the same pattern in terms of how we operate and work. But I want to show you one more verse. Go to Matthew 17, verse 20. [00:47:53] All right. [00:47:53] Verse 20. [00:47:55] He said to them, because of your little faith. Truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move from here to there and it will move and nothing will be impossible for you. [00:48:11] All right, great. So this faith to Jesus is talking about. It is only possible when you're operating from inside the promise, from inside Christ, because if you're going to move a mountain. [00:48:27] Now, this could be metaphorically backup. So mountains and scripture are pretty much government governmental authorities. They just asked him why could we not cast out this demon? Jesus says because of the littleness of your faith, the littleness of the perspective of God operating through you. This is a governmental authority that takes a lot more faith than what you try to operate in. That's basically kind of one way that we could interpret this. But he's using metaphorically a mountain. He's on. They just come down from mount to transfiguration. Okay, so you just come down from this mountain. So he's probably talking about that mountain. They just went up to a high mountain, it said prior. [00:49:20] And so you said if you have faith like the grain of a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, move from here to there and they'll move and nothing will be impossible. For you, that faith is only when you have the faith of Christ. Not the safe looking towards Christ. Does that make sense? Yes. [00:49:45] Yes. This is kind of the old test, some old covenant versus new covenant. Old covenant. Look towards the promise. Through Man-Sized with a little bit of faith. New Covenant. Is the reality of working from the premise now kind of wrapping this back up to where I started the idea of working from a position of rest. Is working from the promise. [00:50:16] Not to the promise it's working from inside. [00:50:22] Looking out as opposed outside, looking in, maybe an easy way to try to understand this is imagine a really tall brick wall. And on the wall is running north south on the east side of the wall is this promise. This promise is whatever the promise may be in your life. It could be a new car. They could be victory in business. It could be health, it could be anything. It could be all kinds of different things. On the east side is a promise. [00:51:00] On the west side of the wall is where you stand. On the west side of the wall. You cannot see the promise. Does that make sense? When we operate in the natural when we operate by our natural allies, all we see is a wall. [00:51:23] And we have no idea what's on the other side. We work and we work and we work. And we're scared to death because we don't know what's going to happen. We pray and we plead with the Lord. Save me. Help me. Please do this, because we don't know what's going to happen, because our perspective is not God's perspective. [00:51:47] From our perspective, this man's perspective, that is not working from a position of rest. It's working from a position of site and unrest and fear and fear. Exactly. Because site creates fear. Natural site creates fear. Because natural site, when in the presence of God's promise, natural site is always contrary to God's promise because it's all the flesh. God's promises are the spirit. [00:52:20] So when we work from a position of rest, it's as if we walk around that brick wall and now we're on the east side and we see. The promise that God has given us and now we believe it, we're looking at it now with our Spiritualized. And we believe that as certainty, faith is the certainty of hope for is the title of doubt which has been promised. [00:52:48] And now when we work, we work diligently towards it. But we have no fear that we will not achieve it. [00:52:59] We know the outcome is certain. We know the victory of that promise is ours because it is. And God's word, God's word spoken to us, limited to us. Impress upon us. However he communicates. But that is the difference between working towards the promise, hoping in human terms, hoping that is going to become true versus working from the promise. It's already true. And now I'm simply doing the necessary labor for it to then be manifested in my life. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. That's what it looks like. To be seated in Christ. Be rooted in Christ, be rooted in his word, having the certainty of his word and his promise in our life and therefore moving forward with no fear. Can I share a little personal testimony on this? Absolutely. I've been in business since 1997. [00:54:11] I've had some great ups and some great downs. One period time almost went bankrupt. And what's interesting is even the times where I was afraid, I always trusted the Lord. But I was still afraid you'd say this with David. He trusts the Lord. But when you read through Psalms, you see the fear come out. But every time the fear comes out, the psalm always ends with. And I trust in the Lord and he brings me victory is likely through writing the song. He comes back into God's perspective. You see him shift from that perspective to God's perspective. Well, I was during this period of time. And the Lord gave me a passage and the passage said, you will never suffer famine again among the nations because at that time we were in a famine financially and we were about to die financially. And ever since he gave me that passage, I'd been like Superman. I fear nothing. Shoot me up if you want to. They're just going to bounce off me. Why? Because I have the promise from God. And so it doesn't matter what situation we come into. [00:55:25] I know we're not going to lose anything. I don't have to worry about losing the house. I don't have to worry about not having food. I don't even have to worry about. I've got my youngest child is in college right now. I don't even have to worry about how to pay the college bills because the promises will never suffer famine. Now, I've got a lot of other promises of a lot more abundance. But the simple promise was that now remembering one of my business groups, one of the ladies is a group called Vistage, business owners and business people that made work through different, different things. And one folks and one ladies in my group had asked the question because they've seen me over the years up and down, up and down. But always with the big dream, always with the certainty of victory. Always pressing forward. Always upbeat, regardless of what financials might say at the moment. Her question is, how do you do it? How do you keep your attitude so positive and keep going in the presence of all of the what we see as all the setbacks? [00:56:42] And as I was contemplating that answer, you know, the answer is because I've been promised. We'll never suffer famine again. Never is, never. And it's a promise from God. And I can't tell you how incredible it is to operate from that position because it means I never have to fear. I don't. I don't take it on presumption. I work hard. I never have to worry about the outcome. Does that make sense? [00:57:14] Absolutely. Yes. [00:57:16] And that's what this is all about. That's what this is all about. That's working from the promise. [00:57:23] Beatty, I was thinking of the verse and Hebrews Chapter 11 talked about without faith, it's impossible to please God. It goes on to say, because those who come to the father must believe that he exists and he rewards those who earnestly seek can. And that that verse kept popping up in my mind while you were sharing that testimony. It is that faith. It's your faith that you've had that where you have been able to see the promise. And I love that that's such a good thing. [00:58:00] I'm so glad you brought that up, because I love that verse on the cutting table thinking it didn't really need to apply here at all. [00:58:12] The lies at all. I love it. That's awesome. [00:58:15] Yes, it does. Well, we got to close up. But do you have any final thoughts or comments before you wrap up? [00:58:21] I don't. I just love the perspective today, and I hope our listeners are able to grasp that as well. Just knowing, like you said, that we do have that promise. And when we grab ahold of it and we see it with faith, knowing that God's giving it to us, that we can operate and rest and not in fear, no matter what's going on in the natural. And I think that's the key is is seeking the Lord, keeping our eyes fixed on the Lord and not letting our vision wander to the natural to what's going on around us, the waves and the wind. Easier said than done, but it can be done. [00:58:59] I want to make one comment on this as to our real estate friends out there. [00:59:04] When this Corona vase hit and people started going and shelter in place. I saw so much fear among so many of our clients and clients who follow the Lord. But they operated in fear. [00:59:23] And I'd like to just speak to you guys for a quick moment. Stop looking at things in the natural. You've got to look at it from God's perspective, what God's word has shared with you and what he has illumined to you and hold that promise, because without faith, is it impossible to please them. And it's only by faith that you get the promise of faith. When you add by fear, you get the consequence of fear. And so it becomes says in the natural what we call a self-fulfilling prophecy. You can speak to words of fear. And it evaporates. The miracle of faith. And just like Peter, you can think and say. You see, I knew it was going to happen. No, you spoke it into existence. You take God's word and you focus on God's word and you speak God's word and you believe God's word because it is the word of God and it is truth. And by doing that action, God says, I am well pleased with you. Here's the promise that I've given you by faith and that your faith has now brought to bear. So do not fear. So focus on God's word. All right. [01:00:53] That's awesome. All righty. This was great. Thank you so much. I agree with that. I want to encourage our real estate friends as well just to stay the course. Keep your eyes on the prize and keep your focus on the Lord. Don't allow other things around you to dictate what you're feeling and concerned about. You have nothing to fear when your eyes are on the Lord. So this was a great call today. Super excited. And we bless you all. Thank you so much for listening. And we're excited to be with you again very soon. [01:01:26] Hey, man, you all be blessed. P021
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Please ignore any speech-to-text errors) [00:00:00] All right. Welcome, everybody. We're so glad you're with us again today. This is a great week for us, celebrating the other week leading up to Easter. And I'm so excited to have lady on the phone with me again today for our next session. I was calling you. Beatty Carmichael is the CEO of Master Grabber, the creator of Agent Dominator and one of the top marketing experts in the real estate field. Beatty, I'm super excited. I always look forward to our calls. What do you have for our listeners today? [00:00:34] Well, today, Penny, we're going to do as we move into Easter. This will be coming out long after sometime long after Easter, probably. So at least now our listeners how long it is before from the time we do the call to the time they actually come out. But with that said, we're going to do a radical faith call for those who may be new on to our podcast. [00:00:57] Radical Faith is where we diverge away from talking about real estate marketing and talk about what I believe is absolutely the most important thing, and that is our relationship with Christ. So if you don't have interest in that topic, you can go in and turn this episode off. [00:01:14] Otherwise, I'd encourage you to listen and we're going to have a great discussion. This is a really cool topic that we're going to be talking about today. And Penny, would you like to guess what the topic is going to be? [00:01:31] Well, if I think about what we've been discussing, I'm going to I'm going to generally guess something along the lines of the goodness of God. [00:01:42] Well, that's a really broad statement, and I think it could definitely fit into that topic. The good thing you did. You did. [00:01:51] I knew you aren't going to get to topic, by the way, for those who know how we do these on the radical face called Penny has no forewarning of what any of the topic is. So we call it a virgin call from that point. Right. So today, I want to talk about a matter of perspective, because I think especially right now, just to kind of log down where we are, no pun intended, log down. We're all down sheltered in place with a corona virus. This is this is technically mid April, pretty much right now. And most states have put a shelter in place. Law, you can't leave your house except for essential businesses. A lot of our real estate clients in some of their states, they've damed real estate non-essential. So it's been really tough. And the question is, how do we view what's going on? That's kind of a narrow focus. A broader focus of what I really want to talk about is as Christians, we're told to in Hebrews four 11, we're told to strive to enter into God's rest. We're told to rest in the Lord. And sometimes in our own phraseology, there is a I on a phrase that we'll use. And this is kind of the focus of what I want to talk about, which is how do you work from a position of rest? And have you ever heard that term working from a position of rest? Yes. [00:03:30] Yes, I have. So in your estimation, what is that? [00:03:38] It's working, but not using my strength or my will or my mindset or preconceived notions in order to accomplish that task. It's relying on my I can do it through me. [00:03:56] It's realizing the Lord to do it through you. And what I want to do is I want to peel back the onion and really start peeling it back into a deeper and deeper layers and kind of show you at a deeper level. Working from a position of rest means what it looks like, how to begin to apply it to your life. Because as we work from a position of rest. I'm going to make a I'm going to make a statement that's going to sound a little far fetched, but I think by the time we get through this session, I'm going to be able to back it up and that working from a statement of a position of rest is always victorious. Think about this. A lot of times we work and we don't know if we're going to succeed, but when we work from a position of trust, it is always victorious. So let me start with our passage. I wanted to go through a quick overview real quickly, kind of give you a bird's eye view of the entire scope of what this whole concept of working from a position of breast is. And then I want to dig really deep into some scriptures that start to bring a lot more illumination to it. So let's turn real quickly to Hebrews three, verse 11. Hebrew. Because this is kind of where we start to see God's rest and I'll let you read it once you get there. [00:05:23] All right. Hebrews three, verse 11. As I saw in my wrath, they shall not enter my raft, so they shall not enter my rest. [00:05:33] So let me give you the backstory on this. This is pulled from the time of the exodus. This is when Moses said send out 12 spies to search out the promised land and check into it. And if you remember that God had been telling them, telling all of Israel, I'm leading you to the promised land. And in that promised land, it's going to be a land of milk and honey. It's going to be overflowing in abundance. You're going to live in houses you did not build. You're going to drink water from cisterns. You did not dig. You're going to eat grazed from vineyards that you did not plant. In other words, everything is going to be already fixed and ready for you. You remember that? Okay, then. So then Moses sent out spies into the land, 12 spies, one spy for each of the tribes of Israel. And what they wanted to do is go through, check out their land, see what's going on, and attest to the bountiful ness and abundance that was already there. The land was so fertile, if you remember. They cut a single stem of grapes and they had to carry it on a pole between two people because it was so full of grapes and so big and so heavy. This is the abundance of the land that the Lord has promised his children. So it's not just I'm going to give you a promise and your life is going to be a little bit better. The Lord sent them into this place of tremendous abundance, tremendous fruit, tremendous everything. And then do you remember what happened when those guys come back? I do not. Okay, so they give two reports, the first report is an abundant land. But do you remember the second report? [00:07:34] I think it was that they saw giants in the land. That's right. The Giants were more than they could handle. [00:07:41] That's right. So 10, 12 spies came back and gave a bad report that said, yes, it's abundant, but no, there's absolutely no way we can ever conquer. We were like grasshoppers in their eyes. And they gave a report from a man's perspective. The other two spies were a guy named Caleb and Joshua. They gave a report from God's perspective. And what do you think the difference between God's perspective versus man's perspective was? [00:08:18] God's perspective was one of rest, not worry. [00:08:23] That's right. One of rest not worry. One of, hey, we can conquer because the Lord is with us. The Lord has promised. Don't be afraid. Well, what happened is they became afraid. They believed the bad report, not the good report. And as a result, they became fearful and they would not move forward as a result. God says, well, we just read as I swore in my wrath. You will not enter my rest. And he makes them circle the mountain. All right. For now, this is about a year and a half into it, maybe two years. So he makes them circle that mountain for another 38 years. They were now in the wilderness. 40 years. One year for every day. The spies had gone out into the land. And God says those people who were afraid, who looked with their natural eye perspective. You will not enter my rest. Only those who have looked and looked from my perspective. That I'm gonna give you the land. You will enter my rest. And that's why Caleb and Josh were the only people of that generation that were actually able to cross into the promised land and enter into God's rest. So that's kind of the backstory. Does that make sense? [00:09:44] Yes, it does. Okay, so now I want to give you kind of a synopsis of of taking it from there and talking a little bit more about what it means to work from a position of rest. [00:09:57] And the key is it's work. It's not rest. Okay. So God's rest is not an attitude of cessation. Okay. It's technically it's an actual place. It's a place of abundance. Okay. But there is a there is a transition of going from the place where we are, which is a lack of abundance to the place where God has created for us that place of rest, which is abundance. And we see this in the micro and macro and the micro. We're always in a position of less abundance, moving towards God's promise of greater abundance, whether it's our spiritual life or any other part of our life. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. Okay. So it's happening as we speak. But then at the macro level, in the big scheme of things, we also see that the trajectory of our life is continuing to be, in God's rest, great abundance, ending with eternal life and being in the heavenly places and for ages to come, as it says in officiants. So what we see with this passage in Exodus is kind of an allegory of our life. And I wanted to peel back that onion a little bit for you. So when they entered the Promised Land, they did not rest physically. Do you remember what happened when they transitioned from the wilderness into the promised land? There's something that never occurred during the wilderness that now started to occur all the time. Do you remember what that might be? [00:11:43] I feel like it was. They complained a lot and they felt like their needs weren't being met. [00:11:50] Almost. Okay. So they complained before they crossed the Jordan River, once they crossed the Jordan River. Now they're actually engaging into the promised land. [00:12:02] Something else occurred. [00:12:05] It was led by the priests. That thing that occurred was war. Now they had to fight for the promised land that had been promised them. They had to fight to take over the possession that had already been given them. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. And so when we move in to our promised land, this whole lot just make sure you can hear me now, is that correct? [00:12:34] Yes. I got one little crackle there, but we're good. [00:12:37] Okay, good. So they had to start going into and they started moving into battle. I want to kind of speed this up. So what happened is in a very a very high level sense, Joshua goes and he leaves the charge. Josh Wood leads the charge. And when he's leading, he's coming at it from a perspective that God has already given them the land. Therefore, victory is assured. And therefore, when they went out to fight, they went with the perspective, we are winning because God has promised it. [00:13:14] Does that make sense that day when Joshua did that? Do you think there was any unrest in his spirit? Oh, my gosh. I wonder how this battle is going to come out. [00:13:28] I think for me personally, if I put myself in his shoes, if I came out with that kind of statement to the people that I was leading, then I would have no doubt I would have no fear. [00:13:39] He's asking me to just say that he's likely right. [00:13:43] So we could then say that he fought from a position of rest because his spirit was at rest in peace, because a victory was assured. Does that make sense? Okay, so now we're starting to see. Working from a position of rest means it means working from the perspective of what God has already promised. And therefore, you can be assured of the outcome. And it's no longer scary. Then what happened is after Joshua and the Elders died off, then everything changed. The perspective of the leaders changed. [00:14:20] This is now it gets us into the period of the judges. And if you remember, the judge's life was miserable. They were being attacked on all sides. They would try to go in and take over more of the promised land and they would lose and be defeated all the time because they no longer work from a position of rest. They worked from a position of fear. They started to see with or naturalized rather than their spiritual lives. They looked at the natural enemy that they are facing rather than looking at it from God's perspective of seeing the victory is already won. [00:14:54] And then we move down the line for a couple of hundred years, and then another man comes out and comes to the scene. And this guy named David. Do you remember anything about a guy named David? [00:15:10] Yes. Okay. And so does God, where it says that David was a man after God's own heart. Okay, so David is actually a foreshadow of Christ. [00:15:25] Think about this. [00:15:28] David was not of the line of Aaron, but yet Aaron is the priestly line. But yet, David was a priest. [00:15:38] He wore the E. He danced before the Lord. He prophesied he did all kinds of priestly things. He was also of the royal line. Juda. And he was a king. He was a royal priest. And Jesus was a royal priest. He was royalty. And he was our high priest. And we are now royal. So we see this this poor shattering, this type of Christ coming online. And what happened with David? Is he engaged in battle? He engaged the same way that Joshua did. [00:16:18] The victory was certain. Now he had some fear and some Currentzis concerns. We see that through Psalms, especially as he's been attacked by Saul. But he goes out and in faith, from God's perspective of his promise. He goes out and engages in battle and he wins. And he then conquers the promised land that God had promised his son, Solomon. Then comes on board and enters into the rest of the land. So as David goes in to the land, there's war and unrest. [00:16:55] But there's constant victory. Then as Solomon comes on line, the land is at complete rest. And now Sollom Solomon gets to focus on building up the temple. Whereas David did not have that opportunity. So that's kind of the big picture. Do you see this in the macro? Yes. Yes, I do. So what we really see with all of this is this. Working from a position of trust comes first and foremost by faith. [00:17:28] And faith being that title deed of that which is promised. [00:17:32] So when we're in our lives and we search the scriptures, we spend our time and the word and the Lord reveals certain promises to us and we can work with confidence towards those promises, knowing that victory is certain. Now, what we may not know is the timing. But we know that the certainty of victory is there. And that certainty of victory that starts to create that working from a position of rest. All this making sense. Yes, absolutely. So now let me share one more. I want to share an illustration, and now we're about to take a deep dive into the scriptures. This is just a real quick overview. Here's an illustration of working from a position of rest, which is the knowledge of the outcome versus working from a position of undress, which is seeing things in the natural. Have you ever watched a really tense movie? Were you on the edge of your seat and your heart pounding? Your adrenaline rushing? Almost all the way through the movie? Yes. [00:18:38] I hate that feeling. I know. I know. I hate it, too. So what caused that feeling? [00:18:47] Uncertainty, not knowing what was going to happen and not being able to control the outcome. [00:18:54] That's exactly right. You're looking at it from the perspective of that character. And the music, dun, dun, dun, dun dun, he's he's going into this dark room and he turns a corner and, you know, there's someone there. Right. That's about it. Okay. Now, once you watch that movie, if you were to go back and watch it the next day. Are you this tent and sitting on the edge of your seat? [00:19:22] No. Why not? [00:19:24] Because I know it's going to happen. That's right. You know the outcome. That second time through. You're watching it from a position of rest. [00:19:36] It doesn't even get your heart beat up. Why? Because the outcome is certain. And therefore, you know the certainty of each outcome that nothing's going to happen. You know, generally, if you remember well, you know, generally what's going to happen. But if you don't remember, well, you know, there's not a big deal. [00:19:56] And therefore, you're sitting watching it from a position of Resh while the person next to you. This is their first time through. They're scared to death. Do you see the difference of perspective? Yes. Okay. That's our Christian life. We can either look at this from our eyes and be scared to death. Or we can look at it from God's eyes and be a total peace. Why do you think, looking at it from God's eyes, you're at total peace? [00:20:30] Because she's not worried about anything, then I don't have the right to be either. [00:20:34] That's right. So what I want to do now, I want to show you a couple other scriptures where this gets manifested and then we're going to take a real deep dive. You ready? I'm ready. Okay, let's turn to Hebrews 11, verse 17, 18 and 19. [00:20:53] All right. 17, 18 and 19 by faith. Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said through Isaac, shall your offspring be named? He considers that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which. Figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. [00:21:24] Very good. So here's what happened. Abraham was at complete rest when he offered Isaac up as a sacrifice. Think about this in our perspective. We're going through tough times. Maybe your job, your your livelihood has been cut off because right now the shelter in place or because of other things that come up later in your life or you have situations with relationship or situations with help or with something else. And. You're scared. When you're scared is because you look at it with your own natural eyes. But think about Abraham. His only promised son. This is the son of the promise. All of his descendants is going to be name through Isaac. All of this inheritance is going to go through Isaac. And now God has told him to do something stupid and crazy for a man's perspective. Abraham, I want you to sacrifice your son to me. Your your your love of your life, the sun. I've said this is all the promises are coming through this one person. Now I want you to kill him. Do you see the turmoil that could really be going on? [00:22:49] I can't even imagine. [00:22:51] I can't either. And yet. According to scripture, there is no mention in scripture that Abraham was concerned at all. Why was he not concerned? What does it say? [00:23:07] It says that he considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead. [00:23:13] That's right. In other words, his perspective was from God's promise. Rumor says by faith, righteousness was read into Abraham, the promise. Faith is believing God's word, basically in real simple terms. So his faith in God's promise told him that the current situation had no bearing on the long term outcome. And because he had no bearing on the long term outcome. And the reason had no bearing because God's promises cannot fail. And therefore, if they cannot fail, the long term outcome is still intact, then it doesn't matter what happens right now. This is why it says that he considered that God was able to even raise him from the dead. He was fully expecting to kill his son. Stand back. And his son would miraculously come back to life. How many of us, when the Lord tells us to do something and it doesn't make sense in the natural naturalise, we say complete disaster. How many of us? Panic and cause that's not what most of us for sure. If we're going to work from a position of rest. [00:24:36] And another way to say it is we're going to work from the promise, not to the promise, we hit that in just a moment. But if we're going to work from this position of respite, from the promise, from God's perspective, we got to do what God says to without questioning because. God has a perspective, we don't all we have to do is plug into that perspective and sometimes we don't know the perspective, but we know his promise and therefore we can rely on the promises that make sense. Yes. [00:25:07] Okay, let's look at one more passage and then we're going to really take a nice deep dive. This is going to be fun. Okay. Matthew eight. Matthew eight versus 23 through 26. [00:25:21] Twenty three or twenty six of Matthew eight. When he got into the boat, his disciples followed him and behold, there arose a great storm on the sea so that the boat was being swamped by the waves. But he was asleep. And they went and Wolken saying, save us, Lord, we are perishing. And he said to them, Why are you afraid? Oh, you have little faith. Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea. And there was a great calm. And the men marveled saying, what sort of man is this? That even the winds and the sea obey him. Huh? [00:26:01] Let me ask you a question. What do you think was the perspective of Jesus? [00:26:07] Rest, he not only rest. He was so restful. He was asleep in the middle of the storm. [00:26:15] Yeah, well, it was the perspective of the disciples. [00:26:19] Fear, worry. And they mean. They take what they're doing with their natural eyes. [00:26:26] They know what was going on with their natural eyes and Jesus had a spiritual perspective. Perspective. [00:26:35] All right. So we could say that Jesus was operating from a position of arrest. The disciples were operating from a position of natural sight. We can also say position of breath is a position of faith. Faith is God's perspective. Natural side is man's perspective, and they are always opposing each other. This is where Romans, eight says that the flesh can never please God because it is always at enmity with God. This makes sense. All of this is on this matter perspective. [00:27:15] Now, let's start looking at perspective from God's perspective. This is going to be really cool. Let me let me just mention one thing. Perspective. [00:27:30] Is everything perspective determines the outcome. You have God's perspective. And that creates one outcome you have man's perspective. It creates another outcome. Now, this isn't 100 percent true, but this is, generally speaking, the pattern that God's laws operate in. And we see this with Peter walking on the water. If you remember, when he's walking on the water, his perspective was where? [00:28:04] When he was walking on the water, at first, his eyes run Jesus. [00:28:08] That's right. So his perspective was on God's word. [00:28:14] And God's word had inherent with it. A truth and that truth was you come on the water and you'll walk on the water with me. Then he changed his perspective. And what happened when he changed his flight? Where did he put his perspective in what happened? [00:28:33] He started looking at the ways around town. So I took his eyes off Jesus and started looking at the water and the waves. And he became careful. Then what have you been thinking? [00:28:48] There you go. So he changed his perspective from God's perspective, working from a position of rest to man's perspective, working from a position of natural sight, and by changing the perspective. The outcome was changed as well. [00:29:06] Pretty cool. So now let's dig deep. So let's look at since everything focuses around God's perspective. [00:29:12] Now let's look into what is God's perspective. This is going to be really cool. Let's look at a number of passages. Let's start with Revelation 13. Revelation 13. Eight. [00:29:27] Revelation 13, verse eight says to all who dwell on earth will worship it. Everyone whose name has not been written before, the foundation of the world in the Book of Life of the Lamb who was slain. [00:29:46] Let me also modify that translation just a little bit, I think this may be an I.V. I don't recall the same passage. Slight different translation that articulates a truth that is a little bit clearer. All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast, all whose names have not been written in the Lamb's Book of life. The Lamb who was slain from the found from the creation of the world. To God's perspective, is this from the foundation of the world? The lamb was already slain. [00:30:26] That promise manifestation. [00:30:31] That was to come at a minimum 4000 years later, depending on how you look at the age of the Earth, 4000 years or 40 million, it doesn't matter. God's faith says the lamb was already slain. Long before the lamb was slain in the natural, does that make sense? That's the perspective of God. Let's look at this. Go to Ephesians one versus four and five. [00:31:00] Okay. [00:31:01] All right, effusions one, verse four and five. Even as he shows us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him in love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as son through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will from the foundation of the world. [00:31:23] This is God's perspective from the foundation of the world. [00:31:27] You were already chosen in Christ. [00:31:33] Let's look at another Hebrews for three. [00:31:39] All right. Hebrews four, verse three. For he who have believed for his who have believed entered that risk and as he said, as I swore in my RAF, they shall not enter my risk. All those his works were finished from the foundation of the world. [00:32:01] So from the foundation of the world, God's perspective, all of his work had already been finished. Do you think this could be the work of Moses leading his people out of Egypt? Be. This could be the work of Christ on the cross. Yes. I think this could be the work that he's called us to do. Yes, it could. Yes, it could be all the works were finished before the foundation of the world. Let's look at Matthew 25 34. [00:32:35] All right. Matthew, 25 versus 34. Says then the king will say to those on his right come you who are blessed by my father, inherit the kingdom, prepared for you from the foundation of the world. [00:32:52] There we have it again. God's perspective is from the foundation of the world before it was created. The kingdom was already prepared for us. [00:33:05] Let's look at one more Isaiah 46 versus nine and 10. [00:33:13] Okay. All right, Isaiah 46 six, verse nine and 10. Remember the former things of old. For I am God. And there is no other. I am God. And there is none like me declaring the end from the beginning, from ancient times, things not yet done, saying my counsel shall stand. And I will accomplish all my purpose. [00:33:37] So from God's perspective. From the foundation of the world. N had already been declared and finished. Before it began. What does this tell you about God's perspective? [00:33:56] It's way bigger than our way, bigger than ours, right? [00:34:02] So God's perspective is what faith looks like. Would you agree? [00:34:07] Yes. [00:34:10] From God's perspective. Before the foundation of the world, everything had already been finished. From God's perspective, think about in this way. God's perspective is things are truth, even when they have not manifested in the natural. Remember, we talked a while back on believe that you have received what you've asked for and then it shall be granted, you are from God's perspective. It's already been done. Now, this is not a name it and claim it. This is a name it and be it, as a friend of mine shared, name it and claim it as a perspective that says I'm naming something. I do not have. But name it and be it is a perspective of knowing what I already have. As a promise from God. But God's word is already said, and I am simply walking and living this out until it's manifested in my life. Do you see the difference between that? Yes, I do. So this working from a position of rest. It says God works six days and rested on the seventh, says that all of his works were finished. Working from a position of rest is. It's been done. It's finished. The outcome is assured. All I have to do is walk in faith for that outcome to be manifested in my life. This is why this story, Peter, is so important to others. But Peter's the clearest example, walking and working in reste. Gets one outcome, walking and working in fear gets another outcome. The outcome is assured as long as we operate and walk and faith. The outcome is not assured. If we ignore. God's perspective ignored trusting him and tried to do it on her own. Is this helping? Yes, absolutely. Okay, so then let's look at faith and the perspective of God a little bit more. Let's return real quickly. Foundational principles of faith. Romans, 10 17. Can you quoted or. [00:36:49] You remember from from hearing by and hearing by what, by receiving the word of Christ. Yes. Sense 17. I get to change because I've got I've got my outline in front of me comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. [00:37:16] That's right. Through the word of Christ. What is the word of Christ? [00:37:22] The Bible. A little bit more. Everything that he said a little bit more. [00:37:30] Oh, gosh. So let's talk on it this way. Will pull it off from John in the beginning was the word, the word and the word was with God and the word was God. [00:37:48] So here we have in the beginning was the word. The word was with God. And the word was God and faith comes from hearing by the word of Christ, which is God himself. And John, 17, it says thy word is truth and where we come back to truth. [00:38:10] God's perspective is one of truth and truth manifests itself in a natural way and acted on by faith. So we see kind of this circular. Faith comes from hearing by the word of Christ, which is God's truth, which is God himself. Faith is the perspective of God. And then we now faith is let's define a little bit different. It is the perspective of God. But what is God's perspective? Hebrews 11 one. You want to pull up Hebrews? [00:38:46] Pull that up, because I do not that one off the top of my head. [00:38:50] You actually did? No, it's just a matter of recalling this specific one. [00:38:53] Yes, you're right. You're right. Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. [00:39:02] So it is the assurance of things hoped for. In Bible terms, hope for is an assured promise. It is not what we do, which is a variable that we're not sure. I hope it doesn't rain while I'm out here on my deck. Now, it is a hope, but that's not what the Bible talks about. The assurance of things, hope for the conviction of things not seen is the absolute certainty of what it is. And it's an absolute certainty because it is God's truth. Faith comes from hearing and hearing God's truth, the word of Christ. Another pass, another translation says that faith is the title deed of what has been promised. Even though we do not see it yet, we've got the title deed. So I want you to envision for a moment King David. He's out there fighting these battles. And I want you to picture this little caricature of King David. He's got a sword in one hand leading his army, charging in his other hand. He's got a crumpled up title deed that says the promised land is ours. This victory is mine. He's charging into battle, holding faith by one hand, holding the sword. And the other hand, because that faith, that title deed gives him the assurance of victory makes sense. Yes, that is working from a position of rest. Fighting for victory from a position of rest. It is working from from the promise. He's carrying the promise with him. And he's going into battle. The outcome is certain, those particular path of the battle. [00:40:58] How many of his men he may lose? What's going to happen at any given moment? Those things are uncertain, but the outcome is guaranteed because it is the truth of God. So faith is when you look at things from God's perspective, not man's perspective. When you look at it from the promise, not to the promise. There's a number of different types of faith mentioned in scripture. I'm just going to kind of throw these out, see if this rings a bell by faith of faith through faith in faith. You remember those kind of passages used throughout scripture. So if faith comes from hearing the word of Christ is faith, therefore is the word of Christ. Faith, therefore, is Christ himself. And what we can translate with these is faith is Jesus, then it's by Jesus of Jesus, through Jesus. And Jesus. In other words, when we operate in faith, we're operating. In Christ, from Christ. And it's literally and technically Christ operating through us. We're abiding in him. He's abiding in us. We do nothing. He does it all. It's him living through us. What is it, Galatians? Three, two, twenty three. Twenty one of those. I'm crucified with Christ and is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me and through me. Okay, so that's kind of this perspective. So now I want to come back and I want to bring another perspective and kind of tie this together. We're almost finished, by the way. Is this exciting so far? Is this interesting? [00:42:58] Yes. Love it. I love it. [00:43:01] Okay, so now I want to talk about an old covenant versus new covenant. Old Covenant is the covenant given to Abraham, and that includes the law, the new covenant. The law has been fulfilled in us. The law is still in us. That's what Romans says. But the rightest requirements of the law have been fulfilled. Those of us in Christ. So the law is still present, but it's now fulfilled. But the covenant is a little bit. I want to I want to shift the focus of the covenant from the law to the promise of the fulfillment of that. So let's talk about the old covenant. First time with me to Hebrews 11, verse 13. So this is the Hall of Fame. Faith, the Hall of Fame. And this is a statement put in between as it kind of wraps up. What's going on in Hebrews 11 13? [00:44:04] These all died in faith, not having received the things promised. But having seen them and greeted them from afar and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the years. [00:44:18] Okay, so in the old covenant says that they were looking towards the promise, not from the promise, they were working towards the promise, the promise of the Messiah and of sonship being brought into the kingdom. Does that make sense? Yeah. Everything they did was from the outside looking in outside of the promise, looking into the problems. Now, let's contrast that with the new covenant and the new covenant. Let's go to Hebrews 11, first, 39 and 40. [00:44:56] All right, 39 and 40 and all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised and God had provided something better for us. That apart from us, they should not be made perfect. [00:45:11] So now this is basically saying the promise is ours. [00:45:15] And apart from us, they were actually looking forward to us because we're the holder of the promise. So now, as the possessor of the promise, our perspective changes. We now are looking from inside a promise out rather than from them looking outside in where we work from. The promise they worked towards the promise is the same. Yes. Okay. Let's look at one more passage, Matthew, 28, verse 27 and 28. [00:45:53] All right. Twenty eight. All right. 27, 28. Wait, are we sure we don't have a verse 27 in chapter 28? [00:46:07] That's a start. It may be 26, but it starts and he took a cup and when he had given thanks. Here we found it. And he took the cup. [00:46:18] And when he had given thanks, he gave it to them saying, drink it, all of you. This is my blood. The Covenant, which is poured out from many for their forgiveness. That's all right. [00:46:30] Now, tell me the reference on that verse, if you would. [00:46:34] The verses were right, but it's chapter 26, 26. [00:46:38] That's where it was. Okay. So here's where he's going. And there's a word that sometimes you use and sometimes not. I'm going to use it here. [00:46:48] Same drink of it, all of you. This is my blood. The new covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sin. So now we had the inauguration of the New Covenant. We had the old covenant, the new covenant. [00:47:02] We are to drink the blood of the cup and drink the cup, which is his blood. And that inaugurates the new covenant as we're abiding in the promise we're now operating from the promise because now the new covenant is in us, in the old covenant. They were looking towards a promise with us. We're looking from the promise. Making sense. [00:47:29] Yes, absolutely. [00:47:31] Yes. Okay, so the old covenant operates from an outside perspective, looking in the new covenant operates from an inside perspective, looking out. And we're going to take the same pattern in terms of how we operate and work. But I want to show you one more verse. Go to Matthew 17, verse 20. [00:47:53] All right. [00:47:53] Verse 20. [00:47:55] He said to them, because of your little faith. Truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move from here to there and it will move and nothing will be impossible for you. [00:48:11] All right, great. So this faith to Jesus is talking about. It is only possible when you're operating from inside the promise, from inside Christ, because if you're going to move a mountain. [00:48:27] Now, this could be metaphorically backup. So mountains and scripture are pretty much government governmental authorities. They just asked him why could we not cast out this demon? Jesus says because of the littleness of your faith, the littleness of the perspective of God operating through you. This is a governmental authority that takes a lot more faith than what you try to operate in. That's basically kind of one way that we could interpret this. But he's using metaphorically a mountain. He's on. They just come down from mount to transfiguration. Okay, so you just come down from this mountain. So he's probably talking about that mountain. They just went up to a high mountain, it said prior. [00:49:20] And so you said if you have faith like the grain of a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, move from here to there and they'll move and nothing will be impossible. For you, that faith is only when you have the faith of Christ. Not the safe looking towards Christ. Does that make sense? Yes. [00:49:45] Yes. This is kind of the old test, some old covenant versus new covenant. Old covenant. Look towards the promise. Through Man-Sized with a little bit of faith. New Covenant. Is the reality of working from the premise now kind of wrapping this back up to where I started the idea of working from a position of rest. Is working from the promise. [00:50:16] Not to the promise it's working from inside. [00:50:22] Looking out as opposed outside, looking in, maybe an easy way to try to understand this is imagine a really tall brick wall. And on the wall is running north south on the east side of the wall is this promise. This promise is whatever the promise may be in your life. It could be a new car. They could be victory in business. It could be health, it could be anything. It could be all kinds of different things. On the east side is a promise. [00:51:00] On the west side of the wall is where you stand. On the west side of the wall. You cannot see the promise. Does that make sense? When we operate in the natural when we operate by our natural allies, all we see is a wall. [00:51:23] And we have no idea what's on the other side. We work and we work and we work. And we're scared to death because we don't know what's going to happen. We pray and we plead with the Lord. Save me. Help me. Please do this, because we don't know what's going to happen, because our perspective is not God's perspective. [00:51:47] From our perspective, this man's perspective, that is not working from a position of rest. It's working from a position of site and unrest and fear and fear. Exactly. Because site creates fear. Natural site creates fear. Because natural site, when in the presence of God's promise, natural site is always contrary to God's promise because it's all the flesh. God's promises are the spirit. [00:52:20] So when we work from a position of rest, it's as if we walk around that brick wall and now we're on the east side and we see. The promise that God has given us and now we believe it, we're looking at it now with our Spiritualized. And we believe that as certainty, faith is the certainty of hope for is the title of doubt which has been promised. [00:52:48] And now when we work, we work diligently towards it. But we have no fear that we will not achieve it. [00:52:59] We know the outcome is certain. We know the victory of that promise is ours because it is. And God's word, God's word spoken to us, limited to us. Impress upon us. However he communicates. But that is the difference between working towards the promise, hoping in human terms, hoping that is going to become true versus working from the promise. It's already true. And now I'm simply doing the necessary labor for it to then be manifested in my life. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. That's what it looks like. To be seated in Christ. Be rooted in Christ, be rooted in his word, having the certainty of his word and his promise in our life and therefore moving forward with no fear. Can I share a little personal testimony on this? Absolutely. I've been in business since 1997. [00:54:11] I've had some great ups and some great downs. One period time almost went bankrupt. And what's interesting is even the times where I was afraid, I always trusted the Lord. But I was still afraid you'd say this with David. He trusts the Lord. But when you read through Psalms, you see the fear come out. But every time the fear comes out, the psalm always ends with. And I trust in the Lord and he brings me victory is likely through writing the song. He comes back into God's perspective. You see him shift from that perspective to God's perspective. Well, I was during this period of time. And the Lord gave me a passage and the passage said, you will never suffer famine again among the nations because at that time we were in a famine financially and we were about to die financially. And ever since he gave me that passage, I'd been like Superman. I fear nothing. Shoot me up if you want to. They're just going to bounce off me. Why? Because I have the promise from God. And so it doesn't matter what situation we come into. [00:55:25] I know we're not going to lose anything. I don't have to worry about losing the house. I don't have to worry about not having food. I don't even have to worry about. I've got my youngest child is in college right now. I don't even have to worry about how to pay the college bills because the promises will never suffer famine. Now, I've got a lot of other promises of a lot more abundance. But the simple promise was that now remembering one of my business groups, one of the ladies is a group called Vistage, business owners and business people that made work through different, different things. And one folks and one ladies in my group had asked the question because they've seen me over the years up and down, up and down. But always with the big dream, always with the certainty of victory. Always pressing forward. Always upbeat, regardless of what financials might say at the moment. Her question is, how do you do it? How do you keep your attitude so positive and keep going in the presence of all of the what we see as all the setbacks? [00:56:42] And as I was contemplating that answer, you know, the answer is because I've been promised. We'll never suffer famine again. Never is, never. And it's a promise from God. And I can't tell you how incredible it is to operate from that position because it means I never have to fear. I don't. I don't take it on presumption. I work hard. I never have to worry about the outcome. Does that make sense? [00:57:14] Absolutely. Yes. [00:57:16] And that's what this is all about. That's what this is all about. That's working from the promise. [00:57:23] Beatty, I was thinking of the verse and Hebrews Chapter 11 talked about without faith, it's impossible to please God. It goes on to say, because those who come to the father must believe that he exists and he rewards those who earnestly seek can. And that that verse kept popping up in my mind while you were sharing that testimony. It is that faith. It's your faith that you've had that where you have been able to see the promise. And I love that that's such a good thing. [00:58:00] I'm so glad you brought that up, because I love that verse on the cutting table thinking it didn't really need to apply here at all. [00:58:12] The lies at all. I love it. That's awesome. [00:58:15] Yes, it does. Well, we got to close up. But do you have any final thoughts or comments before you wrap up? [00:58:21] I don't. I just love the perspective today, and I hope our listeners are able to grasp that as well. Just knowing, like you said, that we do have that promise. And when we grab ahold of it and we see it with faith, knowing that God's giving it to us, that we can operate and rest and not in fear, no matter what's going on in the natural. And I think that's the key is is seeking the Lord, keeping our eyes fixed on the Lord and not letting our vision wander to the natural to what's going on around us, the waves and the wind. Easier said than done, but it can be done. [00:58:59] I want to make one comment on this as to our real estate friends out there. [00:59:04] When this Corona vase hit and people started going and shelter in place. I saw so much fear among so many of our clients and clients who follow the Lord. But they operated in fear. [00:59:23] And I'd like to just speak to you guys for a quick moment. Stop looking at things in the natural. You've got to look at it from God's perspective, what God's word has shared with you and what he has illumined to you and hold that promise, because without faith, is it impossible to please them. And it's only by faith that you get the promise of faith. When you add by fear, you get the consequence of fear. And so it becomes says in the natural what we call a self-fulfilling prophecy. You can speak to words of fear. And it evaporates. The miracle of faith. And just like Peter, you can think and say. You see, I knew it was going to happen. No, you spoke it into existence. You take God's word and you focus on God's word and you speak God's word and you believe God's word because it is the word of God and it is truth. And by doing that action, God says, I am well pleased with you. Here's the promise that I've given you by faith and that your faith has now brought to bear. So do not fear. So focus on God's word. All right. [01:00:53] That's awesome. All righty. This was great. Thank you so much. I agree with that. I want to encourage our real estate friends as well just to stay the course. Keep your eyes on the prize and keep your focus on the Lord. Don't allow other things around you to dictate what you're feeling and concerned about. You have nothing to fear when your eyes are on the Lord. So this was a great call today. Super excited. And we bless you all. Thank you so much for listening. And we're excited to be with you again very soon. [01:01:26] Hey, man, you all be blessed. P064 [/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
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Please ignore any speech-to-text errors) When bad things happen - Part 3 - when evil acts.mp3 Hi, everybody, this is Penny Thomas again, and welcome to this next session of Get Sellers Calling You with Beatty Carmichael. Beatty is the CEO of Master Grabber, creator of Agent Dominator and one of the top marketing experts in the real estate field. Beatty, I'm excited for our listeners today. I'm excited to be chatting with you. What do you have for us today? [00:00:24] Well, I'm really excited about today's call for two reasons. Number one, we get to do another radical faith call. And so for those of you who may just be joining in on our podcast, if you're joining in for real estate marketing, this is not going to be one of those episodes. This is where we're going to be talking about living as a Christian. And so if you don't want that, go and get this episode and go to the next one. So that's number one reason I'm excited as we get to do a radical faith call. The second reason I'm excited is as I was preparing for this call, it dawned on me that the conclusions that the scriptures talk about that we're going to talk about today are opposite of what most people expect. And so it's kind of like one of those. Wow. Is that really in scripture? So this is going to be a really exciting call. [00:01:18] I cannot wait to dive into this. [00:01:21] Yes. Me, too. So as we dive in, kind of alluding to that last comment I made. We're talking about when bad things happen. Is it God's will? Okay. And this is actually part three of our series. And today the subtitle is When Evil Acts. Okay. So in the past, if you recall the previous sessions, our first session, we talked about that God directs our every step. And so when bad things happen, sometimes it's God's will directing us toward our destiny. That's I actually put the second call was about as we talked about the life of Joshua. Excuse me, Joseph in the life of Esther and how the bad things that seemingly were bad were actually all furthering God's ultimate destiny for the will of their lives. So sometimes when bad things happen, it's actually good. Sometimes you have to back up and see it. And once you have a bigger, bigger perspective today, I want to talk on the topic of when evil comes in. By the way. Are you aware that there is evil in the world? [00:02:38] Yes. Is evil good? No, no. [00:02:44] So we have to include this when bad things happen because there is evil. And as I mentioned just a moment ago when I started preparing for this, I had kind of a conclusion that I thought was the right conclusion. But I tried to support everything through scripture. And when I started researching it, I found out I was wrong. So I kind of took a huge U-turn on this topic for today. And it's just really exciting. So let me set the stage. Okay. So when bad things happen, there's essentially four things that could be going on. This is what we were talking about earlier. It could be God's destiny for you, moving you toward your ultimate place. And that's the case. All those bad things ultimately are a good thing. Or it could be God's discipline. God's discipline is when you do something wrong and he comes involved to correct you. It says that he corrects every child. So things that could be bad or could be parts of discipline. The third thing that could be going on is, is we talked about through scripture that God directs our every step. But we have the ability to disregard his direction and stumble. This is what Psalms talks about. And when we do that, then sometimes these bad things are simply a consequence of us making our own decision rather than following God's leading. Does that make sense? [00:04:09] It does. Okay. And then the fourth thing, and this is what we're going to be talking about today is evil when evil comes in and actually impacts our life. But here's what's really interesting. [00:04:20] If you take these four things, destiny, discipline, consequence and evil, it's it's basically gradient of how closely were aligned to God's will. The more we're aligned to God's perfect will, the more everything is destiny, the less we are aligned to God's perfect will, the more everything becomes evil. Does that make sense? As we talk about evil in my church, I often hear and I'm going to use this term and I use it not critically, but kind of just descriptively, God being accused of being. The source of every bad thing, they don't really believe it, but they do believe and let me see. Let me share this. Here's the idea. This is kind of how it comes out. The idea is because God is sovereign, God is in control and because God is in control, all things that happen must be his will. Does that logic make sense? No, that's not what we've we've accomplished through scripture. But does that make sense how people can come to that conclusion? [00:05:26] Absolutely. And so therefore, here so here is the implication of that conclusion. I'm sick and suffering. It must be God's will. Have you ever heard someone say that? Okay. Or if a loved one dies, gets killed in a car accident at an early age, well, it must be God's will. [00:05:48] And then if it must be if it's God's will, then maybe God's trying to teach me something. Does that you'd say that logical string. Okay. So God's word says that man's wisdom is folly to God. Right. And so what happens is we try to put our wisdom into this and it's all folly and we come to wrong conclusions. There's an element of truth, but there's more of an element of truth here. And I wanted to see if I can back up in scripture. What's actually going on. So let me ask you a few questions. A real story. The cousin of a family friend is a 23 year old young woman. She's, uh, she's actually the only Christian in her family. She was recently in a car wreck and those injuries were fatal. But they were able to keep her alive on life, support the hospital until their sister could arrive and say her final goodbyes. And then they pulled the plug and she died. [00:06:48] So here's the question. Did God cause her to have that wreck and die? What do you think? No. I don't think so. Was it God's will for her to die young? [00:07:01] No. Is that accent somehow part of God's master plan for her life? [00:07:13] Yes, and now it could be. So right now, here's kind of where we sit. We don't really have enough information to come to an absolute conclusion. Does that make sense? Yes. But it appears from all that we know about God and from Scripture that generally speaking it doesn't sound like this is what God's plan was. [00:07:37] I would agree with that. Generally speaking, everything I want to talk about today is kind of. Generally speaking, because there are some very clear absolutes in the Bible where we're now treading, it's going to be not quite so absolute. Okay. So let me give you another real story. A woman had a very important meeting in downtown New York, and it was critical that she be there on time for her career. But she wasn't for whatever reason, she got to the train station late and missed the train. [00:08:14] Now she's late. She misses the meeting completely. She's fuming inside because she's so upset and frustrated and stretched out. She's concerned that she may actually lose her job and ultimately by her job was actually gone. So the question is, did God cause her to miss that train and this meeting? [00:08:39] Was that bad? Yes. [00:08:44] Okay. You're laughing, you know, I'm probably setting you up. Okay. So we really don't know at the moment. [00:08:56] Is it really good or bad because we can't discern it. But let me give you the rest of the story. [00:09:05] She ends up going back home. Her meeting was in the World Trade Towers, and that was the day the towers fell. [00:09:13] Now, let me ask, was missing the train good or bad? Do you think it could have been guided by God's hand that she missed it? Absolutely. OK. So now this is kind of what we talked about on the last session. Once you have a further enough away perspective of everything, you can start to piece things together. But in the midst of it all. Sometimes we just don't know. Does that make sense? [00:09:39] Yeah. Okay. So now here's a bigger question. Was the crash of the World Trade Towers and the huge loss of lives. God's will? In other words, did he cause it to happen or did evil cause it to happen? [00:09:56] Yeah, I think so. I want to talk about how that happens and also partly how do we discern it. There's another story I want to share. This actually happened very recently. I was talking with a Christian lady named Joanna and she's been suffering from depression all of her life. And sometime this cloud, that's her entire life, there's a cloud hanging over there. Sometimes it has a crippling effect in her life. [00:10:28] Is that God's will for her to have depression? No. Do you think God somehow is the cause behind that depression? In other words, he is God. Do you think God authorizes that depression upon her? No. Okay, so here's the issue. If you're going through really tough times, how do you handle it? How do you make sense of it? [00:10:53] Do you blame God, accused God or attribute to God? Well, it must be God's will. Do you ask God? Why do you even know what's really going on? Because so often in our little perspective, we just don't know. There's a lot more at play, and the more you understand what's likely going on, then the better you can manage these things in your life. Does that make sense? Yeah. Okay. So today I want to give you that better understanding of what is going on. My little disclaimer on this, this is a really complex subject. I don't claim to have all the solid answers, but I want to give you what I see in scripture and kind of my interpretation of that. So take this for what I'll call not for what it's worth, but for what I think. Scriptures generally teach us. [00:11:51] So there's a passage in the Gospels that we call the Lord's Prayer. Are you familiar with the Lord's Prayer? Okay. So let me ask you a question. If God is sovereign and in control, is everything that happens God's will now cut you on this one, the first set on our first session. So what do you think the answer to that is? [00:12:20] No, I don't know. [00:12:23] But some of my conservative friends who use the logic God is in control. God, a sovereign God is in control. He's all powerful and therefore everything that happens must be his will. Otherwise he would have stopped it. If it was his will. So our logic. Okay. So if that is, where are some of our friends who are listening in on right now? I want to show you just one very simple verse that creates some very complicated questions about that logic. [00:12:53] Turn, if you would, to Matthew 6 9 3 13. This is the Lord's Prayer and let's use the living version on this is just kind of cleans and makes it simple. So Matthew, 6 9 through 13, the Lord's Prayer. Go ahead. Okay. [00:13:13] All right. This, then, is how you should pray. Our father in heaven hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread and forgive us our debt, as we also have forgiven our debtors and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. [00:13:36] Okay, so this is Jesus basically giving some nation prayer. Here's how you should pray. These are the things you should be praying for, and all these are real important and they basically encompass what's important in life. As a believer, before I get into what I want to comment on this one, I was going through this. I remember some what I call my Lord's Prayer funny's 3 year old Reese, the way he prays. [00:14:01] Our father, who does art in heaven, Herald is his name or a particular four year old, prays it this way and forgive us our trash baskets as we forgive those who put trash in our baskets and forgive us our trespasses. Right. [00:14:22] This is from a mother teaching her 3 year old daughter, Caitlin. The Lord's Prayer. First, she says for several evenings at bedtime, she would repeat after me the lines of the prayer. Finally, she decided to go solo all by herself. And the mother says, listen with pride. She said each word right up to the end of the prayer lead us not into temptation. She prayed. But deliver us some e-mail. I share that to make a point. It's funny sometimes when the children misunderstand the Lord's Prayer, but how often do we misunderstand it? [00:15:05] You say that this makes sense. For example, if everything that happens on earth is God's will. Then why does Jesus tell us to pray for God's will to be done on Earth as it is in heaven unless it's not always done on Earth? Does that make sense? Yeah. So we have this challenge. So let's now move into the real me to what I want to get into. I want to talk about calamity when bad things happen. Calamity. Question Does God cause calamity in people's lives? No. Does God send the evil spirits to attack people and cause in their lives? Okay. Now let's turn real quickly to Jobe. And we're going to read Jobe One Twelve. [00:16:05] And in chapter 2, 3 through 6, chapter 1, verse 12, Chapter 2, 3, 3, 6. All right, so one verse twelve, then the Lord said to say to be before you, let me just give the background for those who may not be okay. So this actually Jobe is most scholars believe is the oldest book in the Bible thar pre-dating Abraham. And if you're familiar with J-O-B toward the end, God is talking to Jobin says. Ask him all these questions showing God's sovereignty and superiority. And he talks about an animal called Leviathan. And he says This animal's so powerful that a spear can't pierce it skills and it breathes out fire and smoke. [00:17:02] So this is an animal that we've never experienced in our life and we don't see it anywhere in scripture. [00:17:09] So this is a it's a real old book. And what's happening at this scenario that we're just about to read is God is in his court room in heaven, and Satan comes up. God says, where have you been? He said, I've been roaming around the earth. Very vague, almost like a teenage son. Where are you, Ben? I've just been out. What've you been doing with friends? And then God says, Have you considered my friend Jobe? [00:17:41] And Satan says, Oh, he just loves you because you bless him. Let me touch him and he'll curse you. OK. So that's kind of where we pick up. Pick up now on verse 12. [00:17:55] The Lord said to Satan. Very well, then. Everything he has in your power. But on the man himself, do not lay a finger. Then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord. [00:18:08] All right, then go to job to verse three and six. And as you go there. So what's happened now is Satan goes out and destroys everything that Joe has, kills all of his children and destroys all of his business. [00:18:24] And now everything he's got is totally gone. And now we pick up in verse three of chapter two. [00:18:34] Then the lord said to Satan. Have you considered my servant job? There is no one on earth like him. He is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. And he still maintains his integrity. Then you incited me again to ruin him without any reason. Skin for skin. Satan replied, a man will give all he has for his own life. But now stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face. The Lord said to Satan. Very well, then, he is in your hands. But you must not. Sorry, but you must spare his life. [00:19:12] Let me ask you a question. Did God send an evil spirit to attack J-O-B? [00:19:23] This scripture. [00:19:25] Yes. Boy, that's not what we expected, is it? Does that sound like a loving God? [00:19:37] Scripture. [00:19:40] Did God have any reason to do it? It says, although you incited me against him to destroy him without reason. Does this seem like almost an arbitrary act? [00:19:56] Do you think this is a different view of God than most people have? Yes. Yes. [00:20:03] Does this one, I might add, if people if this is someone's only view of God. I can see how they would not want anything to do with God. [00:20:15] You know what? If someone's only view of me is one little part of who I am and they don't know me as a whole. I can always find some part of me that someone would be detested about. Yes. So this is the purpose of what I want to do today. A lot of times we have wrong conclusions based on who we want God to be and what we want things to be. Everything must be God's will because God is sovereign and powerful and controlling. If it wasn't his will, he could have intervened. And the fact that he didn't intervene must mean that it was his will. [00:20:54] That's the logical conclusion. The logical conclusion about God. God is a loving God. He would never hurt someone. Would he send calamity on someone? Absolutely not. He you sent an evil spirit upon someone? Absolutely not. [00:21:04] And yet, right here in scripture, we see it happening right in front of our eyes. And if we're going to truly follow the Lord and make sense of things, we have to understand all aspects. Okay. So now let me ask you. What good could possibly have come out of God allowing Satan to attack? What good could possibly come out of that? [00:21:37] Wow. A lot of spiritual maturity and growth and jobe. All right. What else? Mitt increased faith in Joe and just the fact that he would have to really. Rely on the Lord to take care of. [00:21:57] All right. Those are all possible, but I think they're missing what I think is the biggest impact. What do you think the biggest impact might be? [00:22:07] Tell me. It has nothing to do with Jobe individually. Can you imagine how many millions and billions of people have been impacted to trust the Lord and learn more about the and large character by reading about what happened and imagine the impact? Could it be that what God did with Joe was not for Joe's sake, but for God's holy purpose to use to impact millennia of followers of the Lord Jesus? [00:22:41] So sometimes we have to get further far enough back in perspective to see what's going on. Sometimes we will never understand it. But I think we could come to that conclusion. All right. So God doesn't cause calamity and he doesn't send evil spirits to attack people is what I think I heard you say earlier. And I think we're starting to see that what most people believe about God may not be quite so accurate, but this is just one instance, one one instance. Maybe that's not really God's character. So let's turn to Isaiah, 45, verse 7. [00:23:21] Love the book of Isaiah forty five seven. I formed the light and create darkness. I bring prosperity and create disaster. I, the Lord, do all these things. [00:23:39] Read it also in the E.S.P. Version. [00:23:43] Forwhich. [00:23:49] All right. Verse 7 I form the light and create darkness. I make well-being and create calamity. I am the Lord who does all these things. [00:24:01] This God bring calamity on people. [00:24:03] According to that verse, yes, he did it to. [00:24:07] According to this verse. God's trying to tell us something maybe about part of his character. All right. Now, the amplified in the notes, it makes a really great clarity and comment. And here's what the note says. It says, God brings physical calamity or physical evil, but moral evil comes from man's heart, not God. I think that's a good differentiation to discern. But gosh, surely that's all. [00:24:43] But wait, there's more. Let's turn to Limitations Lamentations, Chapter 3. [00:24:51] And if you read this one in i.v versus 37 3:39 Lamentations 3:37 3:39. [00:25:04] All right. Who can speak and have it happen if the Lord has not decreed it? Is it not from the mouth of the most high that both calamities and good things come? [00:25:18] Keep on one more. [00:25:19] Why should a living why should the living complain when punished for their sins? [00:25:25] So say that God brings calamity. Sure. Why does God bring calamity? What does this say in this section? [00:25:41] I'm going to reread it. Who can speak and have it happen if a Lord has not decreed it? It not from the mouth of the most high, those calamities and good things have come. Why should they complain when punished for their sins? Well, according to verse 37, the Lord decreed it. [00:26:00] According to verse thirty nine to see decree it. [00:26:06] Because they're being punished for our sins. [00:26:10] So now we have something to do with sin. And when sin happens, there's a decree that could go out that brings calamity of some form. Does that make sense? But wait, hold on. We're forgiven for our sins, right? [00:26:29] That's right. I was just thinking of it now. Praise Jesus. [00:26:34] Okay. So we've been forgiven of our sins. Remember a few sessions back we talked about no longer under law, but under grace. [00:26:43] Does that mean we're no longer under consequence for sin? No. Okay. So we find that calamity. [00:26:53] And I'll put the word sometimes has root and sin. Okay. The calamity for Jobe was not based on sin. So this is why I'm saying this is really complex. It's not a black and white. Here's a simple answer. We got to understand the bigger picture of all the things going on at play. And the more we understand, the more we see this picture of who God is. And by the way, we haven't even begun to get into the depth that we're about to get deeper. So let's. But wait, there's more. Let's go first, Samuel. Let's see if we can blow our minds even more. First, Samuel, sixteen vs. fourteen. Do this and they give you a background. Okay. God calls Saul to be king of Israel. The first king. And so becomes king and Sol starts to disobey God, and essentially that's kind of where we pick up here. [00:27:53] All right, verse 14. Now, the spirit of the Lord had departed from soul and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him, a tormenting spirit. [00:28:08] The Lord, the Lord God that we know of or the way the God that we have thought about now. [00:28:17] No. [00:28:18] Is it right? And holy that a holy God would send an evil spirit against somebody. [00:28:30] Now, it's not according to this, he did it. [00:28:36] It doesn't seem like it's right. Let me say it's not. It doesn't seem like it's right from the human standard. But here's the impact. [00:28:47] If we form a picture of God, that is not true based on our own human logic and desire, could it be that we end up not honoring the Lord as much as he wants? Could it be that we end up missing out on a lot of things the Lord has for us because we have a wrong view of God? [00:29:10] Absolutely. [00:29:13] So is this. [00:29:15] Hyper warping your view of God and changing it is just starting to rain is just going in a million different things. All right. [00:29:27] That way we're not through yet. Oh, it's gone. You think this is change is warping. Wait till we get to a couple more verses. Okay. So now let's go to First Kings. Twenty to. Versus 23 22. So let me give you the backstory on this. Saul was king. [00:29:52] Then David took over. Then David's son Solomon and then his son Oboma. Belmondo Kingdom was split between Judah and Israel, and Israel was the king was jeroboam and jeroboam was an evil king. And I think right after jeroboam or one or two, right after is another king named Ahab. And Ahab is the most wicked king, according to scripture, by that time in Israel. And so now we pick up Ahab has made an alliance with not forget the King of Judas name, but the king of Judah, who is a righteous king, makes an alliance with Ahab, the unrighteous king. And Ahab wants to go into battle with Ramus, Gilliard and Ramus chiliad, or battle with the enemy at Ramus. And so they are the king of Judah says, well, let's check with the Lord first before we do this. And so all of these prophets of Ahab start telling him, you're going to have victory, you're going to gouge them, you're going to win. [00:31:13] And then a prophet of the Lord by Judas request comes in and gives a contrary message that says, if you go to this battle, Ahab, you will die. And then one of the prophets of Ahab's says, know what happened? When did God Spirit leave me and go to you? [00:31:39] And that's basically the scenario where we are right now. And this is the prophet of the Lord relaying what actually happened in the heavenly, heavenly realm. So now with that as a backdrop, I'll let you begin. First Kings 22, starting with verse 20. [00:31:57] And the Lord said, who will entice Ahab into attacking Ramus chiliad and going to his death there. One suggested this and another that finally a spirit came forward, stood before the Lord and said, I will entice him. By what means? The Lord asked. I will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. He said, You will succeed in enticing him, said the Lord. Go and do it. [00:32:31] Told me that she is deceiving and lying. The same thing. [00:32:39] Generally speaking, no, I mean, they're right on the line, right on line. [00:32:46] Okay. Okay. So my translation says I will be a lying spearritt in the mouth of this profits, a dissaving spirit, a lion spirit. But here's the point where I'm going. One of the Ten Commandments says thou shall not lie. [00:33:04] Is God sending a lying or deceiving spirit? [00:33:11] To a Hartington, there is a lying or deceiving spirit. [00:33:17] Evil God is actually sending an evil spirit to attack someone. According to the scripture, to mislead. According to the scripture. Sounds like you are trying to disqualify your answer. Every single one of these scriptures is true and infallible. Is that correct? Yes, absolutely. So then, is God sending an evil spirit against somebody? Yes or no? Okay. Okay. Let's don't try to be equivocate. Alright. Well let's don't try to explain it away. Let's read it for what it is, what God is telling us and then let's understand what he's actually doing. Makes sense. Yeah, absolutely. So God is about to bring calamity upon Ahab, is that right? God is directing it. Because he's sending a deceiving spirit to see they have Ahab will go to the battle. So God can kill him. Is that guy bringing calamity on someone? Yes. That's amazing. Not only is God bringing calamity, but he's sending an evil spirit to cause it to happen. [00:34:40] Wow. Let's look at another first. We still haven't gotten to the big one. We're about to hit the big one. These are just kind of teeing it all up. So Psalm 44, do this one in the living Bible. [00:34:54] We're going to go to Psalm 44. We're going to read two sections, Psalm 44, eight, nine and 10, and then jump over to 17 and 18. Eight, nine, 10, 17 and 18. [00:35:11] My constant boast is, God, I can never thank you enough and yet for a time. Oh, Lord, you have tossed us aside in dishonor and have not helped us in our battles. You have actually fought against us and defeated us before our foes. Our enemies have invaded our land and pillaged the countryside and then 17 and 18. And all this has happened. Lord, despite our loyalty to you, we have not violated your covenant. Our hearts have not deserted you. We have not left your path by a single step. [00:35:50] Why did God bring calamity upon his people? Does it sound like he was cruel and harsh? They didn't do anything to deserve it. Was there any reason they knew of. On why he did it? No. Kind of sounds like a joke to a degree, doesn't it? [00:36:09] It does. [00:36:12] Now, here's the big question. Could there be a reason that they don't know of? Absolutely. So now we're starting to get into. We don't know everything. There's a lot more to the law than what we understand. So now let's get into the big one. This is just setting the stage and I'm hoping we can get all this done in one session. It may end up having to go. Let's go to let's go to Matthew. Matthew, 18. Versus 21 3:35. [00:36:57] Now, this is a real interesting story. Read the first verse or so about. Peter, one of the apostles asking about forgiveness. I just want to make a comment before you get into the parable. [00:37:12] Verse twenty one. Then Peter came to Jesus and asked Lord, How many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who stands against me up to seven times? [00:37:23] Don't you think Peter was just. He was being so proud. We're going to forgive my brother sister up to seven times. That's a lot. I'm holy. We're up to seven times. That's a lot of time to forgive. Okay. Now here we have man's logic doesn't really match God's truth. So let's now read what Jesus says. 22 through 35, 35. [00:37:57] Jesus answered, I tell you, not seven times, but seventy seven times. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his bets as he began the settlement. A man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay. The master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had sold to repay the debt. This the servants fell on his knees before him. Be patient with me, he begged. I will pay back everything. The servants master took pity on him. Cancel the debt and let him go. But when the servant went out, he found one of his one of his fellow servants who owed him one hundred silver coins. He grabbed him, and they began to choke him. Pay back what you owed me! He demanded. His fellow servants fell to his knees and begged him, Be patient with me, and I will pay you back. But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged, and they went and told their master everything that had happened. Master, right there. [00:39:12] Right there. Let me let me give you the short scenario. Just put some things in perspective. The king goes to his servant, number one servant. No one owes him in today's dollar about sixteen billion dollars. That's an amount. When it says ten thousand bags of gold or ten thousand talents. Ten thousand was the largest number that they had in the Roman counting system. This is Jesus saying he owed the absolute most anyone could ever, ever own. So in today's dollars, it works out to about 16 billion. The guy says, I can't pay. The king, says Romans. Throw you into prison. The guy says, please have mercy on me. So the king says, OK, have mercy on you and I forgive you. So then servant number one goes his servant. Number two, who owes him about ten thousand dollars? [00:40:06] Pay me. I can't. So he throws him into prison. So that's the magnitude that we're looking at. OK. And now let's finish up with versus 34 and 35. [00:40:19] Okay, let's say I think I was I am 32 in all this. Yeah. Perfect. Then the master called the servant and you wicked servant. He said, I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant? Just as I had on you in his anger, his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured until he should pay back all that he owed. This is how my Heavenly Father will treat you. Each of you, unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart. [00:40:56] How is Heavenly Father going to treat us? What does it say? Wow. [00:41:04] We will be handed over to be tortured. [00:41:09] Does that really sound like what it sounds like? [00:41:13] That's what it says. [00:41:15] All right. Now, there's another thing that Jesus talks about forgiveness. Let's turn there real quick. Matthew, 6, 14 and fifteen. And let's see if we can maybe connect some dots. Matthew 6, 14 and 15 4. [00:41:31] If you forgive other people when they sin against you, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your father will not forgive your sins. [00:41:43] What does this mean, do you think? This is talking about salvation. Going to heaven or hell? Or do you think it could be talking about something different? [00:41:54] I think it's probably talking about. [00:41:58] Something different. I think it's just talking about forgiveness. [00:42:01] All right. But if it says it to, my father will not forgive you. What's the implication of that? Well, then we have. Then turn real quickly to Ephesians 2 8 and read effusions to a. [00:42:21] Psm. Some dots for us real quickly. The parable of the master of my heavenly father do to you. Take you and send you to the torturers unless you forgive your brother. Then in Matthew 6 here, it says if you do not forgive others, your father in heaven will not forgive you. We know that salvation is through the forgiveness a sin. So we make this connection that this must be talking about. Probably something related to salvation or going to hell. Does it those dots make sense? [00:42:58] Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So now let's read evasions to wait for it is by grace. [00:43:04] You have been saved through faith. And this is not from yourself. It is a gift of God. [00:43:13] Not as. Or maybe the first time. Keep going. [00:43:17] Not by words, not by words so that no one can boast. [00:43:23] So it is a gift of God. There is nothing we have to do for it. Is that correct? [00:43:29] Hmm. [00:43:30] Not by forgiving somebody b something we do. [00:43:38] So if we don't forgive and our father doesn't forgive us. [00:43:44] Could that really be talking about losing salvation or based on this passage and others by grace, through faith, believe on the Lord Jesus and you shall be saved. Whoever believes on the sun will have everlasting life. All these things talk about believe, not forgiveness. [00:44:08] So is it safe to say that this passage of the parable about forgiveness and torturing is not talking about salvation? [00:44:21] Yes. Okay. Did you say scripturally why that's true? Yes. Yes. Okay. So then let's see who is she's talking about. Obviously, he's talking to the non-believer about God torturing them. Right. [00:44:40] So go back to Matthew, 18, verse 21. [00:44:46] Who was asking the question to Jesus? [00:44:52] Peter Right. [00:44:54] Peter Then Peter came to Jesus and asked Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sends against me up to seven times? [00:45:03] Okay, then read Matthew 1835. [00:45:10] This is how my heavenly father will treat you. We'll treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart. [00:45:17] So is he talking to the non-believers or is he talking essentially to the believers, his disciples? [00:45:23] His disciples, the believers. [00:45:26] Wow. Does this sound like a loving God to want to send someone to the torturers? [00:45:33] No. [00:45:35] Does this change your thinking of who God is? Does this expand your thinking? Got it. Okay, okay. Okay. So we got a problem, don't we? Mm hmm. So let's let's ask a few more questions. Who authorizes the act of torturing and that parable? The master, the master and the master is a parable representing God. Would you agree? I do, yes. God is authorizing that torturing. Who does the act of torturing? Does the King or one of his servants do it? The jailer's, one of those are one of the servants. Okay, so now try to picture that gaoler in your mind, this guy who tortures people. First off, do you think this guy who tortures people? Likes inflicting pain on someone. [00:46:38] I mean, it's his job. He's gotta like it a little bit. [00:46:43] Yeah, okay. [00:46:44] Try to picture an image of that torture in your mind. Now, do you come up with someone who's handsome, debonair, sort of a princely young man who would grace the social circles of the king? No. [00:46:58] Or do you maybe come up with some evil, hideous looking type of beast of a man and some sort of dark dungeon that just takes pleasure in exacting pain in people's lives? Yes. So from what you know about God's kingdom, the spiritual being, do you think would more likely play that role of the torturing trailer, an evil bear? [00:47:24] Oh, the same thing we've been reading about in all these other passages. Is that what you're telling me? Oh, wow. Okay. [00:47:34] So an evil spirit is actually there. What I see what you did there. Do you think that evil spirit is a friend of God? [00:47:49] Might be. Do you think that gaoler is a friend of the king? Yes, you do. [00:47:56] In a social circle, oh, well, not in the social circle. I just met him. He knows that and has a relationship with them over. [00:48:06] Let's clarify friend versus servant. Do you think that gaoler is a friend of the king or simply a servant of the king? Servant? Do you think that evil spirit is a friend of God or simply a servant of God? Servant? Was he created by God? Yes. [00:48:28] Is he being used by God as part of His Holiness and righteousness and all those other attributes that God has about him? [00:48:38] Okay, so now we're starting to see a different side of God that most of those probably turn our eyes from, because we can't comprehend a God that does this. But God has made it very, very clear multiple times. And these aren't the only times there are others. But he makes it very clear that this is kind of what things are set up. Okay, so here's what's going on. Jesus is saying that we're going to be given over to the torturers if we don't forgive our brother. These tortures are most likely these evil spirits, as you mentioned, and their whole purpose is to torment us. Okay, now keep in mind we're talking about when bad things happen. Is it God's will? How do you how do you handle evil in the world? Okay, so we're now starting to move that direction a little bit more. Let me ask you a question. Do you recall any other places in the Bible where God gives people over to evil spirits? [00:49:50] We just write a whole bunch of it more. Okay, so here's the question is being tormented good or bad? [00:50:00] Not a trick question. Good. You think so? [00:50:06] Yes. Because it's bringing about the end. Result that God's looking for him. [00:50:13] So if someone dies a premature death. Is that what God is looking for? [00:50:24] Maybe not by someone. [00:50:27] If someone commits adultery against his wife, is that what God's looking for? [00:50:32] The act? No. Then being tormented. Good or bad? [00:50:42] Do you want to be tormented? [00:50:44] I do not. It's okay. But going back to what you said. Did I say the big picture? What does it bring? [00:50:58] It's all it's all part of God's holiness and righteousness. [00:51:02] But that doesn't mean it has to be good, because evil is not good. Evil is bad. But here's a big question. Is a tormenting spirit authorized by God? [00:51:21] According to these scriptures, yes. [00:51:23] Okay, so now we have this really big challenge. Evil is bad. But it's authorized by God. How can a loving good God authorize evil? [00:51:41] I don't have a great answer for that, by the way, but that's a question that we ponder on. So let's go in and ask a few more questions. [00:51:51] So Peter originally thought if he only forgave his brother seven times, he's doing something really, really great. Would you agree? If he had done that, is it possible that he could have incurred a tormenting spirit without even knowing why? [00:52:09] Possible. Is it possible that if bad things happen to us? We could actually be incurring some sort of a tormenting or evil spirit of some sort. That's been authorized by God. For violating some law that we may not clearly understand. Yes. Is God to blame if we do that? No. OK. So now we're starting to get greater clarity. This kind of making sense of where I'm going now. Okay. [00:52:44] So God set up the rules. We don't understand them. [00:52:52] But blaming God is saying, hey, God, I'm innocent. There's no reason I should be going through this. Right. And if he set up the rules and we broke them. Who's to blame? We are. [00:53:07] Does it matter if we know that those rules exist or not? [00:53:13] No, it doesn't really matter now. Romans I Romans 1 tells us that they're already written in our hearts. So we know them, but we don't. We can't clearly articulate like you're driving 70 miles an hour. You hit a speed zone. You don't even know it. The speed limit sign is down or behind a bush. It says 45 miles an hour. You'll still get a ticket even though you don't realize that you're doing wrong. Right. So then does that mean that everything that bad, everything that happens that's bad is our fault? [00:53:53] Is it our fault? Is it always because we violated something? I'm extrapolating at this point I'm kind of going to the point of saying this parable that Jesus did. Can you extrapolate this into all things? [00:54:10] I don't think you can. This is one of those things. I don't think you can. Let's go back real quickly. The Lord's Prayer. You don't have to go back to. I just want to repeat one part of it. The Lord's Prayer is kind of a summation of things. Right. And that we are the high level things to be praying for. One of those is Lord forgive us for our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us. And there's something really important about forgiveness. It's in the Lord's Prayer. It's in this parable. Jesus talks about tormenting. If you don't forgive, my father will authorize tormenting against you torture. And I won't share this quick story to show you how this starts to illustrate and come out in our lives. I remember listening to this guy who was ministering to someone. He's praying for healing. The man that he's praying for has really bad back pain and he prays for healing. Nothing happens in this guy's name is Todd. And usually when he prays a lot of time, most of the times people are getting healed. And then the Lord gives Todd what's called a word of knowledge. Okay. Supernatural knowledge of what's going on. And the word of knowledge was the man has bitterness against his mother, unforgiveness for his mother. So Todd asked the guy, hey, tell me about your relationship with your mother. And the guy responds immediately, why do you ask that? I hope she dies and writes in hell. I mean, really horrible. So Todd starts working with him, leads him to Christ essentially, or at least leads him to forgiveness of his mother. And then top price for his back and he's instantly hill. Could it be that there is unforgiveness in our lives that's causing some sort of a tormenting spirit that causes bad things and we don't even realize it because we didn't forgive someone over here, we did something over on this other spot, some violation of God's law. But the implication of that law is it opens the door to. For evil to somehow come, come in and impact our lives. Does that make any sense, what I'm asking? [00:56:40] Yes, absolutely. [00:56:42] All right. If we look at how people are tormented and wanting to get off of tormenting, but I'm just using this and using it as an example, because what I find is God works in patterns. The pattern articulate in this parable about tormenting is a similar pattern that works in other areas in how God works and where I know we're at an hour and we're going keep on going because I'm wrapping up and there's no good, good place to stop. So this is going to be a longer call than normal. But let me pause real quickly. Is this exciting stuff so far? [00:57:18] Yes, absolutely. [00:57:20] Is it blowing your mind? [00:57:22] It is a solid ending. [00:57:25] It's expanding my thought process and I get it. [00:57:32] So think about the ways people are tormented in life. In other words, if we receive a tormenting spirit because we have unknowingly or knowingly violated some spiritual law that God, God's holiness and righteousness. [00:57:54] What does that look like? I'd like to suggest mental anguish can be part of it. Stress and anxiety. Depression. Health issues. Our dreams and aspirations falling apart. Say, Jesus says that the enemy, by the way. Would you agree that tormenting spirits are the enemy? What does the enemy's purpose and goal in our lives? [00:58:28] Do you remember what Jesus says to say the enemy comes to destroy, to steal and to kill? [00:58:42] To kill? Come sit still. Kill, steal, kill and destroy. Do you think those could be acts of torturing? Yes. Okay, let's start wrapping this up so the Lord created everything that's been created. Would you agree with that? Yes. Are Satan. Demonic spirits, evil spirits and evil as a whole. Are all those part of God's creation? Yes. [00:59:14] But they weren't created as Satan and the ones that wasn't created that way. Granted, but we don't. So this is one of those mysteries we don't understand, but we do understand everything that's been created. Somehow God created it. If evil exists, somehow it's part of the creation. We can't comprehend it. It makes no sense. We have no framework or fabric to put it together. No grid. But we understand that all things were created by God. And that includes evil. And we don't understand it. Okay. I've got some ideas, but they're only opinions. I won't go there. Not everything that is evil is good. But evil exists in some mysterious way as an act of God's will. Because it's been created and everything of evil is there for a purpose. We don't understand it. But if God created it, it's got to be for some purpose. All of this kind of connecting, making sense. [01:00:31] A lot of questions I don't have answers to. This is where I'm saying my disclaimer. Okay. So then you have God is sovereign over all of creation. [01:00:42] And just as the torturer in the parable with the king is not a friend of the king. Evil is not a friend of the Lord's. But just like the king used the torturer as part of how he governed his kingdom. God uses evil as part of how he governs his kingdom. Understanding the existence of it and understanding the reason behind it are two different things. I'm just right now clarifying the existence of this done mean I had the answers as to why, but we have to come to the conclusion it exists for a purpose because it was created then and this is where this starts to get even more complex. This whole issue is multidimensional. It's very complex. There's not one simple, easy answer to it. But here's the big picture of everything. Just kind of give us the big picture view. God created some sort of a legal hierarchy, an organizational structure in the spirit world. This is powers and rulers and authorities and Dominion's, which are not speaking about evil structure. God created the structure and an evil always copies what God does and then tries to subvert it. So all of this legal hierarchy that we see in Ephesians and the structure God created, it's much more complex in the heavenly rule than anything in the earthly Rome. And all of heaven is operated by laws and covenants and ordinances. [01:02:28] Does that make sense so far? This is why the name of Jesus is powerful, because it's a legal authority. Everything is governed by that spirit. The demons, these fallen angels are all subject into this hierarchy of organizational legal structure that God has in place. And within that structure, evil has a legal authority to operate. This is what we're experiencing. It has a legal. This is what we've read in all of these things. They have a legal authority to operate. Satan had a legal authority to operate against Jobe, but only by God's authority. When God withdrew the authority, Satan cannot attack. This is what we see with the parable that we just went through, the Jesus and the torturer. There is a legal authority to act. So we see that is legal authority. That legal authority is either God decreeing a thing. One the passage we said nothing happens except by the decree of God. So either God decrees blessings or calamities or what I call on autopilot because it's part of God's spiritual laws. And when a law is violated, then there's a subsequent consequence that's already predetermined. That kind of making sense. Okay. So this is the kind of things that we're we're involved with when bad things happen. We've got to look at this at this higher level structure. [01:04:02] We don't understand the laws. We do understand their existence. And probably an easy way to explain this because we see this all the time, but we don't really understand it. Imagine you're sitting in a room and there is a window on your right hand side and there is a wall on your left. You're reading a book and out of the corner of the eye, you see a shadow go against that wall instantly. [01:04:25] You know, something went by the window. Would you agree? But you don't know what. It's a shadow of something that passed by. You recognize the existence of something there because there's a shadow that moved and when we look at our lives and we see and we look at all these things going on, what they show is a shadow of the spirit realm, the shadow of these laws we can't make. There's not a whole lot of concreteness to it for us. We can't write it down. We don't really know what it is. It's shadows. We see it in existence and displayed throughout scripture. We see the shadows displayed in our fiscal lives. But none of it is clear. We just know it's there making sense. And so this is why we say God authorizing saying to touch sending a tormenting spirit upon Saul and all these other things. There's something there. And so I want to give one other interesting thing, because it kind of ties up. And I want to be real sensitive on this because I don't want to freak you or any of our listeners out. But this whole realm of the spirit realm is real. This whole idea of evil spirits is real. Absolutely. Jesus cast out demons and that was real. So I was doing a deliverance with a lady named Alexis. She's a born again Christian. And in that deliverance session. Okay, so this was one of those really wild and crazy things where Alexis's personality actually goes into a trance and the personality that is now speaking is an evil spirit manifesting through her. Okay. So I'm interrogating, if you want to call it Who Are You? And one of those spirits was a spirit of depression. Why do you think depression was there? Do you think that was tormenting her? [01:06:34] Absolutely. And she was a Christian and she had depression. And that is a spirit. And I commanded it out and it left. Then there was another spirit. It was a spirit of fear. [01:06:49] And it had this I'll call it this interrogation. [01:06:54] It had 25 other junior spirits in its kingdom within Alexis. And you know what the spirit here said why they were there to keep her from getting ahead. In other words, to prevent her from achieving the destiny that the Lord had for her holding her back. They were holding her back, causing everything she did to fall apart, constantly causing it to fail to keep her from getting ahead. That was the spirit of fear. And then there was a spirit of suicide. And it had. I was asking how many how many demons in your kingdom? Said 80. And then it volunteered this information to make sure she kills herself. Wow. I mean, this is real stuff. I know we're not supposed to. Don't don't get truth from a demon. I get that. But what I'm saying is, is this is real stuff. These things do exist. They do exist. And Christians. I'm not saying a Christian is demon possessed by any means. Christ possessed your spirit. But let me ask you a question on that. And we're going to do this whole session on healing later. Is sin evil or good? Then as evil does exist in your flesh. [01:08:25] Yes. Are you a Christian? [01:08:29] Yes. So that means that you are born again, but evil exists in your flesh. Does that make sense? That's correct. Why can't a spirit that's evil exist in your flesh as well? Because a lot of people say, well, if you're a Christian, you can't have an evil spirit, well, you have sin and all these spirits are evil. Depression is evil. Fear is evil. Suicide is evil. These are thoughts and attitudes. So I'm driving. I'm getting sidetracked. But the bottom line is this. All these fears are evil. And in some mysterious way. They were allowed to be in her life. I don't know exactly why, but my assumption and expectation from what we've read is there are some spiritual laws that were being violated. Somewhere along the line for life, they gave him authority. Does that make sense? [01:09:28] Yeah. Okay. Okay. So now the question is, doesn't God love the Lexus? Do you think God loves a Lexus? [01:09:35] Oh, absolutely. [01:09:37] If God loved Alexis, why would he allow her to suffer? [01:09:45] That is a big question. [01:09:48] That's a huge question, isn't it? [01:09:52] Can I give a suggested answer? Yes. All right. So let's look at an illustration. A man and a judge are friends. The man breaks the law and he comes before the judge. The judge's personal will list his said his friend free. But his judicial responsibility is to enforce the law. And the judge has the power to do either one. If the judge is righteous, what does he do? [01:10:24] Does he violate his judicial responsibility to enforce his personal will? Or does it violate his personal Wiltern Borse his judicial responsibility? What do you think? [01:10:39] Wow, that's a big question, too. [01:10:42] All right, let's call it this way. Think about the Supreme Court. Do you think every justice on the Supreme Court has a desire of how they wish a law would have been written? When they render a judgment, if they're following their oath of office. Are they? Inputting their personal desire, regardless of what the law says or they interpreting exactly what the law says. [01:11:15] To the best of their ability, I think the latter. [01:11:19] So if you look at a judge, if he's a righteous judge. Does he violate his personal will? [01:11:29] To perform his judicial responsibility or does he violate his judicial responsibility to perform his personal will? The farmer. [01:11:39] He's going to do his judicial responsibility, and that's the same with God. He has the power to do his personal will. But just generally speaking, he doesn't violate the laws he's put in place. Sometimes we see him do it so. But usually he says judicial process. So sometimes when bad things happen, it could simply because there is evil in the world. Other times we may have sinned. And even though we're no longer in the law, but under grace, there's still a legal ramification of violating the law. And I guess that's kind of summing it up. I want to wrap up one last thing. There's a lot of other stuff, but I want to clarify one thing. And this is a message I texted with a friend. Give you the story on this, because I think this kind of shows how all of this kind of plays a part in one's life. I'm praying for a lady named Francis. She's been a missionary for 55 years. They're about in the last 11 year. She's been stuck in a wheelchair. So I prayed for her. She was instantly healed. She began walking around and she was in a wheelchair because of extreme pain. It was a surgery gone bad 11 years ago. And the doctors couldn't correct it. So now she's walking. There's no more pain. [01:13:05] She's walking around. And then the pain comes back and she's has to get back in the wheelchair instantly. When that happened, I knew of the spirit. Because once healed your heel. Okay. Okay. You don't lose your healing. There's something else there. I think that's the message of all of this. There's something else there. It's not quite such a pat answer that we like to give. The pain came back. I knew it had to be a spirit. So following the process that there's some legal ramifications, some legal authority, that that spirit has to be there. We went through different things about repentance. She'd been forgiven for her sense. But in going through this, there was she remembered that there was a an organization many years that that she was involved with in high school called Rainbow Girls. I think it's kind of a subset of Freemasonry and it's basically kind of a cult. She didn't realize it at the time. She wasn't a Christian, but there was some sacred oath that she took as part of Rainbow Girls. When she mentioned that, I said, well, we need you need to repent of that. She repented of her involvement with Rainbow Girls and any oath that she took. And then we come in and dispirit out and guess what happened. [01:14:22] She started walking again. The spirit instantly left everything we tried to do prior to that. [01:14:28] The spirit and the pain would not leave as soon as she repented of her involvement with Rainbow Girls and we prayed again. The spirit left. Can you see a legal cause and effect on that? Absolutely. Okay. And then the pain came back. Wow. What happened, right. Okay. Then she says, well, Bury, her husband, says, well, God is trying to teach you something. So this is the train of thought. A lot of Christians have. This is why I talked about at the beginning all these bad things happen. God must be trying to teach me something because God is sovereign. God is in control. God is all powerful. Therefore, if anything bad happens, it must be as well. Therefore, something bad happens. He must be trying to teach me something. That's of a train of thought. So this is my text to her. I just want to read it because I think it really summarizes, as I said, I want to clarify something I said last night when your husband Barry suggested that the Lord might be bringing this pain upon you to teach you something. I said that God does not bring sickness upon his children. I believe that is true. But he does authorize spirits to attack us. I don't know how much that authorization is to attack us physically or simply in other areas, such as what happens in our lives. [01:15:50] I'm still learning, but the simple fact that a spirit is attacking you means that within the spiritual laws the Lord has created. The spirit has authority to attack. Does that make sense so far? And since all of 30 is granted by the Lord. Ultimately the Lord has authorized it. If not directly, then at least indirectly by setting up those laws in the first place. That law is given jurisdiction over us at the fall. This is what you and I spoke about. No longer under law, but under grace that at the fall we became jurisdiction underneath the law. And so I said that law was given jurisdiction over assess the fall. So it's tied to the fall and not tied to the Lord. Trying to teach you something the Lord can and will teach you through it. But is not the purpose for why you're being attacked. I think that's the message. Another message I want to make sure we all understand when these things happen. It's not the Lord trying to teach you something. There's evil in the world that evil has authority. So let me tell you the rest of the story I was asking the Lord. Why did the spirit return? And the Lord said something happened between the time it left and the time it returned. They gave it the authority to return. [01:17:16] And I said it's the Lord's share that I thought I knew what it was, I called Princeville backup and I started to explain this story, you know what it was? [01:17:25] This will blow your mind. I said almost, yes. Yes. It was tied to doubt. So you've been in that wheelchair for 11 years. I bet. Unbeknownst to you, you've created an identity of being in pain and being in that wheelchair. And when that spirit left and you're no longer in a wheelchair. It was so unusual for you. It was. It wasn't who you've experienced yourself to be all these years that probably knows you. You kept that identity of pain and you invited it back in because that identity of pain is thin, because it doesn't conform to the image of God. So she said, let's repent of that. So you know what she did. [01:18:17] By the way, before I do this, I said, Spirit, get out, pain get out. And she said, it's going, but it's not going all the way. It did stuck. It's not leaving. [01:18:26] So then she said, Okay, we pray, Lord, I repent my identity. Your pain. And then we prayed again and instantly it left. [01:18:39] That familiar spirit? [01:18:41] Yes, that's exactly right. So here's the bottom line. [01:18:45] Not everything that happens is God's will, but nothing happens outside of his authorization. And once we understand that there is a legal framework and authorization, then it helps us to start to understand maybe what's going on and maybe how to fight it in our lives. Here's the other thing I find the more you seek the Lord, the more you are in the center of his will. And therefore, the more that everything that happens to you is part of him guiding you towards your destiny. This is what we talked about last session, I believe. On the contrary is true. The more you ignore the Lord, the more you're out of the center of his will. And then the more everything that happens is evil trying to thwart you. And in some mysterious ways, both of all of this is tied into God's authorization. And so that when evil happens, that's how we start to understand what's going on. Was this a cool lesson? [01:19:51] This was so great. Yes, absolutely. I love it. And just just being reminded of me, I was thinking of the word test a lot. And I know that gets a bad rap with believers. They don't like to think of God as being. Well, he's going to test me on that. But I also understand the reason behind it. And I think a lot of this to me was just an eye opener to recognize a lot of those moments in those seasons, in those circumstances as a test like Joe going to be faithful and trust the Lord. And I know that working this out for my destiny, I would say yes. [01:20:32] But I like to make sure one more thing is understood, because last session we talked about was Joseph and with Esther. And a lot of that was part of God's plan moving in towards a destiny, which is kind of where wilderness is a test. But I think the thing if I could underscore one thing from today's session, it's. There are legal. Rules in place that give evil the authority to act in our lives and if we understand those rules. More were more likely to keep evil out of our lives. If you think about speeding. If you understood that the speed limit was 45, you would slow down to 45 before you got there. But if you're ignorant of it, you go barreling through at 7 and you get a speeding ticket. [01:21:30] So the quote unquote, knowledge is power. Not really a spiritual term, but the more we understand how God has set up. [01:21:40] His kingdom, the more we can operate in accordance with how it's set up and therefore we can avoid a lot of the hardships. A lot of the trials we can understand. There is some relationship and a cause and effect and we're not just at a mystery of what's going on. Just like with Princeville. She's been prayed for for years to get the wheelchair. One until I came on to my home because I understood the process better. She's able to walk free now. That's the implication. [01:22:23] That's great. Obeidy, I think we're about out of time for today, we'd probably need to wrap up our call, but thank you so much for your time and your expertise and just all the time. I know the sacrifice of your time that you put into preparing this for today and this is a great call and I know it blesses all of you listeners out there and remember to share the podcast with your friends. Do you
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Please ignore any speech-to-text errors) [00:00:00] hello, everyone, I'm so glad you joined us. For those of you who don't remember me, my name is Penny. And welcome. Welcome to this next session of $get calling you with Beatty Carmichael. Beatty is the CEO of Master Grabber, the creator of Agent Dominator and one of the top marketing expert in the real estate field. Beatty, I'm super excited. I know you always have something great for us today. What are we going to be discussing today? [00:00:27] Well, Penny, today we've got a really exciting call because this is going to be something a little bit different as things like I'm always trying to do. I'm going to share the audio of a call I recently did with a friend and a very successful real estate agent client of ours named Stuart Sutton. And this kind of set the stage. You know, right now we're going through just some terrible times with the Corona virus. States are locking down where shelter at home. Nonessential businesses are being forced shut. And in some of those states, they consider real estate non-essential. We're headed into a recession. We have millions of people unemployed. And this is where we find ourselves in the real estate world. The question is, what do we do and how do you manage on it? The reason I did a special call with Stuart is in talking with Stuart. Stuart spins through every financial crisis in the last 40 years, 40 plus year veteran, whether the 1986 crisis, the dot.com boom and then bust, OK, or the meltdown in 2008 and now the coronavirus. One of the things that's been really interesting is every time Stuart entered one of these crises, he earned more money. And as he exited the crisis, he earned even more money. OK. And Paul, other real estate agents are going out of business. Stuart's income continues to grow. And I was asking him how I wanted to do a call. So we did a call recently, and that's what I want to share. But real quickly, before I introduce the call to you, I want to share one other thing. One of the things that he focuses on, you'll hear this right upfront is that he increases his marketing for listings. [00:02:15] This is the thing that's always impressed me when ever Stuart wants more listings. He simply increases his marketing for it. Most people don't understand. How do you market for listings? One of the things that we did many years back, Stuart was actually one of our very first clients and working with Stuart. We developed using his guidance and then have really taken it beyond from that point a very consistent pattern on how do you market for listings? Is the focus is both in geographic farming to generate listings and in your personal contacts, your past clients and sphere of influence. We've even expanded into commercial investment property and are just now moving the same process into property management. But where I want to go on this is as you're listening to this call, and if you don't have a way to market for listings, let me encourage you to check out what we do, because it's a very proven, consistent model. And as you move into these crisis times, then you can follow the pattern that Stuart's done and not only stay in business, but earn more money. And if you do have interests on that, just visit our Web site at Agent Dominator, dot com agent dominator, dot com. And you'll see a skilled prime is really on the Web sites geared for residential, you know, geographic and past client sphere of influence. If you do have interests on the commercial side, just make a note of that. If you fill out the form and will follow up with you on that. But anyway, with that penny, would I like to do now as I like to bring on the recording, this conference call I recently did with Stuart. It's really fascinating. [00:04:05] Welcome, everyone. Right now we have an open call, so you'll hear the beats coming in. And this is Bayti Carmichael. [00:04:11] The voice you're hearing and also with me is Stuart shotton. And this is going to be this really great call. And I'm so glad that you guys who are joining in or joining in, we are going to be recording this and we're putting it out as a podcast. If you want to listen to it, more completeness later, you'll have that opportunity really soon. But with all the challenges going on right now in this nation that we're experiencing and especially how it impacts our business and the real estate world, I reached out to my friend Stuart, whose is just a an amazing realtor in terms of consistent production, regardless of the environment. And I thought it were and could learn a lot and be encouraged a lot. So we'll quickly to start, if you would. We're still a few minutes before starting. So this is not an official start time yet, but I'd love to if you would just announce who you are and just what what city and state. [00:05:16] You're in the heart. All right, Gary. Rolling Stone Mountain. All right, welcome. St. Charles, Illinois. Hey. All right. Else is out there. Zelda Greenberg, quantity for Florida. Welcome, Ken. Ken Gandi, Naples, Florida. Remember this as you're joining interest. Tell us who you are and where you're from. John King. [00:06:00] John, welcome. And see the lady there. Welcome. [00:06:05] I miss the name, but welcome to call me Austin from Charleston, South Carolina. OK. Welcome from India. [00:06:15] Hi, Candy. [00:06:19] This been you are watching. Welcome. You can pour me some java to whoever is boring. That will set the mike down in just a moment. Get the background noise is out. The. But as you're joining it. Just tell us who you are and where you calling from. Justin was there. Minneapolis, Minnesota. Hey, Justin. [00:06:46] All right. Anyone else want to say hello before we are? [00:06:50] We're at the top of the hour, someone said like anyone else want to say a lot before I shut down, am I? OK, now let me figure out how to let. Hold on. [00:07:04] Moment. [00:07:09] Everyone else is now muted. [00:07:11] Ok, great. So I've got the backgrounds down. And so I wanted to just kind of officially start this call off and introduce my friend Stuart to you. [00:07:24] So the purpose of this call is we're all going through some really difficult times right now with the Corona virus and kind of what's happening in shutting everything down. I want to see if I can turn these chimes off. Just one moment. [00:07:41] Entry and exit chimes are now off. [00:07:44] Okay, perfect. And and, you know, the question is how do we respond? How do you grow your business? I was talking to Stuart. In fact, Stuart, I have to tell you, the reason I reached out to you. We've had several clients saying, hey, you know, you're all going to do any of those mastermind calls. Again, this would be a good time. I was thinking, oh, yeah. Let's do that. Because Stuart and I did to mastermind calls a number years back for about a year and a half to two years. And I just learned a lot. But for those who don't know Stuart Street, you've been selling real estate for almost 40 years now. Am I right on that? [00:08:23] Q Well, it sure does sound like a long time when you say, well, you know, when you started fifteen years old, then, you know, anything can go on the trip. [00:08:35] And that's the neat thing with Stuart is Stuart is going through. So what what are all the crisis you've hit? What are the ones you remember? [00:08:48] I'll go and see. When it started, the real estate industry interest rates were 18 percent. So basically, nobody can buy a house with a new mortgage. The market crashed the. If anybody remembers that work. RTC pretty much took over a bulk of the properties in the country. Then the dot com bust, of course, was pretty nasty. And there was no age, of course. And then there's been some others that weren't as many as five, but really had a tremendous interest in go for when the first one started with great concern. And then, of course, the most recent one we're involved in, which is quite interesting. If I'm lucky to have experienced. [00:09:29] Yeah. And we were talking earlier today, you made a startling comment for me. What happened with your income in each of those? Can you share quickly entry and exiting each of those areas? [00:09:44] Yeah, and this is a little hard to get your arms around, but I believe the reason behind this has to do a lot with not a real exciting word, but it to me is a word that's paramount to my business and that is consistency. [00:10:00] The most money I've made in given years to my career has been going into and coming out of crisis like this. And I can give you kind of a reasoning and a background like that as we go. Or I can give you a summary. Is that such what you prefer? [00:10:18] Why do we do this? Wanted to give us a quick summary right now. And then what I may do is. And then we'll just dig into it, because what I like to do is I like to kind of peel back the onion a little bit with what I call the low hanging fruit, things that people can really take away from this call and start applying in the business now. And most importantly, make sure they apply in their business long term so they can weather anything like this in the future. [00:10:46] All right, so in the best way I can think of, to put it, is very simply that if you're prepared in I don't mean like make all these special preparations and do all this significant stuff that you'd never month been before. If you're prepared with the way you do business entering into a situation like this, this is not going to level you out or take take away your income and your livelihood. Here's what I mean by that. Let's just take the 0 8 debacle as an example. So when when 0 8 came around, one of the things that happened just before 0 8 was the market was moving along very, very well. And our listeners were selling just as fast as they possibly could. But when a late hit, things change dramatically. So we started we kept doing what we were doing. And so it just before 0 8, I was carrying a listening inventory. And after a weight, within a few months, my listing inventory was 2, 3 times that. In this time went by five times that. What we had to do, what we've always done is assess where we are compared to the market. So it's very important to know your market. So if the turnover ratio and I'm asking you use one ratio, I'm not going to get into a lot of subtleties and muddle this up. [00:12:14] But if your market sees 1 in 10 listings on the market close every month, then that means if you have 10 listings, you'll have one close. Well, if you have to pay all your bills with two closings, then you need 20 listings. If you have a budget that requires three closings, then you need three transactions. So we've always simply adapted to what the market was doing based on turnover ratio. So I'll give an example when I continue to talk about the 0 8. So when when that hit are we just kept marketing, kept marketing, kept marketing, our listening inventory built in. I'm talking about me and one assistant. All right. Me and one assistant. I was carrying 50, 60 at one time, even 70 listings. But guess what was happening? The turnover ratio was selling a portion of those every single month and keeping me with the income that I needed. It was used to and had set goals for. So if you remember when things started getting better, your market may be different than mine. But Irish was 12. It was the last year where things were sort of even in 13 they started up. I remember. Within a few months period, my listening inventory went from over 60 listings to less than 20. [00:13:49] So what do you think happened during those few months? Well, demand started changing. Interest rates were falling. People were realizing this crisis didn't the crisis anymore. In that year was very, very strong year for us. The same thing happened in the dot.com bust in the early 2000s. We saw prices drop within two months. Toward sellers could not even get close to what they thought they can get anymore. So parliamentary built. And then when the market improved, we made dramatic. We had dramatic sales months in. I think the same thing's gonna happen now. What I mean by that is my little toy already in one month is double what it typically is. I believe that in two months to three months it will double again. So when this crisis is over, guess what's going to happen? I truly believe in. I'm not a prognosticator, buddy, but I truly believe the pin-up demand after this eases up is going to come out and we're going to see most of the homes that we put in the market that are good value, good will price and show well that they're going to sell. So that's kind of a sign we do that since it does. [00:15:03] Look, let me really repeat it, because it seems I won't use the word so brilliantly simple. It's I think it's easy to miss. You made the comment. You keep marketing and marketing and marketing. Let me say, if I if I if I net this out, the turnover rate of how many listings in a given month actually sell, then you back into it. How many listings do you need to have an inventory to sell that will cover your nut? And you just keep marketing until you get that number of listings. So now you've got you've got to set the listing inventory that keeps you cash flowing. And I want to make an assumption and correct me if I'm wrong when you keep marketing for listings. [00:15:55] In these crisis times, I'm assuming that you're probably experiencing your competitors have stopped marketing for listenings by and large. Is that am I making it? I'm kind of extrapolating, but is that behind the scenes assumption? Maybe. [00:16:11] That's a very reasonable assumption in an accurate one. So going into a crisis, if you remain consistent and actually increased my budget a little bit, because what has to happen during a down market during a downturn is I have to have more listings in order to cover my expenses. And my expenses, by the way, are extraordinarily low for someone who does the volume I do. And that's just the experience to a great degree. So going into a crisis, I build my inventory. And what happens is those people but you might not have told me, keep getting my stuff. And even though the market's not what it was. People still have to sell. There are certain circumstances where people have no choice. They still need to sell. So in a in a current situation like this, where they may not want to sell right now, but they know they have to sell. I have quite a few listings right now signed that aren't on the market, but will be as soon as the seller and myself feel it's a comfortable time to go back in the market. So going into a crisis, my listening inventory builds coming out of a crisis. All those listings sell. So I do quite well on both ends of that. No, that's not that's not a hey, let's find out how we can get rich quick. That's the last thing it is. It's really a a consistency provides an opportunity no matter what. And you're not taking advantage of anything. What you're doing is being prepared in advance for whether the market goes up or down, if it stays consistent. Guess what? You stay consistent. [00:17:58] You know that this really is it seems so simple. [00:18:03] And I just want to reiterate repeat it, because, you know, I'm over here kind of grasping and going is that it goes like it's things like, do you increase your marketing for listings while everyone is pulling out of their marketing per listing? So now your marketing is more effective. [00:18:23] You're getting I think you're getting a higher response rate in generating listings because you're one of fewer people doing it. So now your listings are growing, which keeps your cash flow consistent. You're building up this huge pipeline of listening. And then when the dam breaks, now it all cashes out. [00:18:49] Yeah, I remember coming out of the 0 8, I believe it was April of about 12. We sold, we put it. Remember, this is mean assistance. We put 31 homes under contract in one month because the peanut the came out and we had a large listing. If I had, you know, plodded along and not been consistent in not adapted to the market. [00:19:19] In other words, if I hadn't paid attention to the turnover ratio and had done what I needed to, then I did. Okay. But you know how many agents, babies that that herd wander in even in this market? [00:19:33] I've never been without listenings before. They'll say I've got one listing. I'm usually carry six or eight or I usually carry 20. I've got two. Well, that doesn't happen. The reason that happened to me is because of the consistency in the actually extra little push. Always put a little push, for example, in the fall when other people back off. So I tried to be a little bit of a contrarian as far as the timing is concerned, if that makes sense. [00:19:59] Yeah, I know that in the fall we also go head to head. Now you go. [00:20:05] I will just say we also increased something else in. This is a lot of people have a hard time believing. I really had people look me in the eye and go really, really to 60 listings. Are you serious? And the answer is yes. How do you eat an elephant? [00:20:24] One bite at a time? So I'm going to work Monday through Friday and I'm out of work a little more on that back then, but really not much more because I had two little kids. So here's what happened on Monday. Twelve people hurt somebody who were listening. So let's take sixty divided by five on Tuesday. Well, people heard who listed with me, so I basically took an increased our level of service. [00:20:55] Hardpoint because a lot of idiots aren't used to having a whiskey for two months or four months or 12 months, but that's sometimes inevitable depending on the scenario. So if you don't want sellers getting upset with you in moving on to the next agent, you have to ramp up that service. So the adaptation is increased marketing for listening, increased service for those who do list. And that's that's simply an organization issue in the timing issue. That makes sense, right. [00:21:32] I remember a few years back I was asking you about your business and just to put things in perspective for everyone on the call. When you and I met, it was late 2012. So we're just coming out as we're about to come out of the recession. The recession caused by that. And you're doing like a hundred and twenty transactions a year. Thirty five hours a week at effort. And we started to talk about your business. This is about a year later going through the recession period. You pulled up your numbers and every year your numbers were not inconsistent. But you increase the number of sales you transacted every year for other agents. We're going out of business and collapsing. Your business was growing. And I just thought that was brilliant. And now it just seems like it's so easy to just increase marketing for listings. [00:22:38] Well, it's it's maybe easier said than done. But again, it's just, you know, what's that? You know how to tell someone by term. So I don't take that. I've never really taken that. Hey, I've got it. Get these six thousand mailings out over the next 60 days. Right. We piecemeal it. We send a few here. We send a few there. We we monitor we we follow up the IP. And as you know, I've been one of those teams with, you know, listing agents and buyers, agents and in staff and runners and marketing agents. And, you know, did hundreds of cells a year. And I really and truly enjoy what I do now because I have first of all, I can do it with an incredible system. She is phenomenal. But relationships are built with clients are very, very different than when I had a team, a big team. And one thing he said was very accurate. But that memory probably let it slip a little bit. [00:23:37] A number of transactions during that time didn't keep going up. They actually started going down. But that was on purpose. My income kept going up. That's what it was. Yes. So what I realized was it was one system. I could keep doing those 100 plus transactions a year or I could move them down. And there's three ways to increase your income in this business. I mean, it's very obvious. More sales, higher commissions or more transactions per client. [00:24:07] So I basically manage my business in a way that most of my clients are multiple transaction clients at this point. So they're much easier to deal with. It's a much easier transaction. There's a great deal of trust. So I do about half the transactions that clients have, but nearly half the transactions I did in 12. But my income is higher than it was in 12. Does that make sense? [00:24:34] That does. I want to get people to start asking some questions. I'm wanting to. For those interested, I'm pulling up a join me account. And I just want to direct you before you go and you can type your questions in and I'll read them out for you. [00:24:51] Stuart But if you go to join me, when else is now, unmute it. I don't want second, we don't have a really loud call. Give me just one moment. I just pulled this up. Let's see how. Take on. Here we go. I'm gonna say this online. [00:25:12] The conference is now in question and answer mount. [00:25:17] Ok. Stuart, is it okay if I let people start asking you question? Because I think we're right. I think this is a brilliant spot that probably a lot of questions for us a little bit dig deep. So I've got everyone's soft muted right now. If you have a question for Stuart, you want to kind of inquire a little bit more. Press star six on your phone and along your line and just a little bit of protocol. We'll quickly press Star 6 and announce yourself. And I just hope we'll just take any questions as they come along and let you meet yourself back. After you've asked your question, any questions out there, we'll quickly before we just continue in a monologue. [00:26:04] Bombeck. OK, Wanda. Go ahead. I didn't want a hard time from Minneapolis, Minnesota. And I am. I missed the other two things that you mentioned. Stuart is two, three ways to increase the income. [00:26:21] I didn't get the multiple transection of clients. That is my strong suit and I love it. But what were the other two? [00:26:30] Oh, good question. And by the way, I love Minnesota. I've got a friend that just moved up there to get married. Beautiful part of the country. So the three ways to increase your income in this business are, as you and I both agree on strongly, and that's multiple transactions per client. And I've got two different ways that I do that. Another one. The most obvious is make more sales. [00:26:54] And then the third one is a higher commission curtail. [00:27:00] So just to kind of follow you back, just to kind of follow that path. I purposely increased my average sell price over the last six years rather dramatically, and that was from poignant, focused and pertinent marketing to to a targeted database of people. So the multiple transactions per client have to do with two things. I chose a niche and started working with a niche where the result is typically two loops. I deal with listenings where the seller is usually going to sell that and buy another house more often than the typical real estate market transaction in your your area will be different than mine. But the bulk of my business is people who move from acreage into a subdivision or from subdivision to acreage. So I have two transactions and in very high percentage of my clients and the other is investing. I teach my clients who want to learn how to invest in give him example this month alone. I have sold for investment properties to clients who are really scarily trusting. And what I mean by that is what do you think, Stuart? You go right ahead. [00:28:21] That's fine. We don't care to go ahead. So you really have to cover yourself and make sure that all the information and and pertinent documents are taken care of as far as, you know, that particular transaction is concerned. So I teach my plans to invest in a lot of my plans and go invest. And then I work a market where many of them will, you know, sell their acreage, move into a subdivision, cause your kids grow in some or multiple, multiple, multiple. I just sold one investment house I sold this week was to a guy who moved out of a subdivision with his family. But acreage then they sold their acreage, moved back into a subdivision, and they started buying investment property for me. And that's his third one. So, you know, those are just those are just the best kind. [00:29:11] You know, the other thing I want to make an observation. And I've seen this from you throughout our entire relationship, Stuart. But you made a comment sharing with. I think that I think as Karen was carrying around. I'm sorry, Mr. Wanda. Wanda is Wanda with Linda. And it was you made a deliberate decision to increase the sales price and you started marking that direction. And I think what happens a lot of times with a lot of agents is they just try to do anything, anywhere. But you've always been very deliberate. Do it with everything you do. [00:29:51] And. [00:29:54] And maybe if you just, you know, if there's anything that touch on with that. But I just thought that was an interesting observation. You don't react well. You make it happen where you want it to happen. [00:30:08] And that has that has a lot to do with experience, but also has to do with, I think, awareness. I mean, one of my favorite sayings is truly that, you know, the difference between an agent who makes a million dollars and an agent who makes fifty thousand dollars is is not always passion. It's not always determination. It's not always will. It's not always work ethic, but times, it's awareness. Are you aware of the steps you need to take? Now, here's the scary part. When you're aware of the steps you need to take. [00:30:42] Now, are you willing to do it? And that's where the rubber meets the road. But awareness is is huge. And one the best thing that ever did truly was learn to market. And I'm not being derogatory by any means. This is just this just an observation. You know, I know lots of insurance agents. You probably do, too. Very few of them really know how to market their business. Most trilogy's agents claim to market, market, market. They really don't know how to market their business. And if you remember, one of the reasons I pick up the phone and called you in 2012 was because I think everybody on this could probably agree. Man, I think I don't know who told everybody else or put real estate agents on a target list. But hey, real estate, buy anything. Just start marketing tool. I mean, there's so much stuff out there. [00:31:36] It's unbelievable what they're trying to sell us. But the reason I called you was because when I got a marketing piece from you, I read it and I said. This person knows Markin. This isn't some fluff piece for some good looking piece or some focused on them piece. This is a marketing piece in the difference, if you're aware, is astounding and. Making the decision to market to a particular group. You can do that. Whoever they are really does not matter your price range that matter. Market doesn't matter. I mean, bottom line is that if you understand the rules of marketing in consumer response, you can pretty much turn your faucet up, turn your faucet down. And I use that analogy simply because that's what marketing is. If I want to make more money next year, guess what I'm going to do? I'm going to turn my marketing faucet up if I want to take more time off. And you know, this Beatty. But my wife had breast cancer about a year and a half ago. And she's doing very well. But I turn my marking faucet down. I didn't quit doing business totally, but I turned my marking post down so I could spend the time with her. And that's the beauty of real estate. That's the beauty of marketing. That's just why just this business is such an incredible business to be. [00:33:02] Yes, it is. Let's go with another question. If anyone else has out there, just say hello. [00:33:13] Impress Star 6 on your phone. [00:33:18] Any other questions before a yes. This is it, open hand. You can find Trulia, Washington and a real for about five years and. I'm doing a little better each year. Kind of, I guess, and say I'm in the top twenty five ish and are counting to small county. Kind of rural neighborhood. Just wondered what what advice you might give to somebody at my age. Got a bunch of kids at home. Sole provider for my home. And I've actually got six children at home. I'm trying to balance work life and and, you know, paying the bills, but looking for just any insight you might give to somebody who's at year 5 doing pretty well, doing about 25 to 30 transactions a year. And that's pretty good in our area with top producers, then 90, I think. And the next person to them is like 60. I want to get closer to 50. But, yeah. So any any input, anything. And it's kind of open ended, but anything you might have to say. [00:34:33] No worries that will bless you. By the way, six kids, you got your hands full. But Abed's Christmases are a blast, aren't they? Oh, yeah, lots of fun. And there's another you know, I'm in Texas, you guys. [00:34:48] I'll admit, it's not the beautiful, most beautiful state. We love central Texas, but I mean, Washington. What a gem that is so gorgeous up there. Yeah. So, yeah. You know what? First of all, five, five years in six kids and sole provider, that is. That's absolutely phenomenal. I'll I'll share something personal with you. [00:35:11] And, you know, my wife tells me, hey, you know, quit preaching at people, but sometimes I just have to share stuff. And you're probably already head of this. But you know what? When my first son was born, I started taking all day Thursday all in, gave my wife the entire day off. And the bond and the time and understand quality, time, quantity time is huge as well. And here's what's interesting. I would put on my voicemail. This is Thursday. It's the day with my family. So if you need me immediately, my system will know how to get hold of me. But if it's not, I'll be happy to talk to you tomorrow. People would leave voicemails that say, don't you dare call me back today, you know? Or, hey, good for you. Put your family first. We'll talk you tomorrow. [00:36:01] I guarantee it never cost me a deal. And I think it probably enhanced my business with people who knew the position that I was taking. OK. [00:36:13] So the next thing that I would say from a business perspective is very simply this and that is truly learn and understand marketing. And you said it if it's open ended. But if you if you get to become a student and learn marketing those people in your sphere. So we're going to refer you business because they like you care about you want to see you succeed. [00:36:47] In the number to get those people so Indian kids for free. [00:36:55] That poem, but I would recommend marketing people like our niece. Ah, yes. Look, I don't necessarily think it's a matter of fact, the agents that go through. I do some teaching, coaching, et cetera, et cetera. And I don't include real estate books in any of my progress. We read books that are outside of real estate and we bring the methodology into real estate. [00:37:21] Some of the best things that I've ever done in my business came from Ford or Nike or, you know, somebody like that, because guess what, marketing works. Coca-Cola does it on different scale than I do. I do it in a very small world. But guess what? The methods and strategies still work very, very well. And with that small town that you're in, in that small market, the turian, if you market professionally and aggressively, you're going to get to that 50 or 60 transactions faster than if you do it the old real estate way. If that makes sense. [00:38:02] Yeah, that. [00:38:04] Awesome. Thank you. I don't know if that was helpful. I hope it was. [00:38:07] Are you OK? Yes. Thank you. I am out of all the books I've read in marketing. There is one that's kind of encapsulates everything in a single book. It's absolutely the very best. I have to go on audio and I can't tell you how many times I've listened to it, but it's called Monopolized Your Marketplace by Rich Harshaw H.A. R s h a w I believe monopolized your marketplace. But it is the best book in understanding marketing copy writing headlines and the entire process of what I call the marketing equation are actually what they call the marketing equation. If you guys have been through any of our demos where we share what we do with Agent Dominators, you'll see what we talked about outside perception versus inside reality comes straight from that book. Okay. [00:39:11] And second, that that is that is a fabulous textbook for market. [00:39:15] Yes. And if you read that and apply it, then you'll start to really understand what what Stuart's been talking about. When he says when you understand marketing, then you can start to pursue most any niche you want and you can become successful there. So let me just encourage you not to get that monopolize your marketplace. I think it's still in print. If it's not, you can probably find a used copy somewhere. [00:39:47] Oh, yeah. I'm sure you can find his copy arms. Another one I would recommend is this in real estate related. But the principles are it's a book called Hug Your Customers, where everyone goes around saying, well, what with closing gift you recommend. Well, if you read hug your customer, you'll understand the principles behind true customer loyalty and keeping those customers raving fans of yours. [00:40:13] It's just it's again, it's outside the real estate industry. It's a retail industry book. But you bring their principles into real estate. It's fantastic. [00:40:22] Why? That's that's good. Any other questions out there? [00:40:26] Press star if you're not a medium yourself already and just announced yourself. [00:40:32] I am from California. And thank you for taking the time out today. Hey, I was curious, what is successful in your marketing plan? What avenues do you use? Are you using only print media, using social media? Where do you focus your kindness? [00:40:51] Very good question. We have so many options nowadays. And I would really encourage you to become an extraordinary expert at one. And pretty good, if not really good at others. So here's my strength. It's obviously because of my era is as Beatty said, I've been in real estate for just a little while. As my twenty five year old son says. And I don't know where they got this, but I've always heard out of his mouth. Well, you've been doing it a hot minute, had you? So, Hotman. It means a long time, apparently. So I have been doing it a HOTMAN Way I started was good old fashioned mail marketing. [00:41:37] And so I am the bulk of my income comes from mail marketing, but. It used to come from male marketing that gave consumers a hard offer. What that means is call me right now. Is technology advanced? Then my male marketing turned in to soft offers. Go to this 800 number. Hear this message. Now my soft offers. Take them, too. I want to remember this very specifically, landing pages and videos. I do not have a card that goes in the mail that doesn't send them to a landing page in a video and I'm gonna give you one area. The has helped me with this small harm area. [00:42:32] There's nine hundred and seventy one people there and I have one print piece that has gone out there. The video has been viewed at my the last time I look at the video has been viewed four thousand one hundred and twenty seven times. There's only 971 people in that in that farmers. And the reason for that, I think you can pretty much guess is they look at it. Oh, that's not bad. And then they get ready to sell and then they go look at it again and then they're ready to colonnades it. They look at it again. So it's just one of those things that what is how we adapting to what's going on that day. So my strength is truly male marketing. And I've had a tell me, hey. It don't work anymore. And I'm just I'm living proof that it does actually got a postcard from Google. About four months ago. So it's Google sending me postcards. I know that postcard marketing still works, but our social media marketing is quite strong as well. Last month, I'm sorry, last week I spent two hundred and nineteen dollars on Facebook ads and again, marketing. Works on Facebook like it works on postcards. The same methods, the same strategies, the same principles, typical real estate agent marketing is not as effective. [00:43:57] And I'll be happy to cover a couple of those things with you. But I spent two hundred and ninety dollars on Facebook ads in the last two weeks have put most modern in two increments, and I created ninety six leaves with phone numbers, emails and names. Now I know agents that don't do the phone numbers and they'll get a lot more leads than I do. But I get phone numbers, emails in names in one out of five phone numbers. So nearly 100 leads means I got nearly 80 good phone numbers and a high proportion to email addresses because even if they don't leave these phone numbers, I'll leave you a good email. So Facebook marketing is very inexpensive, but the actual commission that you generate is not that much greater with Facebook than it is with post-card. It's just an area where I'm going to find somebody that I might not have gotten from the postcards or if you've heard the term about very touches. If I get my postcard and then they see a video of me giving up on the market in my area and then they see a listing on Facebook on a Facebook ad. Now they're saying, well, this guy really works. This area guy really knows his stuff. Does that make sense? [00:45:24] Yes, it doesn't. No one should just like. Sure. All right. But again, I would I would reiterate the the marketing aspect of that. My life Facebook ads and my online ads get a much higher conversion than most agents because they produce high quality lead at a much higher level than most ads do. So what you were asking the question. I apologize. Ahead. [00:45:54] No, no worries. On your Facebook ads, what what are you advertising? When are giving in their assets in train a person to go through? [00:46:04] Query. Good question. Three things. One is a list of houses. Now they can go to Zillow, they go to Realtor.com and go anywhere they want. But if you show them a list of housing by list, I don't mean, hey, clicking here, I'm going to make your list or we're going to send you a PDA or some of that. [00:46:27] When they when they click through, they go straight to a page that shows them those in their updated in real time. It's not a it's not a static list. It's a page with the criteria. So I'll give an example. I work, as I mentioned earlier, the small acreage market, I call it the one acre plus. So I got to see what's 29, 28, 67 leaves from an ad that said. If you want a massive backyard for less than five hundred thousand dollars, here it is. So list of houses I call it must see houses that see all houses with massive backyards and such an acre or more because most people don't know want an acre is, but a lot of people want a huge backyard. So another one that I ran is if you want a home with more than two acres, there's a lot of people who are looking at acreage making quite enough. They want they want to do something that you can't do on an acre. Most of the acre subdivisions are restricted. You can't put a workshop, things like that. So when I say more than two acres, that hits a hot button with these people who want to park their RV on it or put a workshop on it so that one gets a lot of talk. It's what I call my see houses and see all the homes on two or more acres. See all homes with massive backyards. Preston Five hundred. See every house on an acre and more with a swimming pool. [00:47:57] And then it takes them directly to a page that is updated live with that in people are if they want to see that net is pertinent to them. They're a much better lead when it when it comes right down to putting in their information to see it. In the second type of ad is really what I call video views. And video views are nothing more than me doing the video. It might be, hey, here's one of the best values on the market. It might be. Here's what happened, in fact. Tomorrow I'll be putting one out that says here's what happened in the first quarter of 2020 compared to 2019. I'm going to really separate out what happened in January, February. What happened March? Because I saw a very big difference in March and January, February. We thought this was going to be the best year we've seen ever since. I mean, in forever, it was going to be incredible. And then the third type is is not really the best lead that I put it out there. So those people who've seen the videos, who are seen the sea houses, ads and things like that say that I'm doing business. So new listings and I run them for a shorter time, put a new listing up in. When I sell a listing, I tell a little story behind listen, just like the postcards did. So listing sold ads, see houses, ads in video ads that help. [00:49:25] Yeah, yeah, definitely. [00:49:27] Thank you. You're welcome. [00:49:31] Stuart, you're here. Go ahead. Yes, sir. Bob Burns is in Naples, Florida. How are you? Oh, doing well, thank you, sir. Yes. Get out. [00:49:47] Probably only 4 percent of the agents in America meet the National Association's definition of a business base, which is what we're all trying to build as a reliable, sufficient base of people that are referring as well. That means the other 96 agents are working the stranger market, whether that's for sale by owners or expires this first time. And the thing that you shared with me, your strategy and I don't know if you have time to go into it today on expired listings. What was the most amazing that I've heard in 50 years? The nine Umbridge, nine children as a condition of all salesman in this business. So do have time to share your. [00:50:47] Yeah, I can give you a quick summary if you like. Beatty, how we doing on time? It. [00:50:53] Let's say we've got about 15 minutes, so that's a quick summary on that. [00:50:58] All right. This is typically our presentation. I'll do it in five minutes. I'm awfully glad to meet somebody who's been in the business longer than me. That didn't happen very often. Congratulations. So what you're probably referring to is, I believe very firmly that there is no better business. You can have been past clients and customers because of the trust and the referrals and all that. But I also believe that you're leaving money on the table if you don't market to strangers. If you don't market to the cold market as well. Again, if marketing is something you're aware of and understand, you're going to have a much higher level of success. When people who have never dealt with call me to do business because of marketing, it's not as good as a past client, but it is really reaching that. So a lot of people have mis perceptions about expires in by owners. I'm just going to focus on power right now. I don't work expands the way a lot of agents do. Now, I used to question surreally back in the 90s. I put on a headset and co-called and I'd call up and down streets and I'd call expands and I'd do that two to four hours a day. But once I learned marketing, I never did that again. Never had to do that again. That didn't mean it didn't work. That just means it's really hard work. So from an expired perspective, here's why I like experience with a home that's come off the market. [00:52:36] It's perfectly legitimate, perfectly legal, perfectly moral. They no longer have a relationship with a real estate agent. So I'm free to send them some information so that they can see that there are options if they decide to sell the house again. Now, I don't call them the first day. If all those, you know, twenty seven, eight, 30, 40 agents who come first day, the house expires, if they want to battle it out for an appointment, get the listing. That's most of the people I list whose homes have expired list with me. Two weeks, six weeks, three months, a year, even two or three years later. Here's one I like expired. It's a much more dollars productive set of people. I get three point seven times as much response from the expired database. Now, for years it was 3.1. Now it's 3.7, 3.7, nearly four times. So what I'm saying is that if I take a regular database like a farm area or a mailing area in and keep blanking. [00:53:44] Getting calls, my expires the same number of expired, the same amount of dollars spit is going to make me nearly four times as much money. So if I've got a group of 1000 people. And then I have a group of 1000 ex-parte. I'm gonna make three to four times as much money spent in the exact same dollars on the market. I kind of like those odds. [00:54:09] So when somebody's home expired, we send them some information and then we continue to send them information about how we do business. They'll look at this video online. Here's what here's why you should look at this video online. This video online is something you should see because we keep sending them to see. And that's one of the reasons that our videos are seen so often is because they are pertinent and informative to how we do business. So those inspired to list with me. Most of the time, I'm the only one that's going over to talk to versus if I was one of those who is co-called and trying to close them for an appointment. The first day or two they expired and we compete with 3, 4, 5, 6 agents. Anyways, that's kind of a summary. Better dollar, productive and consistent long term marketing. My record is I had somebody call me that had expired 13 years ago. And if you had been in the business 13 years, you can look forward to that. But that's my record. They had kept my mailings in and they knew that if they ever listed the home again, they would call me. Now, here's one of the best databases you can go get. [00:55:26] Go back in your market, the area that you work for, three, four, five years. Download all the listings that expired during that time. Now download all the listeners that have sold. That are pending, that are active. Take the two databases and do what would Excel calls data. So we take out the duplicates in the expires from three fourth from last week. Last month, a year ago, four years ago, five years ago to have never released Relisted their home are a great database for you to start marketing to not expect. You'll have three times as much business from those people as you will. A similar group. Let me give you a stat real quick. This one's pretty astounding. In an area that I that I work one acre plus homes. There are about 360 houses that have expired in that timeframe that I'm talking about. Now I market to a group beyond that of nearly six thousand. And I want you to grasp these numbers. The expired from those three sixty list is many houses from there. Is there do the other six thousand? What do you think cost me less money? [00:57:04] Now, here's why that is. [00:57:05] First of all, I'm an expert in the 16 plus market, so I have a higher result from that anyway. Now, you take the expired in a market where I'm perceived as an expert in the response. Absolutely skyrocket. [00:57:23] So if you just think about, all right, let's let's be very greedy with in very careful about our marketing dollar and if our marketing dollar can go farther than we can spend less money and make more money in that, how when we started this conversation I shared with you that I went. I kept decreasing the number of cells I was making and increasing my income because my overhead is far less marketing to groups with higher response rates. [00:58:00] Does that make sense, she goes to my own trap with that. Yeah, you are. Yes. [00:58:08] Thank you for asking that, by the way. Appreciate that. Now, did did you. Did we meet in Florida? What was the question? [00:58:19] Then we meet in Florida. You had said that I shared that with you. Oh, yes. Yes. And in Orlando, it's the edge in Orlando. You were at the Orlando. Yeah. And that was, you know, just something that's. While you're in the rat race, you don't look behind the door to this. There was a better way and now that's out. Yeah, I understand what work and so many that are the reason for the turnover of our business if you don't have that big. [00:59:09] Business space that will sparked a referral part of your business where 70 no, 74 percent of a legit business comes from people they know like and trust. But if you don't have that base, you're forced to go to the stranger market. And when you get there, if you work these elegant things, if you worked out, if it will save some people's ability to go ahead with their career and real. [00:59:36] That just awe inspiring, that holy grail. Oh, you bet. Thank you for speaking up. [00:59:41] Well, this has been great. Let's call it let's take one final question before we wrap up the call. Is there anyone who has the final question? [00:59:51] Emory Bruno from New Jersey. Go ahead, then. Just a question on landing pages and videos. Are you hiring a cut? Do you hire a company or do you have someone on your staff that's doing this for you? [01:00:09] Sorry for laughing sensitive. That's a great question. Well, I'll tell you. I'll bet he's laughing. You know where West Deptford, New Jersey is? [01:00:20] Not exactly. [01:00:22] No. OK. Well, my one of my favorite people in the world, my one of my programmers is in West Def., New Jersey. At least that's where us and his check. But he's a I've known him for many, many years. And he's a he's a great guy. I only know one person from New Jersey. He's an awesome person. So can't be too bad. Stay right anyway. That is a very good question. Here's here's what I do. And I can only tell you what I do. Everybody is different. But I'd like to know exactly how things are done. [01:00:58] And that way I can better manage people that are how to do things for me. Things I don't ever pass on them. And one of the things I don't ever pass on are my videos. The landing pages or there are programs out there that are quite simple to use nowadays. Very easy teens, very easy to create a landing page. Now, let me just give everyone the definition of the landing page. And I know some of you going, oh, gosh, we know what that is. But for those of you who might not be familiar, your landing page is simply a one page Web site. And the reason for that is if you've got one page, people go to it. There's no place for them to be distracted or go away. So if you if you've ever seen a really good online network, marketers say they use what they call funnels. They don't use Web sites anymore for a long time. That's the crux of this is very straightforward. Seth Godin, who is one of the first Internet gurus that came along, he was one of the big leagues in Yahoo! Said that you, the consumer, has to see the bonanza. And we got that. Is that intelligent animals? Anyone who's ever trained animals would acknowledge that they perform better if they see their reward. And Seth Godin says people are the same way. So if I market something like the the number one most powerful secret, you have to know before you ever list your home on acreage. Now, if I him from my website and they go just to a website that, you know, has all my stuff on it and there's, you know, there's a link on their head or it's part of the menu that's not been nearly as effective as if they go to that link. [01:02:44] Go to that. You are ill in. As soon as a page pops up, the top says here's the number one most powerful secret. You have to know before you ever list your home on acreage. So they saw the banana and they went there for a reason. They saw Facebook and they saw a postcard. Whatever the cases, Instagram didn't matter. When they land on that landing page, they have to see their reward. So there are several different programs and then you might want to throw a few of them out. I use two primarily. One is called Unbound. Just like it sounds, you know, bounce a ball, put you in and of a bounce. And the other one is client creator dot com. So I use those primarily to create my landing pages. And then the video is most of these programs. And I think there's actually some users in those. But most of the videos are very straightforward. Nowadays, there are free programs for everything. If you've got a P.C., you have probably have Windows movie maker. If you've got a Mac, you have their version of, you know, making videos. There is a program online called Blue L O O M Loom. And there's just there's there's quite a few. [01:04:04] So what I do is I've got different kinds of videos and I make I'm not even the center of attention on most of most of them. It's just me doing the voice in explaining the information. But here's the thing. It's been seven years now. I think either six or seven years, I had zero videos. One. Not. The first couple videos I did and Marina were so cheesy, they were absolutely embarrassing, but the first one is always the hardest and I don't care what you're doing, the first one is always the hardest. When I ran my first Facebook ad, you know how long it took me to do that because I didn't want to look dumb. I don't want to do something wrong. I didn't want to. But the first one's always the hardest. I now have to think I've crossed a twelve hundred might even be thirteen hundred because I consistently put them out in the videos are here, the statistics in the area or here's a new home that we put on the market. Here's one we just sold. We sold it for days and had been listed with another agent for a year. Here's why that happened. But here's some statistics you're never going to hear from anybody else. I mean, the videos. There is unlimited is your creativity in my videos are anywhere from 30 seconds to. 12 to 14 months and a lot of people just like my predicting package, which is 52 pages. Agents always say nobody will ever read all that. [01:05:43] Well, guess what? Consumers will if it's pertinent videos that are 11 or 12 minutes, if they're pertinent. People will watch them. But most of them are in the 90 second range. The 3 minute range. So if I can get someone because of a compelling reason to go to a video, they're going to learn a lot more about me, especially if my pictures on there or if it's me, you know, down in the corner talking explains that they just get a better feel of who you are. One of my agents hates being on video. Can't stand it. Finally talked her into it. And she is doing more business and she's ever done before. Because if people are missing out, getting to know who you are in understanding a little bit more about you and what kind of person you are, they can't get a feel for that on an ad or a picture or a business card or a postcard. They just can't. So they can learn more about you and some are going to make wrong decisions about who you are. Someone going to like who you are. And it's just a very powerful medium that I decided I certainly wouldn't early by me, but I decided, you know, six, seven years ago I had to take advantage of it. And it's just a very, very effective way to meet people in a very effective way to communicate your message to people that answer your question. I tend to ramble on that. [01:07:12] What it does and I'm assuming that when you post these on Facebook or boost them. [01:07:21] There's a very good question where you are on top of things. I don't boost very many posts in the reason I don't is because I get better results by running ads than boosting posts. So you can you can boost posts and you will have more people see your post when you boost it. But I've started spending a while back, started spending the same amount of time and effort running ads instead of boosting posts. You can do both. There's no reason not to boost posts. I'd rather just spend my dollar on ads because for me it seems to have a little bit more impact. [01:07:57] Yes. Thank you very much for answering my question here. Well, you're very welcome. And this has been great. I wanted to share what my chuckle was because I still think it's kind of funny. [01:08:14] So often everyone believes that you have to do this amazing professional job to have someone, you know, choreograph your video, put music in the background and make it look professional because your real estate agent and you wanted to be professional. But I think one of the keys I've seen with Stuart and I definitely have experiences over the years to a degree is there is a level of authenticity that people want to know who you are. And and if the video is Stuart talking, then it's very real. It's exactly who Stuart is. And people get this real comfort level of Stuart, because this is Stuart. It may just be his voice. I remember watching one of your videos. This was a few years back. Stuart, you're walking someone through a home and there was just a slide show video and you're just the voice voiceover describing it. But just the way you described everything, such as the custom inlaid marble for your with a quarter inch marble and and it comes from mentally injured. You're just describing it. It made me want to buy the house. But as you're describing it, I'm getting to know who you are because I'm hearing your voice. Sometimes I see you and I get to know who you are. And there's just this great level of authenticity. And with that authenticity comes realism and believability and therefore, trust ability. And so as you're out there doing these videos, let me just encourage you to be yourself. Don't try to be too professional. Be professional enough. But that's why I was chuckling because, you know, everyone is probably thinking, you know, serious got the slickest ads and the slickest videos. [01:10:07] And since an out for post-production, that's just that's not it. [01:10:12] And babies call me up and tell you guys that they're they weren't just cheesy when I started. [01:10:19] Oh, they're they're just wonderful. [01:10:20] No, they're but they are. It's you know, I enjoy doing it. So that's why I continue to do it. And feel free to you guys go to. I'll just give you one of my sites. It's the number one. And then everything else spelled out one Fakher plus dot com. And if you go around on that site, you can see lots and lots of different videos from from different things that will kind of give you an idea of how, how and why we do the videos that we did. And feel free to copy anything on there. Call me, ask questions. My contact information is on there. No, no worries. [01:10:56] They're wrapping up. I'd like to just summarize one thing that we started with. And I want to make a comment because it's been really impressive. I won't make a correlated comment. So what we started with is we're in a crisis or we're in an opportunity. Depends on how you look at it. And when every time stewards come in these type of environments, he's entered it making more money and he exit it, making even more money. And the reason is he continues to market for listings when listing slow down. You just build up your listing inventory. So you continue making a no sales to cover everything you need. And as you're marketing for listings, everyone else panic any and they're pulling back on their marketing budget. So it means your marketing is easier and more effective in building your listening inventory that you need. So you continue your lifestyle and then exiting. You've got this great big pipeline that empties out really quickly. And I want to share just another benefit of that. I was talking to one. He's the number one suburban agent here in this debut where I live, part of Birmingham. [01:12:08] His name is Mike. And my understanding is going into the 0 8 recession, he was just a typical agent coming out of the recession. He was the number one agent in our suburban city and has maintained that position year over year, except for maybe one year where he just barely lost to someone else. And and I hope this never gets to him. He's a great agent, but I would not put him near the caliber of someone like Stuart. What happened is he got there and he grabbed the market share and now he's got a name and a brand that everyone knows and recognizes. And it drives his business even to this day. And this is the opportunity. He did not stop when everyone else did and he came out on top and has maintained it. And I think that's the message. I really want to strike home for all you guys today. Keep your marketing budget up, whatever it takes, but drive it on listings. OK. And stay focused and deliberate and and don't panic because this too shall pass. [01:13:20] So with that, you. Go. Go ahead. One. Oh, OK. I just want to thank you for exposing the truth to your entire network. You absolutely gave them the best of the best. [01:13:40] Well, thank you. And so I'd like to I'd like to springboard one more comment with that. Why am I doing this? I'm a Christian. I have no fear of what's going on. [01:13:55] The Lord has promised he's going to tell us. And it's always taking care of us. And I've seen him do this famous Stuart and his family. There's a lot of fear. A man. There's a lot of fear because people have no foundation to turn. And I know I just want you to know that no one there's a great big guy who loves you and is going to take care of you. And if you follow him, he will lead you down the right path and he will take care of you. You trust him. But this is not a time to fear because of put your. I see. This is a time to trust the Lord and say, I want to follow you and I'm going to follow what Stuart is doing. I just wanted to be able to give back and share in just a simple way from our heart. [01:14:41] How do you make it through crisis? [01:14:44] And and because if you can make it through, then you can pay your bills. You can support your family. And hopefully if you are a follower of the Lord, then you can give price and glory to him as well. So, really, Stuart, I want to thank you for sharing of your time, because hopefully you've shared a lot of insight and just of encouragement to people. [01:15:08] Well, it was helpful, I just want to second everything you said. Thank you. [01:15:12] All right. Well, you'll have a very blessed day. Please take this to heart and go out and do it and you'll be blessed. Thanks so much. P061 [/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
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Transcription (was completed by automated process. Please ignore any speech-to-text errors) Coping when life falls apart - Adolph Coors IV [00:00:00] Hey, this is Beatty Carmichael, and I want to do something very special on this podcast and take a kind of divergence from my normal podcast. I want to share a recording from a. I call him a friend. I've met him by phone a number times, never in person. And it's a man whose name you'll probably recognize. You may not recognize his name, but you'll definitely recognize the same his name. And that is Adolph Coors, IV. And as we go through these very challenging times, everything is uncertain. Well, it seems like everything's caving in around us with the Coronavirus and businesses being shut and their livelihoods are being strangled. And we just don't know what's going on and what the next thing is. It brought to mind this recording that Adolf gave me permission to share and his history of going through this intense, dramatic struggles to the point of death. Thoughts of suicide, losing everything important in his life. Just trying to make sense of it all. And it's an amazing story that I think you'll find a lot of encouragement in and one that I think you will if you're like most people who've listened to, will find this to be one and the most touching and life changing stories that you've heard. So with no further ado, I introduce to you, Adolf Coors IV. [00:01:36] Our speaker tonight, Mr. Adolph Coors. The fourth is certainly an outstanding example of a biographical speaker. Mr. Coors is the great grandson of Adolph Herman Joseph Coors, who was the founder of the Adolph Coors Brewing Company of Golden, Colorado. His father was Adolph cause the third and at the end was chairman of the board of the Family Business. When Mr. Coors the fourth was 14 years of age, his father was kidnapped and brutally murdered and being the oldest son of the family, his teenage years, as you might expect, were difficult at best as the family attempted to deal with their great loss. Mr. Coors spent three years in the United States Marine Corps. He was a cold weather survival training instructor. He developed a fervor for discipline that led him into extreme bodybuilding, the martial arts and a strict health food regimen. And I think when you see him, if you haven't seen him yet, when he stands up here, he still carries that frame rather nicely. He was really driven, though, to succeed at any price. After graduate from University of Denver School of Business, he spent two years with the New York firm of Sheraton, Hamilton and Company as a commodity specialist. [00:03:02] And once he left the rigors of the commodity business, he spent about six years working with the Adolph Coors Company. And various departments, in his experience, ranges from marketing and strategic planning, sales, borrowing, quality control and financial planning. Mr. Coors left the family brewing business in 1979 and he became the investment advisor for his immediate family. In addition, he also founded the national marketing company called Atco Enterprises. He has served on the board of directors of the Prison Fellowship Ministries, which is an internal national prison ministry, was founded by Chuck Colson in Washington, D.C.. He serves on the board of directors of the Family Ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ. And he also has a on the board advisors for kanika camp, which is a Christian camp in Branson, Missouri, which I know a lot of people who are here tonight have ties to that idea through children or through personal experience. Mr. Cooper's and his wife, B.J., have been married since 1967, and they live in Englewood, Colorado. He has two sons. Please join me in giving a warm Bermingham. Welcome to Adolph Cause the Fourth. [00:04:32] Good evening, gentlemen. [00:04:38] Dawn, thank you very much for that kind introduction. [00:04:44] And I want to thank you, gentlemen, for taking time out of I know it's been a very busy day for all of you to be a part of this dinner tonight. And I particularly want to thank Phil Retik, young business leaders and all those who have worked very hard to make this evening a reality. Continue, gentlemen, eating your dinner if you have not finished. But while you're eating, I'm going to ask that you do lend me. And here, you know, I'll be very honest with you guys. I wish somebody had loved me enough about 30 years ago to invite me to a dinner like this. And I believe that we're all here together because of a divine appointment. I don't think believe anything happens by accident. So I'm going to ask that even though you're eating your dinner but or you are not finished with your dinner, just please let me in here, because I'm going to put up my family to you gentlemen. I'm going to be very vulnerable to you tonight. We're going to laugh together and we're going to maybe even cry a little bit together. I'm going to share with you the Adolph Coors family, as Don mentioned, a family that's recognized all over this world. It's been a very interesting family, gentlemen, to grow up in. Well, before I get into my personal story, I want to relay a story that I came across recently that really, really made an impact on me and saw before I get into my own personal story, I want to share with you the story that goes like this. Listen very carefully. [00:06:31] One foggy night, a captain of a very large ship saw what appeared to be another ship's lights approaching in the distance. There's another ship was on a course that would mean a certain head on collision. And quickly, the captain signaled to the approaching ship, please change your course, 10 degrees west. And the reply came blinking back through the thick fog that evening. You change your course 10 degrees east insulted. The captain pulled rank and shot a message back to the other ship. The message said, I am a sea captain with 35 years of experience. Change your course. Ten degrees west. Without hesitation, the signal flashed back. I'm a seaman. Fourth class. You change your course 10 degrees east to pattern forming here. Enraged, the captain realized that they were rapidly approaching one another and would certainly crash within a few short minutes. And so he blazed. Gentlemen, he blazed his final warning. And the warning was this. I am a fifty thousand tonne freighter. Change your course. Ten degrees west now. A simple message came blinking back through the thick fog that night, and that simple message was this. I am a lighthouse. I'm a lighthouse, you change your course now. True story, guys. True story. And like that sea captain, we as human beings need to change course. Gentlemen, when we're confronted with the truth and over 20 years ago, I was confronted with a truth. One evening when I learned an incredible fact. I learned that the God of this universe that I didn't particularly have much time for, to be honest with you. When I learned that the God of this universe, who created me, who created each one of us in this room, I learned about the incredible love that he has for each one of us gentlemen. They each each one of us in this room. Now, grant me the privilege. It is a privilege for me to be able to stand before you tonight. Grant me the unique privilege of being able to share with you a journey that literally changed the course of my life. I'd like that sea captain, guys. I was headed for certain destruction. [00:09:41] The name Adolph Cause, as Don mentioned, is a name recognized all over this world. [00:09:47] Back in 1868, at the age of twenty eight years of age, my great grandfather, Adolph Herman Joseph Coors, twice orphaned at the age of 14 with a dream in his heart without a penny to his name, stowed one day aboard a steamer headed for America. [00:10:11] He hid onboard that steamer, and several weeks later he landed in the city of Baltimore. And a year and a half later, he found himself in a small mining town called Denver, Colorado, in the spring of eighteen seventy two. [00:10:32] A year later, he convinced a business partner, a friend of his, a very successful businessman in Denver. He convinced this gentleman to buy an old tannery building in a small town called Golden, Colorado. Golden has located 20 miles west of Denver, on the edge of the foothills. And those two enterprising young men bought an old tannery building in Golden and formed what was then known as the shooter, Coors Brewing Company. [00:11:01] And it began to make beer and served that beer to the miners working in the mining camps above Golden. Seven years after that fledgling little brewery got started it all. Herman Joseph cause my great granddad bought his business partner out and formed what is now known worldwide as the Adolph Coors Company. Gentlemen, this is truly one of the great success stories in American industry. And 51 years ago, I was born into this unique family, gentlemen, a family much like yours. Tonight, a family that has aspiring hopes and grand dreams. And I know you had your hopes and your dreams tonight as well. And that's good. I was blessed with two wonderful parents. I had two older sisters and a younger brother. And as a family growing up, we did everything together. I have fond memories of the first 14 years of my life. [00:12:10] But looking in the eyes of my father and looking in the eyes of my grand dad and hearing the stories of my great grandfather, I learned at a young age I learned that failure was not going to be tolerated in my family. [00:12:26] I learned that there was a certain pecking order in my family and I was going to fit in with that pecking order based upon three things. I was going to either be accepted into this family or rejected this family based upon looks. Based upon how well I did in school and based upon how well I performed on the athletic fields growing up, that was the pecking order in our family. If you did well in school, if you looked well and you perform well as an athlete, you would be accepted in this family. You know, I remember looking in the eyes of my father, and I remember him telling me in so many eyes, so many, so many ways. He was saying, son, you better perform in this family if you're gonna be accepted. You better perform. In other words, gentlemen, I was raised in a family, what I would call conditional love. But I want you to file this back in your mind. You know, I wish somebody had loved me enough as a young boy. I wish somebody had sat me down. I wish they would have told me this. I wish they would have said it off course. What good is it going to be if you gain the whole world? Gentlemen, I was after the whole world. What good is it going to be if you gain the whole world, Adolph Coors. But in the process of gaining this world, you end up losing your soul. I never heard that guy's never heard. You know, I wish somebody loved me enough to tell me, Adolf, if you live for the next world, you're gonna gain this one in the deal. [00:13:57] You'll gain it in the deal. But if you live strictly for this world, you're gonna end up losing them both. I never heard that. You know what I heard growing up in this wonderful family? About the same thing that many of you in this room are hearing right now. I heard that he who dies with the most toys wins this game called life. Is that your philosophy tonight, gentlemen? Have you bought into the lie that if you die with the most toys, you're gonna win this game called life? I hope you don't believe that tonight. If you do believe that tonight, I want to get very personal with you. I want to ask you two questions. The first question I want to ask you is, what do you win, gentlemen? What do you really win? And then more importantly, I want to ask you this. Where does that prize you're looking for? Where does that prize get delivered? Where is it going to be delivered? I want to take you three thousand years in the past. I want to take you. I want us to sit down and I want you to hear the words of one of the wisest men who has ever lived. His name was David the Psalmist, David, one of the wisest and one of the wealthiest men this world has ever seen. Listen to what David tells you and me as business. [00:15:18] Today in 1996, he says, Gentlemen, our days are few and our days are very brief. [00:15:28] Like the grass, like the flowers blown by the wind and gone forever. Think about those words, gentlemen. This life there we're living is nothing but a training ground. It's a training ground for where we are going to spend eternity because you see, gentlemen, you are used to making decisions. You're very successful businessman. I know who I'm talking to tonight. I know I'm in respect of you. I'm an all of you. I know who I'm talking to tonight. You're very successful, gentlemen. I know you. You are. But gentlemen, this is nothing but a training ground as one decision we have to make as human beings while we're on this Earth. One most important decision. I'm going to ask you to make that decision before I leave here tonight, because it's a decision it will determine where we spend eternity. Is that important? And I will get to that decision in just a few minutes. I want to take you tonight to a cemetery outside of the town of London, England. And I'm going to take you to two grave markers. The first grave marker reads, She died for want of things. [00:16:42] True story. Right next to that grave marker is another grave market. I'll bet you can't guess what that grave marker says was a grave marker of her husband. A grave marker reads He died trying to give these things to her general. That is a sad commentary, a sad commentary on how two lives were wasted, believing, buying into the lie that the things of this world could make them happy. I bought into that lie for 31 years of my life. Gentlemen, I want to share with you where that philosophy took me and the tragedy it brought to my family. It caused me a tremendous amount of pain and heartache. You see, gentlemen, life is wasted if we're basing our life on the things of this world. You see, tomorrow, some of us life is consists of a materialistic if only, if only I could get that new job. That job would make me happy. If only I could get that new car, I could buy that new toy, I could marry that pretty girl, I could get that raise. [00:17:59] That would make me happy. [00:18:02] But you see, gentlemen, I learned many years ago that life is wasted in the endless pursuit of these things, because even if we achieve them and you've achieved many of these things, those things really don't bring us what we're looking for. [00:18:18] You see, chasing after pleasure is really a confession of an unsatisfied life. Now, I want to get very personal, every one of us in this room are created by a God who loves us with an immense love. Now, why do you believe that tonight makes no difference? He's there and he loves us. And he creates you and me with a unique blueprint. You have a blueprint for your life. Gentlemen. No other human being has ever had in the face of this earth. We're created different except for one way. There's one thing that knits you and I together tonight, guys. One thing that makes you and me the same. And that one thing that knits us together tonight is when we're born into this world, the God who created us creates us batteries, not included. In other words, there is something missing in our lives, a spiritual vacuum, if you will, an emptiness. And many of us go through this life and we try to fill that void in our hearts. We try to fill it with our careers. We try to fill it with our athletic achievements. We try to fill it with our own importance, with titles, with material possessions, even with our family members. General, let me tell you. For somebody who's done that for 31 years of my life, let me tell you, these things were never meant to fill that void in your heart and mine. They were never meant to do it. [00:19:50] That's reserved for one very special relationship. [00:19:54] That's why John D Rockefeller senior, when he just before he died, said the following. And let me quote this man. It was very successful. He said, I have made billions, but these billions have brought me no happiness. That's why Henry Ford senior, just before he died, turned to one of his best friends one day and he said, sir, he said, My friend, I was happier when I was a mechanic. Now, why could these guys, these successful businessmen, why could they say these things? For the same reason? I could say at 20 years ago when I realized the void, my heart wasn't getting filled. So I want us gentlemen tonight, I want you to slow down your life long enough tonight, I want you to get real. I want you to slow down. I want you to listen. And I want us to really focus in tonight on some important issues. In the first 14 years of my life, gentlemen, Norman Rockwell couldn't have painted a pretty or picture. I was blessed, as I mentioned earlier, with a great family and as a family, we did everything together. But as a young boy, I made a tragic mistake, a mistake. I'll bet some of you are making in this room tonight. You don't even recognize it's a mistake. You see, the mistake I made was I put my faith and trust in a human being. And really for the first 14 years of my life, my father, it of course, the third was, my God. I worshipped him. You want to talk about a successful man? Here was a successful man. [00:21:34] Not only was my father chairman of the board of our brewing empire in Golden, Colorado. [00:21:42] He was a semi-pro baseball player, a scratch golfer, a gifted musician, an architect, an engineer, a rancher flew his own airplane. [00:21:55] One of the best tennis players ever seen in my life, one of these guys at everything he did, everything he did, David. [00:22:01] He did it to perfection. He was a driven man. [00:22:08] I idolized him, but gentlemen, for each one of us in this room, life brings many changes. [00:22:18] Some of these changes are sudden. Some of these changes are gradual. Some of these changes bring us a lot of happiness. But then again, some of these changes can bring us a tremendous amount of pain. There is a God in heaven, gentlemen, who loves us with an immense love and what he needs to tell us. He screams out to us. He says, enjoy my gifts. He wants us to enjoy his gifts. But he also warns us, gentlemen, not to put our faith and trust in these gifts. [00:22:50] Our faith and trust needs to be a very special relationship. [00:22:57] As Don mentioned in 1960, something happened to my family that violently tore apart a family that I'd put my faith and trust in. Thirty six years ago, this past February, my father, on his way to work one morning, stopped three miles from our home to help what he thought was a stranded motorist snowing hard that February morning, my father walked over to this man's car. But in that car was not a man who was experiencing car problems in that car was a man who had been stalking my father for two years. A man who in 1958 escaped from prison in California, a maximum security prison. A two time murder. There was a violent struggle on that bridge that morning, my father was a tough guy. And as my father was running back to his automobile that morning, Joseph Corbett pulled out a gun and proceeded to put multiple bullets in my father's back. Alive or dead? I'll never know, but the body of my father was stuffed in the trunk of this man's car and at 7.30 that morning they sped south seven long months. My sisters, my brother, my mother, myself, we all hope, beyond hope that dad would return. But gentlemen, that was not going to be the case is the remains of my father were found 40 miles south of our home, seven months almost to the day that he was kidnapped. You know, gentlemen, I had 14 years with that guy. And you know what I learned most about that man, what he taught me the most successful is he was he was very successful. [00:24:52] We had all the things. Gentlemen, this world says you have to have to be a success. We had a war. But, you know, my dad left me a legacy that I'll never, never forget. He taught me how to throw a curveball in our backyard. He taught me how to fly his airplane. He taught me how to hunt. He taught me how to fish. He taught me how to be a dad. You see, gentlemen, that's what I remember about my father, not how successful he was, Don. He was successful. But as a 14 year old boy, you don't care how much money your dad's making. You know what you care as a 14 year old boy. You know what you care the most about. When your dad comes home from work every afternoon, he spends time with you gentlemen at the other end of life. There won't be enough stocks, there won't be enough bonds, there won't be enough trophy's in your case at home, there won't be enough toys in your driveway to compensate for the loss of your wife and your kids. There simply will not be enough. And I'll bet there's at least one person in his room tonight whose career is number one in your life. I bet there's one, at least one. It's your career is running your life right now. Gentlemen, I beg you, if that's the case in your life and only you know who you are. If that's the case tonight, I beg you, go home, reprioritize your life. [00:26:15] Will you do that, please? I don't know here about in Birmingham, Alabama, but in Denver, Colorado, I have yet to see a U-Haul trailer hooked to a hearse going to the graveyard. In other words, Jumaa, what I'm telling you tonight, we're not going to take any of this stuff with us. None of it's going with us. You know what's going with us when we die. Our families are going with us. The legacy we leave to our kids are going with us. That's about it, gentlemen. That's about it. I graduated from high school shortly after my father's murder. I want to become an attorney. I was accepted at 17 years of age. I was accepted to one of the best law schools in the state of Georgia. Mercer University. Perhaps I'll have you heard. Mercer. Macon, Georgia. 17 years of age. Driven to succeed. I walked onto that campus, began my freshman year of pre-law, but instead of majoring in pre-law my freshman year, I majored in sorority and minored in fraternity and failed academics and graduated my freshman year with a point six grade average. You can well imagine, gentlemen, that did not sit well with my grandfather and my mother and my family. Remember, failure was not going to be tolerated in my family. And I returned home at 18 years of age of failure in my family's eyes. And Don, I remember that summer when I returned home, I barely got my bags unpacked. That summer, I found myself on an airplane one Friday night. [00:27:58] Just 18 years of age flying to California. [00:28:02] That Friday evening, I landed in San Diego that evening. And I wasn't greeted by friends that evening. I wasn't greeted by relatives that evening. Walking off the airplane that evening, I was greeted by five loving drill instructors at the Marine Corps Recruit Training Depot. [00:28:24] And I was literally thrown in the back of a pickup and I was driven to the recruit training depot to begin my nine months of boot camp. And gentlemen, you can well imagine the name Adolf Coors what the next six years of my life were like. David, I was driven to succeed. Any price. I was in boot camp about 30 seconds, and I realize that if I didn't get awful tough very quick, I was not going to survive. Nine months of boot camp. Was that simple? Over the next six years, my body weight went from one hundred ninety five pounds to two hundred and seventy five pounds. In that void in my heart that I've told you about, is that one of our hearts in that void. I put a tough, macho Marine frame, 20 inch arms, a fifty four inch, just twenty two inch neck karate and the martial arts. Akino became my gods. You know, it's amazing how we can mask our insecurities, isn't it, guys, we all have a way of masking our insecurities. And I hid behind 275 pounds, full of anger, full of bitterness. But, you know, it's amazing we wouldn't worry so much about what other people think of us if we don't, how seldom we they do. [00:29:52] Back in those days, I was what you call a light eater. Every morning when it became light, I would start eating. [00:30:02] There's a ugly five-letter word guys called pride. And pride goes before our destruction, gentleman, and a hearty spirit before a man's downfall. Well, obviously, I made it six years as a Marine, escaped death on countless occasions. And just before I returned home to my family. I learned from my mother one tragic morning that my oldest sister, just 27 years of age, living in the state of Illinois. The proud mother of a brand new baby son. That morning had been diagnosed with incurable cancer. [00:30:43] Twenty seven years of age. Gentlemen, are you putting your faith and trust in your good health tonight? Are you? [00:30:52] Your athletic ability, your good looks, your academic prowess, all these things we put our faith and trust in, is that what you're trustees tonight? You remember the psalmist, David warns us 3000 years ago, he said our days are few and they're very brief. Thirteen months after my sister was diagnosed with cancer, she stepped from this life, gentlemen, into the next. And we all face death in this room. Every one of us. And we need to be reminded that as a tree falls, so must that tree lie. And as a man lives, so must he die. And as a man dies, so must he be. All through the days of eternity. Gentlemen, is your passport for eternity in order tonight, is it? Is it an order? You may need that passport. I may need that passport sooner than we dare think. [00:31:58] Somebody once said that marriages are made in heaven, but then again, so are thunder and lightning. [00:32:06] And I returned home twenty nine years ago to marry my high school sweetheart. But you know, guys, many girls marry a man just like their fathers. And then people wonder why their mothers cry at weddings. Twenty nine years ago, LBJ, my beautiful bride, and I began our union together. Which, you know, I'll never forget the day that we were married, David, walking down the aisle with the girl of my dreams, a girl I dated all through high school, a girl of my dreams on my right arm, Don walking down the aisle of the largest church in Denver. Hundreds of people have come to see us get married that afternoon. [00:32:53] On my right arm was the girl of my dreams. [00:32:55] But as I looked at her at the ride out of the right side of my eyes, I looked at her from I looked as beautiful girl. And I knew I knew here she wasn't going to feel that boy. And gentlemen, I'll tell you tonight, that beautiful wife that's home waiting for you tonight. That wife of yours, God's gift to you. That girl was never meant to fill your void either. Not really. Not permanently reserved for one relationship. Don't put that burden on your wife to fill that void in your heart. Gentlemen, don't do that. [00:33:27] That's unfair. [00:33:31] You know, we're funny as human beings. We spend money, we don't have to buy things we don't need in order to try to impress people, we really can't stand. [00:33:41] And that describes the first eight years of my marriage to B.J., my beautiful wife. I graduate from the University of Denver School of Business. One of the top of my class driven to succeed. Just a few days after I graduate from University Denver School of Business, I walked into a hospital one evening, the largest hospital in Denver, and that evening, Don, where my wife, her doctor and myself, there were three of us that night and then poof, there were four laid off cause the fifth my first son 25 years ago came into this world. Now, gentlemen, you can go back and tell your friends that cause does come in fits. But guys, as much as I love my son, in fact, I am blessed with two wonderful boys twenty five and twenty, I love them as I know you love your kids, those beautiful kids of ours. Gentlemen were not meant to fill that void. Nah, not permanently. It was just after he was born that driven to succeed. I began to invest millions of dollars into the real estate market of Colorado trying to impress my real estate friends. I began to invest millions of dollars into the stock and bond markets of this world. In fact, I was trained as a commodity specialist in New York. You're putting your faith and trust in your investments tonight, are you? [00:35:19] I used to go home every Friday night. I used to get The Wall Street Journal out. I used to get a calculator out. I used to calculate my net worth every Friday night before I went home. And if my net worth had raised that didn't increase that week, I would go home and out. Have a great weekend. If my net worth had declined during that week, I would have a horrible weekend. [00:35:42] Well, gentlemen, in a brief period of about two years, my investments went against me. I had the best minds in the business working with me, the best minds in the business. My investments went against me and I was facing personal bankruptcy about two years later. Don't put your faith and trust in your investments, guys. Don't make that mistake. Please don't do that. A fool and his money are soon parted. A fool and his money. 1972, I went to work for the largest single brewery in the world. Two thousand acres in Golden, Colorado, had my name on the outside of the building, the Adolph Cougars Company. Two thousand acres. I had to learn the business from the ground up. Which often meant many nights without sleep, many days without returning home to my wife and son. As I began to climb the corporate ladder of success, whatever that nebulous term means, one morning about a year later, I was getting into my sports car to travel home. I hadn't slept in three days. I had a 25 mile drive each day from our brewery to our home in Littleton, Colorado, that morning, I made twenty three of those twenty five miles, I was traveling at a high rate of speed. Two hundred seventy five pounds. Nobody was ever gonna hurt me again. Invincible. [00:37:14] Tough. [00:37:17] Well, gentlemen, it's amazing what a head on collision can do to a tough module Marine frame traveling at a high rate of speed. My body went through the windshield as my car hit another car at the crest of a hill hit on. [00:37:32] Putting your faith and trust in your good health tonight. All right. Thank you, tough. Thank the world can't get to you. I would just like. I'm getting real, guys, I'm getting real some of your squirming. [00:37:49] I told you I was going to get real, my two hundred seventy five pound body went through the windshield of my sports car in a millisecond, my goal of becoming a karate master evaporated as my knees shattered as they hit the dashboard. [00:38:04] My brain was a mass of scrambled eggs. Six days and. Unconscious. Two years in recovery. Two years. Got my attention two years. [00:38:22] It was during that two year period of time, gentlemen, that the God who loves us so much slowed me down long enough to put me on my back. You know what he was doing? He was saying, Adolf, I want to talk to you. Adolf, I love you. I want to say some things to you, Adolf course. And you know what he was telling me? He was saying, Adolf, get a good look at your life. You've got a marriage is headed for divorce, Adolf, cause you've got a four year old son at home and you don't even know you don't have time for friends. And gentlemen, I began to ask myself three questions. One, I want to pose to every one of you sitting here tonight over and over again. I would ask myself, Adolph Coors, who are you really? [00:39:10] David, I would ask myself, Adolph Coors, why are you here really? [00:39:16] And where are you going with the rest of your life? Really? Gentlemen, I didn't have the foggiest idea I was going from promotion to promotion, from airplane to airplane, from boat to boat, from travel to travel. I could go anywhere. I wanted to go play park golf and a golf course in this world by anything I wanted. I'm not bragging, I'm just saying that's what it was like. But inside here, Gemma was avoid it was getting so big you could drive a truck through it. And then something happened. Gentlemen, I want you to listen to very carefully. Something happened one evening just out of common courtesy, Don. I invited one of our senior vice presidents home for dinner. My father had hired this man, I'd known him, I'd hunted with him as a little boy. He was a very successful man, one of our senior vice presidents. I invited him over for dinner. I was training under him to take his position. He was going to leave in a matter of a few months and I was going to step into a vice president's position. My goal was right on schedule. [00:40:21] I was headed right straight to the top or so I thought into that dining room. That evening came this gentleman and his beautiful wife. The conversation at our dining room table, we talked about sports, we talked about politics, we talked about beer, lots of beer. But then suddenly the conversation became silent. And then just out of common courtesy, my wife turned to this man's beautiful wife. Her name was Vera. And b.j.'s as beer on it. An interesting question. P.J. Severo, what are your interests in life expecting that Vera would say, well, my home or my career or my children? That's not what she said that evening. Vera Sunde very quickly looked at my wife in her eyes. She said, B.J., one interest in life, that interest is serving Jesus Christ. Gentlemen, this was a Wednesday evening. I looked at my watch. It was 7:30, just about what time it is here tonight. I looked at my watch and I thought to myself, we're gonna invite these people to go home right now. I mean, that's exactly what I thought. [00:41:31] You don't talk about religion on a Wednesday night. [00:41:34] That's for Sunday. But you know, guys, this couple love my wife and I enough that over the next five hours, five hours in our dining room table, they open up their lives to me. That evening, I learned something that I needed to do here. I learned that 2000 years ago, a fact of history. God stepped out of eternity and into time. And the very person who his one and only unique son. A fact of history. I'd learned about his son, Jesus Christ, in Sunday school every Sunday. Growing up, I knew about him. But that evening I learned that I needed to put my faith and trust in Jesus Christ. And he loves us so much that he sent his only son to die for you and me. If we would put our faith in Jesus Christ, we will never perish. Gentlemen, we will have everlasting life with him. And then that evening I learned something. It really hurt. I knew it. But I heard it from this man. I learned that it causes a very, very sinful man, a very prideful man, a man broken off from his relationship with his creator. [00:42:53] German. I learned that evening that because of my separation from the God who made me, I could not know his love and plan for my life. I also learned that until that barrier was separated, I would not know his plan and avoid my heart was never going to get filled. My life would really have no meaning and purpose. And then when I died, I would have eternity separated from him. You see, gentlemen, God has a unique plan for each one of us in this room, but because of our pride and our rebellion, that barrier that separates us from God separates us from knowing that plan for our lives. That evening, I learned that an order to bridge that barrier, I must put my ultimate faith and trust in God's provision for me. And I also learned that evening that I could not do this for my wife and she couldn't do it for me. We need to individually reach out and receive God's gift. Each one of us needs to reach out and receive that gift. And to those of us who reach out and receive that gift, he gives us the privilege and the right to become his children. You know, this couple was leaving our dining room 1:30 the next morning and this man stopped me dead in my tracks in our driveway. When he said the following, he said. He said, Adolph. You know what your trouble is? Adolph, you're putting your faith and trust in the things of this world. [00:44:21] I'm putting my faith and trust in a $2 billion brewery, putting my faith and trust in a big six figure paycheck, putting my faith and trust in an airplane at the airport, a boat, a beautiful home in the mountains, putting my faith and trust in my marriage, my things. My wife stopped me dead in our tracks, getting to bed that evening. She said, you know, she said, honey, this couple's got something. We don't have it. [00:44:52] It was three days later that my wife slowed down her life long enough to recognize the void in her heart was not getting filled. And my wife several days later said a very simple prayer. Prayer. We're going to pray together. And just a few short minutes and gentlemen, avoid it. I tried to feel for seven years of marriage, was instantly filled that morning, as she said yes to God's provision for her. My wife's never been the same since. I think it was Phyllis Diller who said, never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight. Our marriage wasn't working, gentlemen. It wasn't working. And still, several days after she made this decision, I walked out on my wife and my son of four years thinking divorce might feel. My board walked into one of the best hotels in downtown Denver. You know, while was separated from my beautiful wife of good friend of mine gave me a book that I recommend to every father and every husband in this room tonight. It's a book called Do Yourself a Favor Love Your Wife. Written by Pastor Paige Williams, a pastor from Florida. Gentlemen, I cried my way through that book several times. I cried my way through that. [00:46:09] You know, I used to think that a macho man, a tough man, a neat man, you know, macho guy was a guy who could drink his buddies under the table, who could earn a lot of money, who could buy all the things you want to buy all these things. [00:46:22] I thought that's what a real man was. But, you know, this book told me what a real man is, a real man as one who has his priorities in line with the God who made us. There are four of them, gentlemen. They're so simple. We missed. The most important priority we will ever have as human beings is to know the God who made us and know him in a personal way. It's the most important relationship you'll ever have. The second most important relationship, gentlemen, is the love that wife waiting for you at home tonight to love her. But, guys, we can't love our wife and our own strength. We simply can't do it. And love has to come from the God who made us. It's a very special love. The third most important relationship is the love. Those kids you're blessed with at home. You see, gentlemen, all children are the living messages we send to a time we're never going to see. And then the fourth most important relationship is to have true friends. I'm not talking about business associates. I'm not talking about golfing buddies or drinking buddies. I had plenty of those. I'm talking about a person who will attend your funeral someday and not look at his or her watch. And I had none of those, none of the above or even close making lots of money, had titles going to the top of the head, of course, company. I was going to do it. But it was about a week later that I went to hear a man speak at the request of a friend. I didn't want to go hear him. Just like some of you here tonight are here because somebody wanted you here. But you really don't want to come. But you're here at the request of a friend. And that afternoon, I walked into this auditorium surrounded by thousands of people. [00:48:08] And I'll tell you what, I did not want to be there, but that afternoon. As this man began to talk, I learned something and I needed to hear. I learned that my salvation is found and no one else. [00:48:28] There is no other name under heaven given whereby you and I gentlemen can be saved. No other name but Jesus Christ. You know, Marines don't cry cause men never cry. But that afternoon, as this man shared, tears began rolling out of my eyes. I began to cry uncontrollably. [00:48:51] That afternoon, I learned that for 30 years the God of this universe had been knocking right here in my heart, but I've been running from him so hard. [00:48:57] I was a driven man, driven. But that afternoon I slowed my life down long enough to hear the God of this universe knocking right here in my heart. And I just man closed in prayer. He asked me to make a decision. He asked. Every one of us to make a decision. And that afternoon, I recognized my voice wasn't getting filled. That afternoon, I said yes to God's provision for me. And I said yes in a very short prayer. Avoid I tried to fill for 30 years, was instantly filled. [00:49:32] My life's never been the same since, gentlemen, I travel all over this world sharing with successful people just like you, my wife and I got back together again about a week later. You know, gentlemen, a good marriage is a union of two. Forgive us. A good marriage is not finding the right person. A good marriage is becoming the right person for your wife. And gentlemen, don't make the mistake of basing your marriage on feelings. Don't make that mistake. If you gentlemen feelings come and go in a ebony flow. Here's a triangle, gentlemen. Here's a triangle at the top of this triangle is the relationship with Jesus Christ. You are over here and your wife is over here. The closer you draw to the God who made you, the closer you become as husband and wife, the closer you become as husband and wife. [00:50:34] Simple physics. [00:50:37] It was not long after I got back together again with my wife that I was able to sit down one morning with my mother who was near death. My my mother was 44 years of age at the time. My father was murdered in 1960. [00:50:50] Over the next 15 years, my mother cultivated a hatred for the man who killed her husband. My dad and I cannot describe you. Hatred, killers. [00:51:00] Hate will kill you. It'll kill me. And the dead and the pain about hate. My mother tried to drown her songs and alcohol. Alcohol will kill us guys and kill us. If used excessively, alcohol will kill us. [00:51:15] One morning I was able to share with my mother the greatest news in the universe as I share the love of Jesus Christ with my mom. 72 hours after I said goodbye to her on that Wednesday morning, she had a massive stroke in the home of friends, fell down a flight of stairs and never regained consciousness. But gentlemen, to those of us tonight who know Jesus Christ. Death is not a period. No, death is not a period. Death is a comma in the story of life. Gentlemen, we are really not ready to live until we're ready to die. That's why I asked you at the beginning of my time with you, I asked you, this is your passport for eternity in order. This is heavy stuff, guys. Heavy stuff. [00:52:04] Is your passport for eternity in order? [00:52:08] I shared this message with a successful business couple in North Carolina five years ago and an event just like this. That evening, as we closed in prayer, they made a decision for Jesus Christ. That evening, they got into their car to return home to their kids. Two blocks from the event. They were hit head on by another automobile. [00:52:31] They never made it home, never made it home. [00:52:37] This decision I want to ask you to make in about a minute cannot be made when God Gell-Mann has to be made. When we're here, we're alive. [00:52:47] We'll never know who we are, gentlemen, until we know whose we are. [00:52:52] And I'm going to ask you to do something for me tonight as you go home after a busy day. I want you to put your head down on your pillow tonight. I want you to think. I want you to get a real what you get very quiet. I want you to think about all these things you're putting in that void in your heart tonight, gentlemen. I don't know any of you, really. I want you to think about what you're stuffing in here. Your success at the office. Maybe your bank account. Maybe your athletic prowess stuffed in here, your drive. You succeed at any price stuffed in here, your toys in the driveway, stuffed in here. That promotion coming up, that trip this summer, stuffed in here at Cute Girl at the office. Well, if I could just get her between the sheets. Is she going to make me happy? I played those games. You know, I played those games, too. I know what I know. That's going to be stuffed in here. I want you to ask yourself this first question. So what somewhat. [00:53:57] But before you doze off tonight, gentlemen, I want you to ask yourself an infinitely more important question. [00:54:02] I want you to ask yourself now what? Because, gentlemen, in life, as in any other race, crossing the finish line first makes no difference. If upon crossing that finish line, you suddenly discover that the race you've been running all these years to the crowds while cheering just perhaps might be down the wrong track. I ran a race for 30 years. Down the wrong track nearly cost me my marriage at nearly cost me my life. It cost me several fortunes. Cost me a relationship with my first son for four years of his life. If you've never claimed your inheritance and haven't by professing Jesus Christ tonight, gentlemen, I'll promise you this. Everything that you do on this earth will be totally in vain. I promise you. [00:54:58] And I know there's a couple of you in his room tonight are thinking, well, Adolf Cougar's I'll deal with God later. I've got my career to think about. I got my family to think about. I'll deal with God later. Yeah. Gentlemen, you should Will. [00:55:10] But it won't be on your terms. I can promise you that. [00:55:17] So what? Now what? [00:55:25] Well, laid off, I got to go to church twice a year. I'm a good person. I'm going to heaven on our head off. I'm a good I'm a good guy. I'm going to heaven. If you believe that any religion is a vehicle of entry to heaven, if you believe what I'm sharing with you tonight is a religion, gentlemen. Think again. This is not a religion I'm talking about tonight. This is not a religion because religion won't do. You and me, I look good. There's a barrier that separates us from our God. It's called our pride and rebellion. And because of that barrier, Jesus Christ had to come to die. The most agonizing death called crucifixion of history. And three days after he died, he walked out of that tomb and ascended into heaven. Irrefutable proof that what I'm dealing with tonight is not a religion, but is God the God of this universe? We're dealing with God himself, and he wants to do business with you tonight. Eternal business. But I'm not going to promise you that if you make this decision is your life is going to become trouble free from here on out. Because the Christian life, gentlemen, is not a trouble free life. But there's a savior knocking on your heart right now who says, my peace, I give with you my peace I give to you tonight. My peace I leave with you. Are you tired of carrying the burdens of this life by yourself? You would never meant to carry those burdens by yourself. [00:56:44] He wants to carry those burdens for you tonight for the rest of your life. And he promises us you'll never leave us. You'll never forsake us. But tragically, some of you are gonna get into your car in the next 10 minutes. You're gonna leave here and you're gonna go back to your offices tomorrow morning. You're gonna forget everything I said, and that's your choice. But if you believe that any way to heaven is okay, if you believe that your good looks, your talent, your money is gonna get you to heaven. I want to leave you with one last thought before I turn it back over to Don for the conclusion. Just hours before Jesus Christ went to Calvary's cross to die for you and me, gentlemen, one of his disciples one morning stopped him dead in his tracks. Man's name was Thomas, a Jew. Thomas had been following Jesus for three years. Thomas as Jesus Christ. A very important question that morning. Thomas said, Jesus. Are you the Messiah? Are you the way to heaven, Jesus? Are you the one we've been waiting for all these centuries? I couldn't ask a more important question. Who is Jesus to you gentlemen? Jesus turned to Thomas that morning and listened to what he said. If you believe truth is relative. If you believe your talents, you're going to get you where you want to go. Jesus turned to Thomas that morning. [00:58:12] Is the Thomas. I'm the way I am. De-wei Thomas. I'm the life Thomas. I am the truth. No, man. Thomas comes to God the father. But through me no one goes to heaven, Thomas. But through me, not religion. Right out the window. Gentlemen, it knocks your talents and my talents right out the window. It's so simple. We miss it. It's faith in Christ. Guys, it's that simple. Doesn't take a rocket scientist. It's so simple. We miss it. Don't miss it tonight, guys. Don't miss it. Because none of us know how much time we have, none of us do. Your wife is not wired. Your life is not wired. Don't think it is. Not wired. So I won't ask you to make a decision now as I leave you. I couldn't give you a better gift than one about to give you an opportunity to say yes to this God. This knocking on your heart right now wants to come in. He wants to change you, and he wants you to have an impact on this city. He wants you to be a father and a husband. That you were created to be a successful business manager. You were created to be all along. He wants to change you from the inside out. If anything I have said to you tonight, gentlemen, if anything I have said to you makes any sense at all and you hear that knocking on your heart. [00:59:31] Please don't leave here without making that decision. Please don't do that because this decision determines where you spend eternity says. It's the most important decision you will ever make. I'm gonna ask you to make it right now. Close your eyes. [00:59:55] Get real quiet. This is between you and God, between you and your creator. Listen to that. Knocking on your heart. Listen to it. I pray this out loud. I want you to pray silently. And I want you to meet you with all your heart. Lord Jesus, I need you. And by an act of my will tonight, I open the door of my heart in my life and I receive you as savior. Lord, I understand for the first time tonight that I have run from you all these years. I have rebelled and sinned against you countless times. But tonight, I want to thank you for forgiving all of my son, my rebellion, my pride. I want to thank you for your death on that cross for me. Take control of my life tonight and make me into the kind of man, the kind of husband, the kind of father, the kind of human being. You created me to be. Thank you for coming into my heart in life right now and granting me eternity with you as you have. So promise to me. It's in Jesus Christ name. I do pray a man. And I want to thank all of you for listening. And I trust that my time has meant something to you. God bless all. P060 [/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
Transcription (was completed by automated process. Please ignore any speech-to-text errors) Coping when life falls apart - Adolph Coors IV [00:00:00] Hey, this is Beatty Carmichael, and I want to do something very special on this podcast and take a kind of divergence from my normal podcast. I want to share a recording from a. I call him a friend. I've met him by phone a number times, never in person. And it's a man whose name you'll probably recognize. You may not recognize his name, but you'll definitely recognize the same his name. And that is Adolph Coors, IV. And as we go through these very challenging times, everything is uncertain. Well, it seems like everything's caving in around us with the Coronavirus and businesses being shut and their livelihoods are being strangled. And we just don't know what's going on and what the next thing is. It brought to mind this recording that Adolf gave me permission to share and his history of going through this intense, dramatic struggles to the point of death. Thoughts of suicide, losing everything important in his life. Just trying to make sense of it all. And it's an amazing story that I think you'll find a lot of encouragement in and one that I think you will if you're like most people who've listened to, will find this to be one and the most touching and life changing stories that you've heard. So with no further ado, I introduce to you, Adolf Coors IV. [00:01:36] Our speaker tonight, Mr. Adolph Coors. The fourth is certainly an outstanding example of a biographical speaker. Mr. Coors is the great grandson of Adolph Herman Joseph Coors, who was the founder of the Adolph Coors Brewing Company of Golden, Colorado. His father was Adolph cause the third and at the end was chairman of the board of the Family Business. When Mr. Coors the fourth was 14 years of age, his father was kidnapped and brutally murdered and being the oldest son of the family, his teenage years, as you might expect, were difficult at best as the family attempted to deal with their great loss. Mr. Coors spent three years in the United States Marine Corps. He was a cold weather survival training instructor. He developed a fervor for discipline that led him into extreme bodybuilding, the martial arts and a strict health food regimen. And I think when you see him, if you haven't seen him yet, when he stands up here, he still carries that frame rather nicely. He was really driven, though, to succeed at any price. After graduate from University of Denver School of Business, he spent two years with the New York firm of Sheraton, Hamilton and Company as a commodity specialist. [00:03:02] And once he left the rigors of the commodity business, he spent about six years working with the Adolph Coors Company. And various departments, in his experience, ranges from marketing and strategic planning, sales, borrowing, quality control and financial planning. Mr. Coors left the family brewing business in 1979 and he became the investment advisor for his immediate family. In addition, he also founded the national marketing company called Atco Enterprises. He has served on the board of directors of the Prison Fellowship Ministries, which is an internal national prison ministry, was founded by Chuck Colson in Washington, D.C.. He serves on the board of directors of the Family Ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ. And he also has a on the board advisors for kanika camp, which is a Christian camp in Branson, Missouri, which I know a lot of people who are here tonight have ties to that idea through children or through personal experience. Mr. Cooper's and his wife, B.J., have been married since 1967, and they live in Englewood, Colorado. He has two sons. Please join me in giving a warm Bermingham. Welcome to Adolph Cause the Fourth. [00:04:32] Good evening, gentlemen. [00:04:38] Dawn, thank you very much for that kind introduction. [00:04:44] And I want to thank you, gentlemen, for taking time out of I know it's been a very busy day for all of you to be a part of this dinner tonight. And I particularly want to thank Phil Retik, young business leaders and all those who have worked very hard to make this evening a reality. Continue, gentlemen, eating your dinner if you have not finished. But while you're eating, I'm going to ask that you do lend me. And here, you know, I'll be very honest with you guys. I wish somebody had loved me enough about 30 years ago to invite me to a dinner like this. And I believe that we're all here together because of a divine appointment. I don't think believe anything happens by accident. So I'm going to ask that even though you're eating your dinner but or you are not finished with your dinner, just please let me in here, because I'm going to put up my family to you gentlemen. I'm going to be very vulnerable to you tonight. We're going to laugh together and we're going to maybe even cry a little bit together. I'm going to share with you the Adolph Coors family, as Don mentioned, a family that's recognized all over this world. It's been a very interesting family, gentlemen, to grow up in. Well, before I get into my personal story, I want to relay a story that I came across recently that really, really made an impact on me and saw before I get into my own personal story, I want to share with you the story that goes like this. Listen very carefully. [00:06:31] One foggy night, a captain of a very large ship saw what appeared to be another ship's lights approaching in the distance. There's another ship was on a course that would mean a certain head on collision. And quickly, the captain signaled to the approaching ship, please change your course, 10 degrees west. And the reply came blinking back through the thick fog that evening. You change your course 10 degrees east insulted. The captain pulled rank and shot a message back to the other ship. The message said, I am a sea captain with 35 years of experience. Change your course. Ten degrees west. Without hesitation, the signal flashed back. I'm a seaman. Fourth class. You change your course 10 degrees east to pattern forming here. Enraged, the captain realized that they were rapidly approaching one another and would certainly crash within a few short minutes. And so he blazed. Gentlemen, he blazed his final warning. And the warning was this. I am a fifty thousand tonne freighter. Change your course. Ten degrees west now. A simple message came blinking back through the thick fog that night, and that simple message was this. I am a lighthouse. I'm a lighthouse, you change your course now. True story, guys. True story. And like that sea captain, we as human beings need to change course. Gentlemen, when we're confronted with the truth and over 20 years ago, I was confronted with a truth. One evening when I learned an incredible fact. I learned that the God of this universe that I didn't particularly have much time for, to be honest with you. When I learned that the God of this universe, who created me, who created each one of us in this room, I learned about the incredible love that he has for each one of us gentlemen. They each each one of us in this room. Now, grant me the privilege. It is a privilege for me to be able to stand before you tonight. Grant me the unique privilege of being able to share with you a journey that literally changed the course of my life. I'd like that sea captain, guys. I was headed for certain destruction. [00:09:41] The name Adolph Cause, as Don mentioned, is a name recognized all over this world. [00:09:47] Back in 1868, at the age of twenty eight years of age, my great grandfather, Adolph Herman Joseph Coors, twice orphaned at the age of 14 with a dream in his heart without a penny to his name, stowed one day aboard a steamer headed for America. [00:10:11] He hid onboard that steamer, and several weeks later he landed in the city of Baltimore. And a year and a half later, he found himself in a small mining town called Denver, Colorado, in the spring of eighteen seventy two. [00:10:32] A year later, he convinced a business partner, a friend of his, a very successful businessman in Denver. He convinced this gentleman to buy an old tannery building in a small town called Golden, Colorado. Golden has located 20 miles west of Denver, on the edge of the foothills. And those two enterprising young men bought an old tannery building in Golden and formed what was then known as the shooter, Coors Brewing Company. [00:11:01] And it began to make beer and served that beer to the miners working in the mining camps above Golden. Seven years after that fledgling little brewery got started it all. Herman Joseph cause my great granddad bought his business partner out and formed what is now known worldwide as the Adolph Coors Company. Gentlemen, this is truly one of the great success stories in American industry. And 51 years ago, I was born into this unique family, gentlemen, a family much like yours. Tonight, a family that has aspiring hopes and grand dreams. And I know you had your hopes and your dreams tonight as well. And that's good. I was blessed with two wonderful parents. I had two older sisters and a younger brother. And as a family growing up, we did everything together. I have fond memories of the first 14 years of my life. [00:12:10] But looking in the eyes of my father and looking in the eyes of my grand dad and hearing the stories of my great grandfather, I learned at a young age I learned that failure was not going to be tolerated in my family. [00:12:26] I learned that there was a certain pecking order in my family and I was going to fit in with that pecking order based upon three things. I was going to either be accepted into this family or rejected this family based upon looks. Based upon how well I did in school and based upon how well I performed on the athletic fields growing up, that was the pecking order in our family. If you did well in school, if you looked well and you perform well as an athlete, you would be accepted in this family. You know, I remember looking in the eyes of my father, and I remember him telling me in so many eyes, so many, so many ways. He was saying, son, you better perform in this family if you're gonna be accepted. You better perform. In other words, gentlemen, I was raised in a family, what I would call conditional love. But I want you to file this back in your mind. You know, I wish somebody had loved me enough as a young boy. I wish somebody had sat me down. I wish they would have told me this. I wish they would have said it off course. What good is it going to be if you gain the whole world? Gentlemen, I was after the whole world. What good is it going to be if you gain the whole world, Adolph Coors. But in the process of gaining this world, you end up losing your soul. I never heard that guy's never heard. You know, I wish somebody loved me enough to tell me, Adolf, if you live for the next world, you're gonna gain this one in the deal. [00:13:57] You'll gain it in the deal. But if you live strictly for this world, you're gonna end up losing them both. I never heard that. You know what I heard growing up in this wonderful family? About the same thing that many of you in this room are hearing right now. I heard that he who dies with the most toys wins this game called life. Is that your philosophy tonight, gentlemen? Have you bought into the lie that if you die with the most toys, you're gonna win this game called life? I hope you don't believe that tonight. If you do believe that tonight, I want to get very personal with you. I want to ask you two questions. The first question I want to ask you is, what do you win, gentlemen? What do you really win? And then more importantly, I want to ask you this. Where does that prize you're looking for? Where does that prize get delivered? Where is it going to be delivered? I want to take you three thousand years in the past. I want to take you. I want us to sit down and I want you to hear the words of one of the wisest men who has ever lived. His name was David the Psalmist, David, one of the wisest and one of the wealthiest men this world has ever seen. Listen to what David tells you and me as business. [00:15:18] Today in 1996, he says, Gentlemen, our days are few and our days are very brief. [00:15:28] Like the grass, like the flowers blown by the wind and gone forever. Think about those words, gentlemen. This life there we're living is nothing but a training ground. It's a training ground for where we are going to spend eternity because you see, gentlemen, you are used to making decisions. You're very successful businessman. I know who I'm talking to tonight. I know I'm in respect of you. I'm an all of you. I know who I'm talking to tonight. You're very successful, gentlemen. I know you. You are. But gentlemen, this is nothing but a training ground as one decision we have to make as human beings while we're on this Earth. One most important decision. I'm going to ask you to make that decision before I leave here tonight, because it's a decision it will determine where we spend eternity. Is that important? And I will get to that decision in just a few minutes. I want to take you tonight to a cemetery outside of the town of London, England. And I'm going to take you to two grave markers. The first grave marker reads, She died for want of things. [00:16:42] True story. Right next to that grave marker is another grave market. I'll bet you can't guess what that grave marker says was a grave marker of her husband. A grave marker reads He died trying to give these things to her general. That is a sad commentary, a sad commentary on how two lives were wasted, believing, buying into the lie that the things of this world could make them happy. I bought into that lie for 31 years of my life. Gentlemen, I want to share with you where that philosophy took me and the tragedy it brought to my family. It caused me a tremendous amount of pain and heartache. You see, gentlemen, life is wasted if we're basing our life on the things of this world. You see, tomorrow, some of us life is consists of a materialistic if only, if only I could get that new job. That job would make me happy. If only I could get that new car, I could buy that new toy, I could marry that pretty girl, I could get that raise. [00:17:59] That would make me happy. [00:18:02] But you see, gentlemen, I learned many years ago that life is wasted in the endless pursuit of these things, because even if we achieve them and you've achieved many of these things, those things really don't bring us what we're looking for. [00:18:18] You see, chasing after pleasure is really a confession of an unsatisfied life. Now, I want to get very personal, every one of us in this room are created by a God who loves us with an immense love. Now, why do you believe that tonight makes no difference? He's there and he loves us. And he creates you and me with a unique blueprint. You have a blueprint for your life. Gentlemen. No other human being has ever had in the face of this earth. We're created different except for one way. There's one thing that knits you and I together tonight, guys. One thing that makes you and me the same. And that one thing that knits us together tonight is when we're born into this world, the God who created us creates us batteries, not included. In other words, there is something missing in our lives, a spiritual vacuum, if you will, an emptiness. And many of us go through this life and we try to fill that void in our hearts. We try to fill it with our careers. We try to fill it with our athletic achievements. We try to fill it with our own importance, with titles, with material possessions, even with our family members. General, let me tell you. For somebody who's done that for 31 years of my life, let me tell you, these things were never meant to fill that void in your heart and mine. They were never meant to do it. [00:19:50] That's reserved for one very special relationship. [00:19:54] That's why John D Rockefeller senior, when he just before he died, said the following. And let me quote this man. It was very successful. He said, I have made billions, but these billions have brought me no happiness. That's why Henry Ford senior, just before he died, turned to one of his best friends one day and he said, sir, he said, My friend, I was happier when I was a mechanic. Now, why could these guys, these successful businessmen, why could they say these things? For the same reason? I could say at 20 years ago when I realized the void, my heart wasn't getting filled. So I want us gentlemen tonight, I want you to slow down your life long enough tonight, I want you to get real. I want you to slow down. I want you to listen. And I want us to really focus in tonight on some important issues. In the first 14 years of my life, gentlemen, Norman Rockwell couldn't have painted a pretty or picture. I was blessed, as I mentioned earlier, with a great family and as a family, we did everything together. But as a young boy, I made a tragic mistake, a mistake. I'll bet some of you are making in this room tonight. You don't even recognize it's a mistake. You see, the mistake I made was I put my faith and trust in a human being. And really for the first 14 years of my life, my father, it of course, the third was, my God. I worshipped him. You want to talk about a successful man? Here was a successful man. [00:21:34] Not only was my father chairman of the board of our brewing empire in Golden, Colorado. [00:21:42] He was a semi-pro baseball player, a scratch golfer, a gifted musician, an architect, an engineer, a rancher flew his own airplane. [00:21:55] One of the best tennis players ever seen in my life, one of these guys at everything he did, everything he did, David. [00:22:01] He did it to perfection. He was a driven man. [00:22:08] I idolized him, but gentlemen, for each one of us in this room, life brings many changes. [00:22:18] Some of these changes are sudden. Some of these changes are gradual. Some of these changes bring us a lot of happiness. But then again, some of these changes can bring us a tremendous amount of pain. There is a God in heaven, gentlemen, who loves us with an immense love and what he needs to tell us. He screams out to us. He says, enjoy my gifts. He wants us to enjoy his gifts. But he also warns us, gentlemen, not to put our faith and trust in these gifts. [00:22:50] Our faith and trust needs to be a very special relationship. [00:22:57] As Don mentioned in 1960, something happened to my family that violently tore apart a family that I'd put my faith and trust in. Thirty six years ago, this past February, my father, on his way to work one morning, stopped three miles from our home to help what he thought was a stranded motorist snowing hard that February morning, my father walked over to this man's car. But in that car was not a man who was experiencing car problems in that car was a man who had been stalking my father for two years. A man who in 1958 escaped from prison in California, a maximum security prison. A two time murder. There was a violent struggle on that bridge that morning, my father was a tough guy. And as my father was running back to his automobile that morning, Joseph Corbett pulled out a gun and proceeded to put multiple bullets in my father's back. Alive or dead? I'll never know, but the body of my father was stuffed in the trunk of this man's car and at 7.30 that morning they sped south seven long months. My sisters, my brother, my mother, myself, we all hope, beyond hope that dad would return. But gentlemen, that was not going to be the case is the remains of my father were found 40 miles south of our home, seven months almost to the day that he was kidnapped. You know, gentlemen, I had 14 years with that guy. And you know what I learned most about that man, what he taught me the most successful is he was he was very successful. [00:24:52] We had all the things. Gentlemen, this world says you have to have to be a success. We had a war. But, you know, my dad left me a legacy that I'll never, never forget. He taught me how to throw a curveball in our backyard. He taught me how to fly his airplane. He taught me how to hunt. He taught me how to fish. He taught me how to be a dad. You see, gentlemen, that's what I remember about my father, not how successful he was, Don. He was successful. But as a 14 year old boy, you don't care how much money your dad's making. You know what you care as a 14 year old boy. You know what you care the most about. When your dad comes home from work every afternoon, he spends time with you gentlemen at the other end of life. There won't be enough stocks, there won't be enough bonds, there won't be enough trophy's in your case at home, there won't be enough toys in your driveway to compensate for the loss of your wife and your kids. There simply will not be enough. And I'll bet there's at least one person in his room tonight whose career is number one in your life. I bet there's one, at least one. It's your career is running your life right now. Gentlemen, I beg you, if that's the case in your life and only you know who you are. If that's the case tonight, I beg you, go home, reprioritize your life. [00:26:15] Will you do that, please? I don't know here about in Birmingham, Alabama, but in Denver, Colorado, I have yet to see a U-Haul trailer hooked to a hearse going to the graveyard. In other words, Jumaa, what I'm telling you tonight, we're not going to take any of this stuff with us. None of it's going with us. You know what's going with us when we die. Our families are going with us. The legacy we leave to our kids are going with us. That's about it, gentlemen. That's about it. I graduated from high school shortly after my father's murder. I want to become an attorney. I was accepted at 17 years of age. I was accepted to one of the best law schools in the state of Georgia. Mercer University. Perhaps I'll have you heard. Mercer. Macon, Georgia. 17 years of age. Driven to succeed. I walked onto that campus, began my freshman year of pre-law, but instead of majoring in pre-law my freshman year, I majored in sorority and minored in fraternity and failed academics and graduated my freshman year with a point six grade average. You can well imagine, gentlemen, that did not sit well with my grandfather and my mother and my family. Remember, failure was not going to be tolerated in my family. And I returned home at 18 years of age of failure in my family's eyes. And Don, I remember that summer when I returned home, I barely got my bags unpacked. That summer, I found myself on an airplane one Friday night. [00:27:58] Just 18 years of age flying to California. [00:28:02] That Friday evening, I landed in San Diego that evening. And I wasn't greeted by friends that evening. I wasn't greeted by relatives that evening. Walking off the airplane that evening, I was greeted by five loving drill instructors at the Marine Corps Recruit Training Depot. [00:28:24] And I was literally thrown in the back of a pickup and I was driven to the recruit training depot to begin my nine months of boot camp. And gentlemen, you can well imagine the name Adolf Coors what the next six years of my life were like. David, I was driven to succeed. Any price. I was in boot camp about 30 seconds, and I realize that if I didn't get awful tough very quick, I was not going to survive. Nine months of boot camp. Was that simple? Over the next six years, my body weight went from one hundred ninety five pounds to two hundred and seventy five pounds. In that void in my heart that I've told you about, is that one of our hearts in that void. I put a tough, macho Marine frame, 20 inch arms, a fifty four inch, just twenty two inch neck karate and the martial arts. Akino became my gods. You know, it's amazing how we can mask our insecurities, isn't it, guys, we all have a way of masking our insecurities. And I hid behind 275 pounds, full of anger, full of bitterness. But, you know, it's amazing we wouldn't worry so much about what other people think of us if we don't, how seldom we they do. [00:29:52] Back in those days, I was what you call a light eater. Every morning when it became light, I would start eating. [00:30:02] There's a ugly five-letter word guys called pride. And pride goes before our destruction, gentleman, and a hearty spirit before a man's downfall. Well, obviously, I made it six years as a Marine, escaped death on countless occasions. And just before I returned home to my family. I learned from my mother one tragic morning that my oldest sister, just 27 years of age, living in the state of Illinois. The proud mother of a brand new baby son. That morning had been diagnosed with incurable cancer. [00:30:43] Twenty seven years of age. Gentlemen, are you putting your faith and trust in your good health tonight? Are you? [00:30:52] Your athletic ability, your good looks, your academic prowess, all these things we put our faith and trust in, is that what you're trustees tonight? You remember the psalmist, David warns us 3000 years ago, he said our days are few and they're very brief. Thirteen months after my sister was diagnosed with cancer, she stepped from this life, gentlemen, into the next. And we all face death in this room. Every one of us. And we need to be reminded that as a tree falls, so must that tree lie. And as a man lives, so must he die. And as a man dies, so must he be. All through the days of eternity. Gentlemen, is your passport for eternity in order tonight, is it? Is it an order? You may need that passport. I may need that passport sooner than we dare think. [00:31:58] Somebody once said that marriages are made in heaven, but then again, so are thunder and lightning. [00:32:06] And I returned home twenty nine years ago to marry my high school sweetheart. But you know, guys, many girls marry a man just like their fathers. And then people wonder why their mothers cry at weddings. Twenty nine years ago, LBJ, my beautiful bride, and I began our union together. Which, you know, I'll never forget the day that we were married, David, walking down the aisle with the girl of my dreams, a girl I dated all through high school, a girl of my dreams on my right arm, Don walking down the aisle of the largest church in Denver. Hundreds of people have come to see us get married that afternoon. [00:32:53] On my right arm was the girl of my dreams. [00:32:55] But as I looked at her at the ride out of the right side of my eyes, I looked at her from I looked as beautiful girl. And I knew I knew here she wasn't going to feel that boy. And gentlemen, I'll tell you tonight, that beautiful wife that's home waiting for you tonight. That wife of yours, God's gift to you. That girl was never meant to fill your void either. Not really. Not permanently reserved for one relationship. Don't put that burden on your wife to fill that void in your heart. Gentlemen, don't do that. [00:33:27] That's unfair. [00:33:31] You know, we're funny as human beings. We spend money, we don't have to buy things we don't need in order to try to impress people, we really can't stand. [00:33:41] And that describes the first eight years of my marriage to B.J., my beautiful wife. I graduate from the University of Denver School of Business. One of the top of my class driven to succeed. Just a few days after I graduate from University Denver School of Business, I walked into a hospital one evening, the largest hospital in Denver, and that evening, Don, where my wife, her doctor and myself, there were three of us that night and then poof, there were four laid off cause the fifth my first son 25 years ago came into this world. Now, gentlemen, you can go back and tell your friends that cause does come in fits. But guys, as much as I love my son, in fact, I am blessed with two wonderful boys twenty five and twenty, I love them as I know you love your kids, those beautiful kids of ours. Gentlemen were not meant to fill that void. Nah, not permanently. It was just after he was born that driven to succeed. I began to invest millions of dollars into the real estate market of Colorado trying to impress my real estate friends. I began to invest millions of dollars into the stock and bond markets of this world. In fact, I was trained as a commodity specialist in New York. You're putting your faith and trust in your investments tonight, are you? [00:35:19] I used to go home every Friday night. I used to get The Wall Street Journal out. I used to get a calculator out. I used to calculate my net worth every Friday night before I went home. And if my net worth had raised that didn't increase that week, I would go home and out. Have a great weekend. If my net worth had declined during that week, I would have a horrible weekend. [00:35:42] Well, gentlemen, in a brief period of about two years, my investments went against me. I had the best minds in the business working with me, the best minds in the business. My investments went against me and I was facing personal bankruptcy about two years later. Don't put your faith and trust in your investments, guys. Don't make that mistake. Please don't do that. A fool and his money are soon parted. A fool and his money. 1972, I went to work for the largest single brewery in the world. Two thousand acres in Golden, Colorado, had my name on the outside of the building, the Adolph Cougars Company. Two thousand acres. I had to learn the business from the ground up. Which often meant many nights without sleep, many days without returning home to my wife and son. As I began to climb the corporate ladder of success, whatever that nebulous term means, one morning about a year later, I was getting into my sports car to travel home. I hadn't slept in three days. I had a 25 mile drive each day from our brewery to our home in Littleton, Colorado, that morning, I made twenty three of those twenty five miles, I was traveling at a high rate of speed. Two hundred seventy five pounds. Nobody was ever gonna hurt me again. Invincible. [00:37:14] Tough. [00:37:17] Well, gentlemen, it's amazing what a head on collision can do to a tough module Marine frame traveling at a high rate of speed. My body went through the windshield as my car hit another car at the crest of a hill hit on. [00:37:32] Putting your faith and trust in your good health tonight. All right. Thank you, tough. Thank the world can't get to you. I would just like. I'm getting real, guys, I'm getting real some of your squirming. [00:37:49] I told you I was going to get real, my two hundred seventy five pound body went through the windshield of my sports car in a millisecond, my goal of becoming a karate master evaporated as my knees shattered as they hit the dashboard. [00:38:04] My brain was a mass of scrambled eggs. Six days and. Unconscious. Two years in recovery. Two years. Got my attention two years. [00:38:22] It was during that two year period of time, gentlemen, that the God who loves us so much slowed me down long enough to put me on my back. You know what he was doing? He was saying, Adolf, I want to talk to you. Adolf, I love you. I want to say some things to you, Adolf course. And you know what he was telling me? He was saying, Adolf, get a good look at your life. You've got a marriage is headed for divorce, Adolf, cause you've got a four year old son at home and you don't even know you don't have time for friends. And gentlemen, I began to ask myself three questions. One, I want to pose to every one of you sitting here tonight over and over again. I would ask myself, Adolph Coors, who are you really? [00:39:10] David, I would ask myself, Adolph Coors, why are you here really? [00:39:16] And where are you going with the rest of your life? Really? Gentlemen, I didn't have the foggiest idea I was going from promotion to promotion, from airplane to airplane, from boat to boat, from travel to travel. I could go anywhere. I wanted to go play park golf and a golf course in this world by anything I wanted. I'm not bragging, I'm just saying that's what it was like. But inside here, Gemma was avoid it was getting so big you could drive a truck through it. And then something happened. Gentlemen, I want you to listen to very carefully. Something happened one evening just out of common courtesy, Don. I invited one of our senior vice presidents home for dinner. My father had hired this man, I'd known him, I'd hunted with him as a little boy. He was a very successful man, one of our senior vice presidents. I invited him over for dinner. I was training under him to take his position. He was going to leave in a matter of a few months and I was going to step into a vice president's position. My goal was right on schedule. [00:40:21] I was headed right straight to the top or so I thought into that dining room. That evening came this gentleman and his beautiful wife. The conversation at our dining room table, we talked about sports, we talked about politics, we talked about beer, lots of beer. But then suddenly the conversation became silent. And then just out of common courtesy, my wife turned to this man's beautiful wife. Her name was Vera. And b.j.'s as beer on it. An interesting question. P.J. Severo, what are your interests in life expecting that Vera would say, well, my home or my career or my children? That's not what she said that evening. Vera Sunde very quickly looked at my wife in her eyes. She said, B.J., one interest in life, that interest is serving Jesus Christ. Gentlemen, this was a Wednesday evening. I looked at my watch. It was 7:30, just about what time it is here tonight. I looked at my watch and I thought to myself, we're gonna invite these people to go home right now. I mean, that's exactly what I thought. [00:41:31] You don't talk about religion on a Wednesday night. [00:41:34] That's for Sunday. But you know, guys, this couple love my wife and I enough that over the next five hours, five hours in our dining room table, they open up their lives to me. That evening, I learned something that I needed to do here. I learned that 2000 years ago, a fact of history. God stepped out of eternity and into time. And the very person who his one and only unique son. A fact of history. I'd learned about his son, Jesus Christ, in Sunday school every Sunday. Growing up, I knew about him. But that evening I learned that I needed to put my faith and trust in Jesus Christ. And he loves us so much that he sent his only son to die for you and me. If we would put our faith in Jesus Christ, we will never perish. Gentlemen, we will have everlasting life with him. And then that evening I learned something. It really hurt. I knew it. But I heard it from this man. I learned that it causes a very, very sinful man, a very prideful man, a man broken off from his relationship with his creator. [00:42:53] German. I learned that evening that because of my separation from the God who made me, I could not know his love and plan for my life. I also learned that until that barrier was separated, I would not know his plan and avoid my heart was never going to get filled. My life would really have no meaning and purpose. And then when I died, I would have eternity separated from him. You see, gentlemen, God has a unique plan for each one of us in this room, but because of our pride and our rebellion, that barrier that separates us from God separates us from knowing that plan for our lives. That evening, I learned that an order to bridge that barrier, I must put my ultimate faith and trust in God's provision for me. And I also learned that evening that I could not do this for my wife and she couldn't do it for me. We need to individually reach out and receive God's gift. Each one of us needs to reach out and receive that gift. And to those of us who reach out and receive that gift, he gives us the privilege and the right to become his children. You know, this couple was leaving our dining room 1:30 the next morning and this man stopped me dead in my tracks in our driveway. When he said the following, he said. He said, Adolph. You know what your trouble is? Adolph, you're putting your faith and trust in the things of this world. [00:44:21] I'm putting my faith and trust in a $2 billion brewery, putting my faith and trust in a big six figure paycheck, putting my faith and trust in an airplane at the airport, a boat, a beautiful home in the mountains, putting my faith and trust in my marriage, my things. My wife stopped me dead in our tracks, getting to bed that evening. She said, you know, she said, honey, this couple's got something. We don't have it. [00:44:52] It was three days later that my wife slowed down her life long enough to recognize the void in her heart was not getting filled. And my wife several days later said a very simple prayer. Prayer. We're going to pray together. And just a few short minutes and gentlemen, avoid it. I tried to feel for seven years of marriage, was instantly filled that morning, as she said yes to God's provision for her. My wife's never been the same since. I think it was Phyllis Diller who said, never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight. Our marriage wasn't working, gentlemen. It wasn't working. And still, several days after she made this decision, I walked out on my wife and my son of four years thinking divorce might feel. My board walked into one of the best hotels in downtown Denver. You know, while was separated from my beautiful wife of good friend of mine gave me a book that I recommend to every father and every husband in this room tonight. It's a book called Do Yourself a Favor Love Your Wife. Written by Pastor Paige Williams, a pastor from Florida. Gentlemen, I cried my way through that book several times. I cried my way through that. [00:46:09] You know, I used to think that a macho man, a tough man, a neat man, you know, macho guy was a guy who could drink his buddies under the table, who could earn a lot of money, who could buy all the things you want to buy all these things. [00:46:22] I thought that's what a real man was. But, you know, this book told me what a real man is, a real man as one who has his priorities in line with the God who made us. There are four of them, gentlemen. They're so simple. We missed. The most important priority we will ever have as human beings is to know the God who made us and know him in a personal way. It's the most important relationship you'll ever have. The second most important relationship, gentlemen, is the love that wife waiting for you at home tonight to love her. But, guys, we can't love our wife and our own strength. We simply can't do it. And love has to come from the God who made us. It's a very special love. The third most important relationship is the love. Those kids you're blessed with at home. You see, gentlemen, all children are the living messages we send to a time we're never going to see. And then the fourth most important relationship is to have true friends. I'm not talking about business associates. I'm not talking about golfing buddies or drinking buddies. I had plenty of those. I'm talking about a person who will attend your funeral someday and not look at his or her watch. And I had none of those, none of the above or even close making lots of money, had titles going to the top of the head, of course, company. I was going to do it. But it was about a week later that I went to hear a man speak at the request of a friend. I didn't want to go hear him. Just like some of you here tonight are here because somebody wanted you here. But you really don't want to come. But you're here at the request of a friend. And that afternoon, I walked into this auditorium surrounded by thousands of people. [00:48:08] And I'll tell you what, I did not want to be there, but that afternoon. As this man began to talk, I learned something and I needed to hear. I learned that my salvation is found and no one else. [00:48:28] There is no other name under heaven given whereby you and I gentlemen can be saved. No other name but Jesus Christ. You know, Marines don't cry cause men never cry. But that afternoon, as this man shared, tears began rolling out of my eyes. I began to cry uncontrollably. [00:48:51] That afternoon, I learned that for 30 years the God of this universe had been knocking right here in my heart, but I've been running from him so hard. [00:48:57] I was a driven man, driven. But that afternoon I slowed my life down long enough to hear the God of this universe knocking right here in my heart. And I just man closed in prayer. He asked me to make a decision. He asked. Every one of us to make a decision. And that afternoon, I recognized my voice wasn't getting filled. That afternoon, I said yes to God's provision for me. And I said yes in a very short prayer. Avoid I tried to fill for 30 years, was instantly filled. [00:49:32] My life's never been the same since, gentlemen, I travel all over this world sharing with successful people just like you, my wife and I got back together again about a week later. You know, gentlemen, a good marriage is a union of two. Forgive us. A good marriage is not finding the right person. A good marriage is becoming the right person for your wife. And gentlemen, don't make the mistake of basing your marriage on feelings. Don't make that mistake. If you gentlemen feelings come and go in a ebony flow. Here's a triangle, gentlemen. Here's a triangle at the top of this triangle is the relationship with Jesus Christ. You are over here and your wife is over here. The closer you draw to the God who made you, the closer you become as husband and wife, the closer you become as husband and wife. [00:50:34] Simple physics. [00:50:37] It was not long after I got back together again with my wife that I was able to sit down one morning with my mother who was near death. My my mother was 44 years of age at the time. My father was murdered in 1960. [00:50:50] Over the next 15 years, my mother cultivated a hatred for the man who killed her husband. My dad and I cannot describe you. Hatred, killers. [00:51:00] Hate will kill you. It'll kill me. And the dead and the pain about hate. My mother tried to drown her songs and alcohol. Alcohol will kill us guys and kill us. If used excessively, alcohol will kill us. [00:51:15] One morning I was able to share with my mother the greatest news in the universe as I share the love of Jesus Christ with my mom. 72 hours after I said goodbye to her on that Wednesday morning, she had a massive stroke in the home of friends, fell down a flight of stairs and never regained consciousness. But gentlemen, to those of us tonight who know Jesus Christ. Death is not a period. No, death is not a period. Death is a comma in the story of life. Gentlemen, we are really not ready to live until we're ready to die. That's why I asked you at the beginning of my time with you, I asked you, this is your passport for eternity in order. This is heavy stuff, guys. Heavy stuff. [00:52:04] Is your passport for eternity in order? [00:52:08] I shared this message with a successful business couple in North Carolina five years ago and an event just like this. That evening, as we closed in prayer, they made a decision for Jesus Christ. That evening, they got into their car to return home to their kids. Two blocks from the event. They were hit head on by another automobile. [00:52:31] They never made it home, never made it home. [00:52:37] This decision I want to ask you to make in about a minute cannot be made when God Gell-Mann has to be made. When we're here, we're alive. [00:52:47] We'll never know who we are, gentlemen, until we know whose we are. [00:52:52] And I'm going to ask you to do something for me tonight as you go home after a busy day. I want you to put your head down on your pillow tonight. I want you to think. I want you to get a real what you get very quiet. I want you to think about all these things you're putting in that void in your heart tonight, gentlemen. I don't know any of you, really. I want you to think about what you're stuffing in here. Your success at the office. Maybe your bank account. Maybe your athletic prowess stuffed in here, your drive. You succeed at any price stuffed in here, your toys in the driveway, stuffed in here. That promotion coming up, that trip this summer, stuffed in here at Cute Girl at the office. Well, if I could just get her between the sheets. Is she going to make me happy? I played those games. You know, I played those games, too. I know what I know. That's going to be stuffed in here. I want you to ask yourself this first question. So what somewhat. [00:53:57] But before you doze off tonight, gentlemen, I want you to ask yourself an infinitely more important question. [00:54:02] I want you to ask yourself now what? Because, gentlemen, in life, as in any other race, crossing the finish line first makes no difference. If upon crossing that finish line, you suddenly discover that the race you've been running all these years to the crowds while cheering just perhaps might be down the wrong track. I ran a race for 30 years. Down the wrong track nearly cost me my marriage at nearly cost me my life. It cost me several fortunes. Cost me a relationship with my first son for four years of his life. If you've never claimed your inheritance and haven't by professing Jesus Christ tonight, gentlemen, I'll promise you this. Everything that you do on this earth will be totally in vain. I promise you. [00:54:58] And I know there's a couple of you in his room tonight are thinking, well, Adolf Cougar's I'll deal with God later. I've got my career to think about. I got my family to think about. I'll deal with God later. Yeah. Gentlemen, you should Will. [00:55:10] But it won't be on your terms. I can promise you that. [00:55:17] So what? Now what? [00:55:25] Well, laid off, I got to go to church twice a year. I'm a good person. I'm going to heaven on our head off. I'm a good I'm a good guy. I'm going to heaven. If you believe that any religion is a vehicle of entry to heaven, if you believe what I'm sharing with you tonight is a religion, gentlemen. Think again. This is not a religion I'm talking about tonight. This is not a religion because religion won't do. You and me, I look good. There's a barrier that separates us from our God. It's called our pride and rebellion. And because of that barrier, Jesus Christ had to come to die. The most agonizing death called crucifixion of history. And three days after he died, he walked out of that tomb and ascended into heaven. Irrefutable proof that what I'm dealing with tonight is not a religion, but is God the God of this universe? We're dealing with God himself, and he wants to do business with you tonight. Eternal business. But I'm not going to promise you that if you make this decision is your life is going to become trouble free from here on out. Because the Christian life, gentlemen, is not a trouble free life. But there's a savior knocking on your heart right now who says, my peace, I give with you my peace I give to you tonight. My peace I leave with you. Are you tired of carrying the burdens of this life by yourself? You would never meant to carry those burdens by yourself. [00:56:44] He wants to carry those burdens for you tonight for the rest of your life. And he promises us you'll never leave us. You'll never forsake us. But tragically, some of you are gonna get into your car in the next 10 minutes. You're gonna leave here and you're gonna go back to your offices tomorrow morning. You're gonna forget everything I said, and that's your choice. But if you believe that any way to heaven is okay, if you believe that your good looks, your talent, your money is gonna get you to heaven. I want to leave you with one last thought before I turn it back over to Don for the conclusion. Just hours before Jesus Christ went to Calvary's cross to die for you and me, gentlemen, one of his disciples one morning stopped him dead in his tracks. Man's name was Thomas, a Jew. Thomas had been following Jesus for three years. Thomas as Jesus Christ. A very important question that morning. Thomas said, Jesus. Are you the Messiah? Are you the way to heaven, Jesus? Are you the one we've been waiting for all these centuries? I couldn't ask a more important question. Who is Jesus to you gentlemen? Jesus turned to Thomas that morning and listened to what he said. If you believe truth is relative. If you believe your talents, you're going to get you where you want to go. Jesus turned to Thomas that morning. [00:58:12] Is the Thomas. I'm the way I am. De-wei Thomas. I'm the life Thomas. I am the truth. No, man. Thomas comes to God the father. But through me no one goes to heaven, Thomas. But through me, not religion. Right out the window. Gentlemen, it knocks your talents and my talents right out the window. It's so simple. We miss it. It's faith in Christ. Guys, it's that simple. Doesn't take a rocket scientist. It's so simple. We miss it. Don't miss it tonight, guys. Don't miss it. Because none of us know how much time we have, none of us do. Your wife is not wired. Your life is not wired. Don't think it is. Not wired. So I won't ask you to make a decision now as I leave you. I couldn't give you a better gift than one about to give you an opportunity to say yes to this God. This knocking on your heart right now wants to come in. He wants to change you, and he wants you to have an impact on this city. He wants you to be a father and a husband. That you were created to be a successful business manager. You were created to be all along. He wants to change you from the inside out. If anything I have said to you tonight, gentlemen, if anything I have said to you makes any sense at all and you hear that knocking on your heart. [00:59:31] Please don't leave here without making that decision. Please don't do that because this decision determines where you spend eternity says. It's the most important decision you will ever make. I'm gonna ask you to make it right now. Close your eyes. [00:59:55] Get real quiet. This is between you and God, between you and your creator. Listen to that. Knocking on your heart. Listen to it. I pray this out loud. I want you to pray silently. And I want you to meet you with all your heart. Lord Jesus, I need you. And by an act of my will tonight, I open the door of my heart in my life and I receive you as savior. Lord, I understand for the first time tonight that I have run from you all these years. I have rebelled and sinned against you countless times. But tonight, I want to thank you for forgiving all of my son, my rebellion, my pride. I want to thank you for your death on that cross for me. Take control of my life tonight and make me into the kind of man, the kind of husband, the kind of father, the kind of human being. You created me to be. Thank you for coming into my heart in life right now and granting me eternity with you as you have. So promise to me. It's in Jesus Christ name. I do pray a man. And I want to thank all of you for listening. And I trust that my time has meant something to you. God bless all. P019
Transcription (was completed by automated process. Please ignore any speech-to-text errors) [00:00:06] I'm so glad you joined us. For those of you who don't remember me, my name is Penny. And welcome. Welcome to this next session of get sellers calling you Beatty Carmichael. Beatty is the CEO of Master Grabber, the creator of Agent Dominator and one of the top marketing expert in the real estate field. Beatty, I'm super excited. I know you always have something great for us today. What are we going to be discussing today? [00:00:31] Well, today we're back on another radical safe's topic, which means that this has nothing to do with real estate marketing and everything to do with living boldly as a Christian. So if you're not interested in that topic, feel free to turn this episode off and wait for the next one. But that's what we're going to be talking about today. [00:00:52] Great. Super excited. [00:00:55] Yes. And so in continuation from the last radical faith call, we're on a short series. When bad things happen, is it God's will? And today, we're gonna be talking part to kind of this sub topic on this is going through dark times. Have you ever gone through dark times in your Christian life? [00:01:16] Yes. OK. I want to remember, actually. Yeah, I think. [00:01:22] I think it's part of the process that God that the Lord uses both for us and for accomplishing his will. And a lot of times it's hard to really discern what's going on. So I want to go back to kind of the core question that I asked you last time. You said that God is sovereign and that he is in control. So the question is, if God is sovereign in control and does that mean that everything that happens is his will? [00:01:54] And do we blame him for it? Right. So that's one of those questions that we all wrestle with and we talk about. There are basically four things that could be going on. Number one, when bad things happen, we really have to understand first what is bad. Okay. Bad is bad if its source is evil and the outcome is evil. Right. [00:02:17] And that can happen. And I think a lot of the real heartaches that we go through in life may actually have its roots there. We're going to talk about that on the next session. Then last session, we talked about how God directs our steps and we have the freedom to freewill, to use your terminology, to disregard his direction and place our foot down where we want to is or where he wants to. And when that happens, it says that we stumble. And so sometimes when bad things happen, it could simply be a consequence of us simply not following the Lord's direction. Okay. [00:03:04] And so I would call that not bad, but just consequence and probably inconvenient more than anything else. Another thing that happens when things are bad is they're actually directed by God because we have sinned and he's bringing discipline into our life. So it feels bad, but the outcome is good. And then the last thing that happens when things feel bad is when the source is a lord and it's all for our good and even discipline is for our good. But it but in this case, it's all for our destiny or for the Lord is leading us. So it feels bad. It seems dark. But if we could see from God's perspective, it's really an amazing journey. And that's what I want to talk about today. So we ready? [00:03:58] Was great. [00:04:00] Ok. So we're going to if we can wrap it all in quickly, we're going to talk about two stories. Two people, actually, more than two people. But their stories are known by the people are the story of Joseph. And the story of Esther. And I'm assuming you know both of those stories, right? [00:04:17] Yes. Great story. [00:04:20] All right. So let's see how well you know it. Now he's now is gone by. Alicia, details. How old was Joseph when he went out to find his brothers in the field? [00:04:36] Later, I want to say sixteen or seven. Yeah. [00:04:40] Good. Seventeen. So that's going to tie into this. So let me give you just a little background. And I'm going to just kind of read from the Bible and skip around a lot. Normally, I'd like to read, but this this kind of story forms. I want to tie it together. [00:04:59] So this starts in Genesis, Genesis 37. And for the most part, if you don't recognize some of this verbiage is coming from the living Bible, which makes things sometimes a little bit easier. And it starts like this. Joseph's brothers, of course, noticed their father's partiality and consequently hated Joseph, okay. [00:05:22] They couldn't say a kind word to him one night. Joseph had a dream and promptly reported the details. His brother's causing even deeper hatred. Listen to this. He announced we were out in the field binding cheese, and my chief stood up and you're she's all gather round me and bowed low before it. So the brother said, So you want to be our king, do you? And they hated him, both for the dream and his cocky attitude. So here's a question for you. [00:05:49] Did Joseph, do you think, grow up in a loving family? Yeah. With his brothers hating him the whole time. [00:05:59] Now that a loving family. No, no. Okay. [00:06:06] So his father loved him. Yes. But his brothers hated him. It says three times that they hated him, they hated him. They hated him. [00:06:14] So can you imagine living in an environment where your closest relatives are all hating you? [00:06:21] I cannot. Would you call that good or bad? [00:06:26] Bad? Yeah, I would think so, too. So then we read a little bit long further. So now Joseph is 17 years old, his father, Israel. Okay. So just give you the genealogy. Have Abraham Isaac Jacob Jacob's name was changed to Israel and Israel had 12 signs. Those are the 12 tribes of Israel. And son number eleven, if I'm correct, is Joseph. Okay. And so he sends Joseph out into the fields to find all of his other sons. The other ten brothers at that time to his 10 older brothers. And and just check on what's going on. So this is where we pick up. And he says, but when they saw him coming, recognizing him in the distance, they decided to kill him. Okay. Here we have that loving family again. Let's kill our brother. Here comes that master dreamer, they exclaim. Come on, let's kill him and toss him into a wall and tell father that a wild animal has eaten him. [00:07:28] Then we'll save what will become of all of his dreams. So they're still jealous of what God has given him as a dream. [00:07:37] So says when Joseph got there, they pulled off his brightly colored robe. Okay, so his father given him a robe of righteousness, robes or status symbol in this one was greater status symbol because it had lots of bright colors. And so it says that they threw off his robe and threw him into an empty well. And then they see a bunch of traders come by. And so when the traders came by, his brothers pulled Joseph out of the well and sold him into the traders for 20 pieces of silver. [00:08:17] And they took compete. Now, can you imagine at this moment, Joseph being thrown into the well by his brothers, being rough handle and then being yanked up and sold into slavery for only 20 pieces of silver. What do you think's going on in Joseph's mind at that point? [00:08:34] He's got to feel completely rejected and was scared. [00:08:39] Yeah. So many things. Did he feel like he deserved any of this? No. Do you think he was questioning God? [00:08:50] Yes, absolutely. We always question God because we don't trust him, do you think if he trusted God as Moses, trusted God as he was as there going through the wilderness? Do you think if he trusted God at that level that he would be questioning God quite so much? Probably not. No. So what I find is we question God the most when we don't really trust him. In other words, when we keep our eyes on ourselves and not on the Lord in his word, that's usually when we question what's going on. Does that make sense? [00:09:28] Yeah. Yeah. Oh, okay. [00:09:30] So then we pick up. This is now in Genesis thirty nine. So Joseph arrives in Egypt, his soul to part offer a member of Pharaoh's staff. Okay. Part 4 later puts him in charge of all of his affairs. And then one day part of first wife begins making eyes at Joseph and suggests that he come and sleep with her. And what is Joseph to you, remember? [00:09:54] He says no. That's right. He says no. He says, my master, trust me, with everything in the entire household. He he's held nothing back from me except you because you are his wife. How could you do such a wicked thing? Is this. It would be a great sin against God? No. Do you think Joseph loves the Lord? Yes. Do you think he's following the law the best he can? I do. Yeah. Okay. And now this woman's coming after him, is Josef's acting properly and faithfully? [00:10:31] He is. Yeah. And what happened to you, remember? [00:10:37] I think she keeps pushing like she keeps trying to seduce them and really try to get him to go along with what she wants. And he keeps saying no. And she gets upset. [00:10:50] That's right. You don't want to give way too much. Yeah, that's right. Okay. [00:10:54] Well, hopefully most of folks are listening to this. Probably have some some recollection of Joseph, but let's read into it. Then one day as he was in the house and no one else was around at the time, she came and grabbed him by the sleeve demanding sleep with me. He tore himself away, but as he did, his jacket was robe slipped off and he was left holding. She was holding it as he fled from the house. When she saw that he she had it and he had fled, she began screaming. And when the other men around the place came running and she was crying hysterically, my husband had to bring in this Hebrew slave to insult us. She saw. He tried to rape me, but when I screamed, he ran and forgot to take his jacket. So do you think Joseph has been wrongly accused? [00:11:44] Yes. If this is this good or bad? [00:11:48] Bad? Yeah. So what's happening? Is this one bad even after another, isn't it? His brothers hate him. They try to kill them. They throw mental until well, then they sell sell them into slavery. And then he's doing well. He's acting righteously before God. His master puts him in control of everything. Now he gets slammed again and it gets even worse. So says that when her husband came home that night, she told him her story. That Hebrew slay that you've had around here. Try to rape me. And when he heard it, he was furious and he threw Joseph into prison down into the dungeon. [00:12:29] How do you think Joseph is feeling right now? [00:12:33] Or cannot be. Yeah. [00:12:36] Do you think he's going, oh, lord. Thank you. I'm so excited. I'm right in the center of your will. [00:12:43] No, I haven't. I think he probably had a few choice words. [00:12:47] Probably so. Let me ask you. Was he right in the center of God's will? [00:12:54] Well, that's a trick question. Yes, he was. I think I know, yeah. Come on the story. [00:13:01] That's right. That's right. So this is a key. When we know the outcome, we can now piece it all together going through it. [00:13:09] We have to trust the father's heart. [00:13:14] Yeah, and not worry. [00:13:18] Okay. As we always worry, but the more we trust the father's heart, the more we can handle any of these quote unquote, dark times that come our way because we know who's in control. So now this is now we're in Genesis 40 sometime later. It happened that the king of Egypt, pharaoh, became angry with his chief baker and his chief butler. So he's thrown throws him into the prison where Joseph is. And then one night, each of them have a dream. And Joseph interprets both of those dreams and the dreams that his interpretation actually comes comes true. Jon Favreau decides to hold the party. He pulls both the baker and the butler out. He puts a butler back in a position and he kills the baker. Justice Joseph said, What's going to happen? So does and Joseph said, hey, Butler, when you get out. Remember me, tell Pharaoh about me. I've done nothing to be here. I've. You know, I've done nothing against my own people who have been sold into slavery. I've done nothing wrong. Please tell him. And what did the butler do? [00:14:32] He remembered. [00:14:34] I think he if I remember right again, I want to give why he lied. But I think he tells Pharaoh, I know somebody that can interpret dreams. [00:14:44] Yeah. Okay. So so watch this. This is cool. So now we're in Genesis 41. One night, two years later. Okay. It was two years later. Joseph still is in dark times in the dungeon. No freedom, no light, no, no nothing but grunge. Okay. [00:15:09] Two years later, Pharaoh dream. Two dreams. No one could interpret them. Then the butler remembers Joseph at that point, is that are you know, I totally forgot some time ago when you you're angry with a couple of us and put me in there, Chief Baker in jail. Baker and I each had a dream. One night we told the dreams to a young Hebrew who was a slave of the captain there, and he told us what our dreams meant. And everything happened. Just as he said, I was restored to my position and the baker was executed. So Pharaoh sent for Joseph at once. Okay, now, is this good or bad? [00:15:50] This is good if he's getting called out of prison. [00:15:53] Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it sure looks good, right? Yes. OK. Can you see the Lord's hand starting to move right now in this pressure? [00:16:04] Yeah. Okay. Now to put this in perspective, this is eleven years after. Joseph has been sold into slavery. [00:16:12] He's now 28 years old from 17 to 28. He's been a slave. So then Joseph interpretted dreams tells Pharaoh that both dreams are saying the same thing, that there's gonna be seven years of great abundance. And then seven years of the most severe famine that's gonna be so severe, you won't even remember how abundant it is. And and then pharaoh says talks. His advisers said, well, we need to put someone in charge to manage all this. Who do we do? And so now I want to pick up and I'm one. Reed, this is Genesis 41, starting in thirty nine. [00:16:55] And then it says then Pharaoh said to Joseph, Since God has shown you all this, there is none so discerning and wise as you are, you shall be over my house and all my people shall order themselves as you command only as regards the throne will I be greater than you. In other words, Pharaoh now puts him in second in control of all of Egypt. [00:17:19] Then Pharaoh took his signet ring from his hand and and put on Joseph's hand. Here's the significance. The signet ring means that Joseph can do anything in the king's name. [00:17:30] By the way, as Christians, we've been given the Lord's signet ring. Okay. [00:17:39] So now there's some deep implications on how effectively we end up using that. But that's another story. So he takes a signet ring, puts it in Joseph's hand. And then during the seven plentiful years, the earth produced abundantly and in the seven years of plenty came to an end and a seven years of famine began to come, as Joseph had said. [00:18:05] So here's kind of the summary I want to go through with all this. The Lord is directing all of these events in Joseph's lives. Would you agree? Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:18:17] So Joseph was a man at God's own heart. [00:18:19] And even in his flavouring, in imprisonment, we know that he sought the Lord because he always tried to do what was honorable and. [00:18:28] The Lord always put him in charge of bless everything that was going on. So we see the Lord's hand upon Joseph. Even in the dark times. Did you in your dark times, have you ever seen the Lord's hand kind of still working with you and through you during those tough times? [00:18:44] Yes. Yes. It's hard to say. You know, you're natural. I tend to focus on the dark. But for sure. For sure. God was there. [00:18:53] That's right. And I've seen the same thing over and over again. And. And so back Joseph, because he was faithful in the small things as he was coming through. We'll call this his wilderness experience. As he was coming through this wilderness, then the lord put him in charge of much, just as what Jesus says, because you had been faithful in a little. Now be in charge of tent cities as he's the parable with the miners. And then. But here's the key. From Joseph's perspective, as he's going through it, each event merely seemed to have a natural cause and effect. His brothers hated him. He has a dream. They hated him more. He goes and they decide to kill him. They throw him in a well. Then they say, lis-, thelen, every single thing. There is a cause and effect that Joseph is putting together. Does that make sense? Oh, yeah. Okay. So from his perspective, it was just one bad even after another. I'm sure he felt bitter. Bitter. I'm sure he questioned God on what was happening. And yet here's the thing. The Lord is directing every step of his, so if you remember last session, passage after passage after passage. Lord Lord is telling us he guides our step. He directs our step. He's cha-cha-cha path even tells us where to stop and rest. And what we find here is every step is guided and directed by the Lord. And finally, Joseph comes to that same realization once his brothers come and provides food. Okay. Because Joseph set for God sent me before you to preserve life. Joseph finally figured out what was going on. Later. He figured out it was his destiny that the Lord was working on. And until we see the Lord guiding all of this, let's see. Let me think a couple other thoughts on this before we shift some topics. So. So here's a question. When bad things happen. Does guide calls it? We can obviously look at this life of Joseph. All these things that were seemingly bad. Here's the question. Did God cause all those events to happen? [00:21:23] No. No. Then what happened? [00:21:29] He used them. Yeah, he did them for yeah. Did he know they were going to happen? All right. Who knows all things? [00:21:41] He knows all things. And he used them. [00:21:45] So sometimes we find a guy who uses the bad debts in the world to propel us. To the good destiny that he has for us. Does that make sense? Yeah, I think think about Jesus. Satan was gonna try everything he could to stop Jesus. Do you think I knew that? [00:22:11] Oh, for sure. [00:22:13] And do you think everything that Satan did to stop Jesus actually playing God's hand to fulfill Jesus's destiny? [00:22:22] Yeah, they're. [00:22:25] Do you think God is a respecter of persons? [00:22:32] I think he treats us all the same. I think he loves us all the same. [00:22:36] Yeah. Paul says God is no respecter of persons, right? Yeah. [00:22:41] So he thinks of his favorite neighbor. We're all here, too. That's right. [00:22:47] We're all his favorite. So here's the thing. God is the same yesterday, today and forever. What he does, for one, he does for all because he respects no one greater than someone else. This is why when and this is what it says. You know, because faith was reckoned righteousness was reckoned to Abraham because of his faith. So is righteousness reck into us because of our faith? In other words, God sets a precedent what he does for what he does for all. And what we find here with Joseph, the Lord is leveraging all of these evil things that are going on. [00:23:28] That guy knows ahead of time. But he uses those almost like the picture I'm getting is saw like that. Have you ever played a pinball machine? Yes. What? The ball. It hits a thing. It goes somewhere else. It bounces around. Okay. It's almost like God knows every little post out there and swiped the ball in just the right direction to hit one post and another post in the next post pushes the ball a little bit further and it guides all the way to homerun. [00:23:57] Okay. Enter into the goalpost. And that's kind of what's going off and going here. So. There is a possibility that God caused some of this to happen. These think God caused a Israel to love Joseph more than the other brothers. [00:24:17] Oh, that's a tough question. No. The only reason I say no, God doesn't cause bad is because God is good. [00:24:27] Right. No, I don't. I don't. I don't. Okay. [00:24:31] Is Israel loving Joseph more than the other brothers? Good or bad? [00:24:38] Then God says, Jacob, I loved you, so I hate it. Is that good or bad? [00:24:46] Which is bad for itself, but is God good? Yes. [00:24:52] Ok, so what is good for God? [00:24:55] Can it also be good for man? [00:24:58] Yes. So if if God cause Israel to love Joseph more than the other brothers, is that good or bad? [00:25:11] Aschen, I think. [00:25:14] Yes, he says he's not causing Israel to hate the other brothers, but just to love Joseph Moore. Do you think God caused Joseph caused Israel to make Joseph a bright, multicolored jacket? Yeah. Do you think God knew that that would create jealousy and hatred among the brothers? Yes. Do you think God caused Joseph to have those dreams? I do. Do you think he knew that those trains would cause jealousy and hatred among the brothers? [00:25:50] Yes. OK. So here's what we have. We see God causing a lot of events that had the repercussions of evil responding that God uses to push Joseph toward his destiny. Do you think that's possible that he's doing the same thing in our lives at times as well? [00:26:14] Yeah. Okay. Is kind of cool. [00:26:18] Yes. Very cool. All right. [00:26:21] So. So we pick up a lot of things and just some really interesting things. Let's say this to try and catch up on where I am on my notes. When bad things happen to us. We must first try to decide, are they truly bad or are they simply not what we desire? Is it truly bad that the brothers hated Joseph? Is it truly bad that they wanted to kill him? Is it truly bad that they sold him into slavery? Are all these things truly bad? Or ultimately, are they just simply not what we desire? But they happen to be the best thing for us because they push us where the Lord is directing us and we don't. We can't tell that as we go through. OK, from our perspective at the moment, we can't grasp God's big picture. It's only after a period of time that we can look backwards and see. And for Joseph, it took twenty two years before he understood that all these bad things that had happened to him were actually God's hand leading him. Let me ask you a question. Twenty two years later. Do you think if he had the perspective before he was twenty two years as he was going through those processes, do you think his heart toward God would have been different? [00:27:53] Oh, gosh, yes. [00:27:55] Do you think he's one had it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:27:58] And so what can we pull out of this? What we can rattle out. Yeah, we got it. We got to we got to trust the Lord to be a faithful father. Quinn We know that we're truly seeking the Lord, honoring him, really following him, trying to do our best. Yeah, we stumble. But when bad things happen, things that we consider bad, we have to trust the heart of our father. Like I mentioned last time. When you can't see what the Lord's hand is doing, you have to trust his heart. Does that make sense? Yeah. So now I want to shift stories and talk about Esther, because here's what I would call the lord tells the same story with the same message over and over and over again all throughout scripture, because he's constantly revealing who he is. And it's our job to pull out of those scriptures, the understanding of who he is. And so I want to walk through another story that has really neat implications, very similar. So this is the story of Esther. Okay, trivia question, what is Esther's real name? [00:29:21] I probably can't pronounce it. [00:29:26] I right. Yes. Yes, I know that something like that. Yeah. Yeah. [00:29:33] I was just discussing the future of you. No, no, no. Big deal. Big deal on that. OK. So let me kind of give you the background and lay out the storyline of Esther. So Israel has been Jerusalem has been destroyed by neighbor Nasr. All of the people have been taken out in exile. This is the time of Daniel, okay. He was taken as captives. And Mordechai, a guy named Mordecai and Esther, are gone as well. Then never. Nasir's kingdom is overtaken by getting that guy name King a hazardous. Who's king of the purge, Persian in the Meade's or something like that. And and he's having a feast and throwing a great big party. He calls the queen in to show her off in front of all of his guests. She refuses. He gets upset. He banishes her. Then he's upset because now he doesn't have a queen. So they say, well, let's go throughout all your kingdom. Get the most beautiful virgins that are out there. And we'll bring him into your hair, him and you get to choose. OK. So that's kind of the storyline. So now we come to sue. So the capital where he is. This is where Esther is living with her uncle because Esther is an orphan. Chances are her mother and father were killed during the Beattylonian captivity. We don't know that for certain. But that would make sense. And then she's living there peacefully with Mordechai, her uncle, and now she's forcefully taken from him to be thrown into King's Haram. Is that good or bad? Bad? [00:31:18] Yeah. I would think so. Take away from our family. [00:31:23] Yeah, the only family she's got. So then she becomes king later. Mordechai gets a job working for the king. Says he sits at the Kings Gate. OK. And while he's a sharpie, overhears a plot from two people that are upset with the king and they want to kill the king. All right. Do you hear that noise in the background? Is that problematic? No, you don't. OK, perfect. Great. [00:31:55] So I'm out on my deck when I do this. And I just want to make sure you don't hear the background noise. So. So he reports. Mordechai reports this plot to the queen, who then takes it to the king. The king investigates, kills those two people. [00:32:11] The king is saved. OK. So then later, the king appoints a guy named haymon as prime minister, essentially to run the country. And Heyman is an evil man and everyone is supposed to bow down and basically worship him as he comes by. And so every time he comes by and comes by Mordechai, he goes to the King's Gate. What do you think Mordechai does as a Jew? He does not. He does. That's right. So you have an evil Preibus man, everyone's falling down except this one man who stays standing. What do you think? Who you think's going on in Heyman's heart at that point? [00:32:51] Why are you not backing down? That's right. [00:32:54] He gets real angry. Okay. And so he finds out that Mordecai doesn't bail because he's a Jew. So now Mordecai hates all the Jews. So he decides I'm going to get rid of all of them. So he goes the king and says, I'll pay you ten thousand talents. A silver. That's a huge amount for Mordechai. I mean, haymon is really rich. I'll pay you ten thousand talents a silver if you let me write a decree to kill all of the Jews because they're bad for your kingdom. King says, Hey, that's good. All right, I'll do that. So he he lets the king lets him do that. So then haymon writes a decree and sent it out through all of the province. This is basically all of the world at that time and says on this date, in about twelve months, every person can rise up against ologies, kill every Jew, every man, woman and child. [00:33:49] And whoever you kill, you can plunder everything they have. So now all the Jews are scared to death. Certain death is marked out and they're powerless to stop it. Does that make sense so far? Yeah. Yeah. Is is this bad? [00:34:05] Yeah. [00:34:07] If it's rooted in evil. Yeah. I think it might be even Satan trying to get rid of the Jewish race pressure. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So then Mordechai comes to Esther. She goes the king and wants to plea for help. And so she's gonna do this through two life sessions. So she says, King, will you come to lunch with me today and will you bring Heyman's? Now, this is really, really interesting. The fact that she comes before the king, she puts her life on the line. So the king realizes something really important. She she has something really important to ask where she would not have risked her life. Okay. So he says, yes, I'll be there. He grabs haymon. They go have lunch. He says, what do you want? She says, I want you to come tomorrow to another banquet and then I'll make my request now. So then haymon goes home right after that. And he's all excited, he calls this France. He tells his wife and his friends how great he is, how powerful he is. And even the queen invited me to a private lunch with the king. And then he says, is this is hatred coming up? And yet none of this is worth anything as long as I see Mordechai alive. So now his wife says, well, look, you got the king's favor. You're powerful. Why don't you build a gallows tomorrow morning? Go ask the king if you can hang him. Mordechai on the gallows before lunch and then you can go to lunch with the king and the queen and just have a wonderful time. So can you imagine haymon all excited, giddy that night saying, oh, finally, I'm going to kill Mordecai tomorrow. You see this thing going on for now. What gods? Humor. Okay, so Mordecai is about to be killed. His runway of options is about out. He doesn't know it, but in probably 10 hours, he's gonna be dead on that gallows. [00:36:24] Okay. There's nothing he can do to escape. You get the picture of this? Yeah. Have you ever been in a position you felt like there's nothing you can do to fix the problem, you are doomed? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So but God has a sense of humor. God is in control. And what happens that night with the king? Do you remember? [00:36:53] I feel like somehow Esther says something that kind of like trapped. [00:37:01] Almost almost, yeah. So that happens in a moment. So that night, Paul Heyman is all giddy and probably can't sleep. The king can't sleep. [00:37:14] Do you think it might have been providentially God keeping the king away? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so the king says someone read me a book I know remade a book of all the good deeds in my kingdom. So these pull out this book and they start reading all night long and then they come to the story of Mordecai, how he reports this plot by these two employees to kill the king and two employees were killed and the king was saved. And the. And that's where we now pick up in an extra six. So I am now going to start reading from here. So that's the background. And let me start reading what the scripture says. So the king says, what reward did we ever give Mordechai for this? And his courtiers replied, nothing. Well, he's on duty in the outer court. The King inquired. OK, so this is early morning. He's still in bed. They're still reading. So you can get them. This is really early in the morning. And now that it happened, Hayman had just arrived in the outer court to ask the king to hang Mordechai. Okay. He's so excited. He gives up early and that's the first thing on his mind. So the courtiers replied, Hanemann is out there. The King said. Oh, great. Bring him in. So, hey, haymon comes in. [00:38:40] Now he's coming into the king's private chamber. Okay. And the king says him, What should I do to honor a man who truly pleases me? And what do you think a man is thinking to himself? [00:38:52] He's going to honor me. That's right. [00:38:55] That's right. The scripture says. Well, who would he want to honor more than me? Pride comes before the fall. Right. So he replied. He so haymon says, we'll bring out some of the royal robes that the king himself has worn, and the king's own horse, and a royal crown. And it struck one the king's most noble princes to robe the man and lead it through the streets on the king's own horse. Shouting This is the way the king honors those who truly please him. Hey, man, was grand jury. Can you say this? All the pride and praise from all the people out there? [00:39:32] Yeah. [00:39:36] God, wonderful. So the king said, excellent. Hurry and take these robes and my horse and do just as you said to Mordecai, the Jew who works at the chancellery, follow every detail you suggested. What do you think's going on, right, Ben? I'm haymon. [00:39:58] I can not. I mean, I was I could fly on the wall. I'm sure his face fell to the floor. And. Yeah. Can you can you imagine? Can you imagine the embarrassment even that he probably felt? [00:40:12] That's right. And here's something I want you to recognize. All of this is happening in Mordecai. Doesn't have a clue. So often God is doing all kinds of things behind the scene and we don't even have a clue yet. And yet. God is in control. So we pick back up. So haymon takes the robes and puts them on Mordecai. I can just imagine. [00:40:40] Mordechai, come here. I want to robe you. I want to set this crown. I am ready. And I can just imagine what more ecchi is doing. He's going, yeah. The Lord is about to save us. So he puts a rose on Mordechai Mount's him on the king's own state, and leads him through the streets of the city, shouting, This is the way the king honors those who delights in them. [00:41:04] And then afterwards, who? Mordechai goes back to his job, and haymon hurries home, utterly humiliated. [00:41:15] So now he's sulking. So keep in mind, this is the morning, the second feast with the queen. So later that day, just a couple hours later, as he's mourning and he's complaining and though his wife is saying, well, if Mordechai is a Jew, your plans are gone, completely fail. No, he still doesn't know. The queen is a Jew. So then the king's men come and get haymon to bring him to lunch. And in at Lighton. And I can just imagine that haymon is all sulking and morose during this banquet. And the king asks again to Esther, What can I do for you? We pick back up. This is Esther, seven. And at last, Queen Esther replied, If I've won your favor OKing, and if it please, Your Majesty, save my life and the lives of my people. For my people have been sold to those who will destroy us. We are doomed to destruction and slaughter. If we were only to be sold as slaves. Perhaps I could remain quiet, even though then there are being calculable damage to the king that no amount of money could begin to cover. So she hits right on. There is money that's been paid on this and don't matter how much has been paid. Even if we're disowning slavery, this is gonna destroy the king. Okay. And then the king replies. What are you talking about? And who would touch you? Assa replied. This wicked haymon is our enemy. Then haymon grew pale with fright before the king and queen. The King jumped to his feet, went out of the palace garden at Heyman's, stood up to plead for his life. The queen asked her, for he knew that he was doomed. [00:43:08] You know, this happens so frequently. All that loss and the enemy that's attacking us, we think they're about to win. And yet God has everything in his hands. And in just a moment, boom, it's all gone. So. In despair, haymon falls upon the couch where Queen Esther was reclining, just as the king returned for the palace garden. Will he even rape the queen right here in the palace before my eyes? The king roared and instantly the death fell. That hood was placed over Hanemann face. And then when the king's aide says Sir haymon is restored, order to 75 foot gallows constructed to hanging Mordecai. The man who saved the king from assassination. It stands in Heyman's courtyard. Heying haymon on it. The king ordered, so that's the end of haymon. Then the king is well, Mordecai Heyman's position gives Esther all of Heyman's possessions and in Mordechai writes, a decree that the Jews can not only defend themselves on that date. This is now about 10 months to go. But he can. They can also kill every one of their enemies who hate them. And and so on that day when it comes, the Israelites destroyed seventy five thousand of their staunchest enemies. So that's the story of Esther in that. Pretty cool. Am I wrong? All right. So now let's. I want to wrap this up and I want to give some really cool takeaways out of all this, because I think this is really kind of what's cool, cool with this. So the central thought on all of this that hit and hits me as I'm as I've gone through it. Is do you think the Lord could have prevented haymon from coming to power? [00:45:05] Could have. Yes. Yes. If he prevented haymon from coming to power without a protected his people and they would never have been in peril. [00:45:16] Yeah, unless someone else came and did that. But yes. OK. [00:45:21] But God chose not to do that. Yeah. Think about it. God allowed his people. To go through tough times. So he can deliver them and not only deliver them. But give them greater blessings, I think someone said that the darker the times you go through, the greater the blessings on the other end. OK. [00:45:51] So what we have to realize is because the Lord directs those events that have a major impact on our lives and accomplishing his will then as we go through these events, even though it's scary. Are are honest response should be to be at peace knowing that the Lord is in control and that all of these things, if we're in God's will. Okay, if we're doing our best to follow his guidance. OK. As we talked about last time. Then whatever happens, we should be at peace. And content knowing that God is guiding everything that's going on for some reason, for his glory and for our destiny of where we're to be used to that make sense. [00:46:39] Yeah. [00:46:41] And how often do we get our eyes off the law and back on ourselves and we start to get afraid and question the Lord. So if Heyman comes to powers, Prime Minister, the Lord allows him to do, he's choosing to destroy all of the Jews. But watch this long before he ever came to power. God put Queen Esther in position to deliver his people. God is playing this big game of chess and he knows exactly what's going on and he's positioning the pieces. Already. But watch this, see? God could have prevented haymon from coming to power in check. Instead. He chose to show his own power and sovereignty by delivering their people once they were in peril. And. And not only that, though, here's the kind of the other key is because haymon came to power, because all these events came through, because all the Jews were terrified and scared to death for their life. Then through that problem, through that process, God deliver the Jews even more. He didn't just deliver the Jews from haymon and the threat of being killed. He delivered the Jews from all of their enemies at that time because they killed all 75000 of them. So it was a greater blessing for them to have come through that process because they ended up in a stronger, safer, more secure position. Does that make sense? Yeah. So it seems that God allows us to go through tough times, not only so he can get the glory delivering us. But that he can bless us more through that. And I think there are five takeaways is that I get from this. First, the Lord is in control of all things. In the big scheme of things, okay. He doesn't control haymon. He doesn't control the evil, but he is in control. He has his overriding control of everything that goes on. That's the first thing we can get from this. The second thing we can get is that he's coordinating the activities long before their purpose is known. [00:49:05] Think about this. So. First. [00:49:09] He coordinates the activity to get rid of Queen Baster. I think that's her name. And then that forces King hazardous to say I need another queen. Who do I get? [00:49:22] They rip ask her out of her home. They thought that was bad and God is doing all that to position her. [00:49:30] In a position of power, but not only that, Mordecai then gets a job with a king. And he overhears his plot and he reports it. That plot and Mordecai overhearing it has a key role to play in this. By the way, do you know how long it was from the time of that plot to the time that the King read back through the Chronicles and said, we honored this person for saving? [00:50:02] I felt like it was. I felt like it was over a year, but I don't know exactly. [00:50:07] Yeah, yeah, it was. It was about five years to watch that one seemingly insignificant thing. He just happens over here, this plot and reports it five years later. Is the key to saving the entire nation of the Jewish people. Then so God is causing a lot of things that we don't even see long before they ever come to fruition. The third thing we can take out of this. If the Lord allows us to face complete loss, complete destruction, or, as I call it, running off the cliff, it seems like we're just about to run off that cliff and there's nothing we can do to prevent it. He allows us to get into that position. For us to be scared to death but rely and trust on him, in fact, one of the things Mordecai said to Esther. She said, I can't go before the king because. I could be killed. And watch Mordecai Faith in the Lord. He said, we'll ask her. Who knows if maybe you haven't been put in as queen for a time such as this to save our people. But if you don't do it, be assured that the Lord will save us. But it'll be through some other means. [00:51:31] So more ecchi has this great faith in the Lord. Great worry of what's going on, but great faith as well that the Lord can take care of it. And that's what happens. The Lord allows us to go to the edge, to go right to the edge of that cliff, then force. He always intervenes. He always protects his loved ones from destruction. He allows him to get to the edge, but he won't allow them to go over the edge. And fifth, which I think is pretty cool, is during that process. And because of that process, he also as a bonus, he blesses us even more, you know, with not only with the Jews and destroying all their enemies, but Mordechai is taken from just a lowly employ to prime minister of the entire country. So it you just see God's hand in all of this. And as I go through this, I am encouraged that he's always in control. He's coordinating all these events in my life and in your life that we don't understand, that we get concerned about, that we're afraid of. Sometimes he allows us to head straight for the cliff and we feel that we have no control in the matter because ultimately we really don't. [00:52:54] We are moving down. If you recall, one of the sessions we did early about God's timing versus Manson. I mean, we're in that little pipe. You're right. Going down that raging river and you can't stop it. You know, it is moving and you're just going along with it. So there are things that we can't stop. We see this cliff we're about to go over and we seem to be powerless. And then the lord comes in. And here's how he saves us. He saves us through a miraculous set of events. We may see them as circumstantial. When we see God's hand moving miraculously in a natural, we call it providential, providential circumstances. But make no false assumption. It is the Lord's hand guiding and directing all of it directly for our care, directly for his will, directly for where he wants to lead us, and this is time back into the last one. This is where it says the Lord will get us to his destiny for us. And he says, even if I had to put a bit in your mouth and force you that direction, you will go where I am sending you then. In that call. [00:54:16] Yes. Great. And even though I was just thing about, you know, what does this guy with all those all that does does that. I mean, he was before he was just a CEPR boy, basically just a son that helped on the farm and then look at where he ended up. Yeah. Only in command under the pharaoh. [00:54:38] Well, you know, even in my own life, I'll tell you a story. I don't tell this much, but I got involved with Amway as a freshman in college. You know what Amway is? [00:54:49] Yes. Yes, I do. [00:54:51] Yeah, it's a network marketing company, pyramid company, as people call it. And I come from a well-to-do medical family. And we had a great lifestyle growing up. My dad did very well financially and faithful before the Lord. But in freshman year college, I get hooked in Amway. I get hooked into the approach of, oh, my gosh, you're going to be rich. I thought literally that I was going to graduate college as a millionaire. [00:55:25] So I was. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Well, that's kind of what they told. I apologize. One moment. You can probably hear that helicopter back there. Good. Is kind of loud. Can you still hear me over the helicopter? [00:55:38] I can. Yeah. OK, great. OK, great. So. So I was about to quit college because I knew I didn't need it. My parents wisely tell me, just finish it. So I did. But I changed my degree and just had a great time in college and in studying. So I get out of college and then I find out I'm not making a bunch of money. In fact, I have to go home and live with my parents and all my friends who got a regular degree. They're getting all these nice cushiony jobs and they're buying homes. And woe is me, every time I see a friend drive by in a Mercedes or BMW or, you know, I was driving old jalopy. [00:56:17] My comment was there. But for me, go I. And after a number of years of that, I really thought I'd screwed up my life. You know, that pivotal point of my life and everything was screwed up. I went from job to job trying to earn money here and there. Nothing was happening. By 10 years, 12, 13 years later, I was still broke. Okay. I found myself unemployed. We had a small house and we've been faithful to the Lord all the time. But nothing was going on. And then the Lord bless us with this business that I started. And do you know what that business was? Adele, tell me it was selling, so during this time I started to really learn about marketing, started to really consume it. I tried a couple of businesses with a friend of mine. They never really amounted to much, but we honed a lot of marketing talent and we developed a product that really was great in generating leads. And so the Lord blessed me with just a little inkling of a business. And my first customer base. Was network marketers. [00:57:39] And then we started to take all this stuff that I learned in Amway, the attitude, the go get it, all this stuff, and we applied it in business and two and a half years later. [00:57:52] We were making a hundred thousand dollars a month in profits. Wow. Can you imagine that? And I look back and I think if it hadn't been for the Lord directed me into Amway, I would never be in business today. But during the time, I really thought I made a bad mistake. And I think all of us can probably look backwards and say the Lord's hand guiding them and kind of on that same topic. [00:58:21] I want to share one other thing. I was at church one day and man was asking me how how is my how my business was. And I told him, You mean in the natural or in the spiritual? Right. I shared that, you know, in the natural. It's like running full speed. The engine is running. The drive shaft is running. The wheels are spinning. But we're going nowhere because we're stuck in the mud, because at that time it felt like we have this big elephant standing in front of us keeping from moving. But I told him in the spiritual God has told me that we're going through wilderness time. Once I get to the wilderness, he's going to move that elephant out of the way. And we're gonna then just take off. And the man said, well, you know, he has a brother and or friend or someone like that who'd gone through some dark times in his business as well. I tell him, no, we're not in dark times. I've been in dark times. My business, but now is not one of them. I said you're only in dark times when you get your eyes off the Lord and put them on the natural. When you become afraid, that's when it's dark. But when you keep your eyes on the Lord, it's always bright. And and I was sharing the example of Peter walking on the water. So when we go through these times in our lives, it's important that we don't keep our eyes on the natural because we get become afraid. We start to question God. We put our eyes on the Lord. And that's where we have our trust. That's where we have our confidence. For sure. Yes. So any any other comments? We got to wrap up. But any thoughts, your comments? [01:00:02] Yeah, just for me. Trying to turn to keep my focus on knowing that all the little things like he just said, all those little things that I think might be ruining me or a bad decision or gas, ash, gas, I should have gone that way or whatever. The Lord still uses it all in his promises to take care of us as his children. Yes. [01:00:27] And I would go one step further if we're faithful before him. And we can honestly look at our life and say there is no sin in my life. I mean, no, no focus have seen in my life. Obviously, we all sin, but there's no sin in our life. Then we can know that we're in the center of wherever he has us. And therefore, not only know that those bad things, Glaude can bring something good out of it, but he's using those bad things to bounce us like that pinball machine. The next step down the path of where he's leading us, it's all part of his plan. [01:01:05] Yeah, to become fully mature. Yes, okay. [01:01:12] He matures us and he puts us where he wants us to be. To be used in his kingdom, to build his temple. And yeah, it's really cool. Really cool. All right. Awesome. [01:01:26] Oh, Beatty. I think we're about out of time. We probably need to wrap it up. But thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for your expertise. And just that, the diligence that you put into studying the word and and teaching it to our listeners and myself as well. This was a great call and I'm excited about our next one. [01:01:45] I am, too. We'll be talking on part three. [01:01:48] Sounds good. I guess we'll see everybody then. [01:01:52] Be blessed. All righty. Bye bye. p018
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Please ignore any speech-to-text errors) [00:00:06] I'm so glad you joined us. For those of you who don't remember me, my name is Penny. And welcome. Welcome to this next session of get sellers calling you Beatty Carmichael. Beatty is the CEO of Master Grabber, the creator of Agent Dominator and one of the top marketing expert in the real estate field. Beatty, I'm super excited. I know you always have something great for us today. What are we going to be discussing today? [00:00:31] Well, today we're back on another radical safe's topic, which means that this has nothing to do with real estate marketing and everything to do with living boldly as a Christian. So if you're not interested in that topic, feel free to turn this episode off and wait for the next one. But that's what we're going to be talking about today. [00:00:52] Great. Super excited. [00:00:55] Yes. And so in continuation from the last radical faith call, we're on a short series. When bad things happen, is it God's will? And today, we're gonna be talking part to kind of this sub topic on this is going through dark times. Have you ever gone through dark times in your Christian life? [00:01:16] Yes. OK. I want to remember, actually. Yeah, I think. [00:01:22] I think it's part of the process that God that the Lord uses both for us and for accomplishing his will. And a lot of times it's hard to really discern what's going on. So I want to go back to kind of the core question that I asked you last time. You said that God is sovereign and that he is in control. So the question is, if God is sovereign in control and does that mean that everything that happens is his will? [00:01:54] And do we blame him for it? Right. So that's one of those questions that we all wrestle with and we talk about. There are basically four things that could be going on. Number one, when bad things happen, we really have to understand first what is bad. Okay. Bad is bad if its source is evil and the outcome is evil. Right. [00:02:17] And that can happen. And I think a lot of the real heartaches that we go through in life may actually have its roots there. We're going to talk about that on the next session. Then last session, we talked about how God directs our steps and we have the freedom to freewill, to use your terminology, to disregard his direction and place our foot down where we want to is or where he wants to. And when that happens, it says that we stumble. And so sometimes when bad things happen, it could simply be a consequence of us simply not following the Lord's direction. Okay. [00:03:04] And so I would call that not bad, but just consequence and probably inconvenient more than anything else. Another thing that happens when things are bad is they're actually directed by God because we have sinned and he's bringing discipline into our life. So it feels bad, but the outcome is good. And then the last thing that happens when things feel bad is when the source is a lord and it's all for our good and even discipline is for our good. But it but in this case, it's all for our destiny or for the Lord is leading us. So it feels bad. It seems dark. But if we could see from God's perspective, it's really an amazing journey. And that's what I want to talk about today. So we ready? [00:03:58] Was great. [00:04:00] Ok. So we're going to if we can wrap it all in quickly, we're going to talk about two stories. Two people, actually, more than two people. But their stories are known by the people are the story of Joseph. And the story of Esther. And I'm assuming you know both of those stories, right? [00:04:17] Yes. Great story. [00:04:20] All right. So let's see how well you know it. Now he's now is gone by. Alicia, details. How old was Joseph when he went out to find his brothers in the field? [00:04:36] Later, I want to say sixteen or seven. Yeah. [00:04:40] Good. Seventeen. So that's going to tie into this. So let me give you just a little background. And I'm going to just kind of read from the Bible and skip around a lot. Normally, I'd like to read, but this this kind of story forms. I want to tie it together. [00:04:59] So this starts in Genesis, Genesis 37. And for the most part, if you don't recognize some of this verbiage is coming from the living Bible, which makes things sometimes a little bit easier. And it starts like this. Joseph's brothers, of course, noticed their father's partiality and consequently hated Joseph, okay. [00:05:22] They couldn't say a kind word to him one night. Joseph had a dream and promptly reported the details. His brother's causing even deeper hatred. Listen to this. He announced we were out in the field binding cheese, and my chief stood up and you're she's all gather round me and bowed low before it. So the brother said, So you want to be our king, do you? And they hated him, both for the dream and his cocky attitude. So here's a question for you. [00:05:49] Did Joseph, do you think, grow up in a loving family? Yeah. With his brothers hating him the whole time. [00:05:59] Now that a loving family. No, no. Okay. [00:06:06] So his father loved him. Yes. But his brothers hated him. It says three times that they hated him, they hated him. They hated him. [00:06:14] So can you imagine living in an environment where your closest relatives are all hating you? [00:06:21] I cannot. Would you call that good or bad? [00:06:26] Bad? Yeah, I would think so, too. So then we read a little bit long further. So now Joseph is 17 years old, his father, Israel. Okay. So just give you the genealogy. Have Abraham Isaac Jacob Jacob's name was changed to Israel and Israel had 12 signs. Those are the 12 tribes of Israel. And son number eleven, if I'm correct, is Joseph. Okay. And so he sends Joseph out into the fields to find all of his other sons. The other ten brothers at that time to his 10 older brothers. And and just check on what's going on. So this is where we pick up. And he says, but when they saw him coming, recognizing him in the distance, they decided to kill him. Okay. Here we have that loving family again. Let's kill our brother. Here comes that master dreamer, they exclaim. Come on, let's kill him and toss him into a wall and tell father that a wild animal has eaten him. [00:07:28] Then we'll save what will become of all of his dreams. So they're still jealous of what God has given him as a dream. [00:07:37] So says when Joseph got there, they pulled off his brightly colored robe. Okay, so his father given him a robe of righteousness, robes or status symbol in this one was greater status symbol because it had lots of bright colors. And so it says that they threw off his robe and threw him into an empty well. And then they see a bunch of traders come by. And so when the traders came by, his brothers pulled Joseph out of the well and sold him into the traders for 20 pieces of silver. [00:08:17] And they took compete. Now, can you imagine at this moment, Joseph being thrown into the well by his brothers, being rough handle and then being yanked up and sold into slavery for only 20 pieces of silver. What do you think's going on in Joseph's mind at that point? [00:08:34] He's got to feel completely rejected and was scared. [00:08:39] Yeah. So many things. Did he feel like he deserved any of this? No. Do you think he was questioning God? [00:08:50] Yes, absolutely. We always question God because we don't trust him, do you think if he trusted God as Moses, trusted God as he was as there going through the wilderness? Do you think if he trusted God at that level that he would be questioning God quite so much? Probably not. No. So what I find is we question God the most when we don't really trust him. In other words, when we keep our eyes on ourselves and not on the Lord in his word, that's usually when we question what's going on. Does that make sense? [00:09:28] Yeah. Yeah. Oh, okay. [00:09:30] So then we pick up. This is now in Genesis thirty nine. So Joseph arrives in Egypt, his soul to part offer a member of Pharaoh's staff. Okay. Part 4 later puts him in charge of all of his affairs. And then one day part of first wife begins making eyes at Joseph and suggests that he come and sleep with her. And what is Joseph to you, remember? [00:09:54] He says no. That's right. He says no. He says, my master, trust me, with everything in the entire household. He he's held nothing back from me except you because you are his wife. How could you do such a wicked thing? Is this. It would be a great sin against God? No. Do you think Joseph loves the Lord? Yes. Do you think he's following the law the best he can? I do. Yeah. Okay. And now this woman's coming after him, is Josef's acting properly and faithfully? [00:10:31] He is. Yeah. And what happened to you, remember? [00:10:37] I think she keeps pushing like she keeps trying to seduce them and really try to get him to go along with what she wants. And he keeps saying no. And she gets upset. [00:10:50] That's right. You don't want to give way too much. Yeah, that's right. Okay. [00:10:54] Well, hopefully most of folks are listening to this. Probably have some some recollection of Joseph, but let's read into it. Then one day as he was in the house and no one else was around at the time, she came and grabbed him by the sleeve demanding sleep with me. He tore himself away, but as he did, his jacket was robe slipped off and he was left holding. She was holding it as he fled from the house. When she saw that he she had it and he had fled, she began screaming. And when the other men around the place came running and she was crying hysterically, my husband had to bring in this Hebrew slave to insult us. She saw. He tried to rape me, but when I screamed, he ran and forgot to take his jacket. So do you think Joseph has been wrongly accused? [00:11:44] Yes. If this is this good or bad? [00:11:48] Bad? Yeah. So what's happening? Is this one bad even after another, isn't it? His brothers hate him. They try to kill them. They throw mental until well, then they sell sell them into slavery. And then he's doing well. He's acting righteously before God. His master puts him in control of everything. Now he gets slammed again and it gets even worse. So says that when her husband came home that night, she told him her story. That Hebrew slay that you've had around here. Try to rape me. And when he heard it, he was furious and he threw Joseph into prison down into the dungeon. [00:12:29] How do you think Joseph is feeling right now? [00:12:33] Or cannot be. Yeah. [00:12:36] Do you think he's going, oh, lord. Thank you. I'm so excited. I'm right in the center of your will. [00:12:43] No, I haven't. I think he probably had a few choice words. [00:12:47] Probably so. Let me ask you. Was he right in the center of God's will? [00:12:54] Well, that's a trick question. Yes, he was. I think I know, yeah. Come on the story. [00:13:01] That's right. That's right. So this is a key. When we know the outcome, we can now piece it all together going through it. [00:13:09] We have to trust the father's heart. [00:13:14] Yeah, and not worry. [00:13:18] Okay. As we always worry, but the more we trust the father's heart, the more we can handle any of these quote unquote, dark times that come our way because we know who's in control. So now this is now we're in Genesis 40 sometime later. It happened that the king of Egypt, pharaoh, became angry with his chief baker and his chief butler. So he's thrown throws him into the prison where Joseph is. And then one night, each of them have a dream. And Joseph interprets both of those dreams and the dreams that his interpretation actually comes comes true. Jon Favreau decides to hold the party. He pulls both the baker and the butler out. He puts a butler back in a position and he kills the baker. Justice Joseph said, What's going to happen? So does and Joseph said, hey, Butler, when you get out. Remember me, tell Pharaoh about me. I've done nothing to be here. I've. You know, I've done nothing against my own people who have been sold into slavery. I've done nothing wrong. Please tell him. And what did the butler do? [00:14:32] He remembered. [00:14:34] I think he if I remember right again, I want to give why he lied. But I think he tells Pharaoh, I know somebody that can interpret dreams. [00:14:44] Yeah. Okay. So so watch this. This is cool. So now we're in Genesis 41. One night, two years later. Okay. It was two years later. Joseph still is in dark times in the dungeon. No freedom, no light, no, no nothing but grunge. Okay. [00:15:09] Two years later, Pharaoh dream. Two dreams. No one could interpret them. Then the butler remembers Joseph at that point, is that are you know, I totally forgot some time ago when you you're angry with a couple of us and put me in there, Chief Baker in jail. Baker and I each had a dream. One night we told the dreams to a young Hebrew who was a slave of the captain there, and he told us what our dreams meant. And everything happened. Just as he said, I was restored to my position and the baker was executed. So Pharaoh sent for Joseph at once. Okay, now, is this good or bad? [00:15:50] This is good if he's getting called out of prison. [00:15:53] Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it sure looks good, right? Yes. OK. Can you see the Lord's hand starting to move right now in this pressure? [00:16:04] Yeah. Okay. Now to put this in perspective, this is eleven years after. Joseph has been sold into slavery. [00:16:12] He's now 28 years old from 17 to 28. He's been a slave. So then Joseph interpretted dreams tells Pharaoh that both dreams are saying the same thing, that there's gonna be seven years of great abundance. And then seven years of the most severe famine that's gonna be so severe, you won't even remember how abundant it is. And and then pharaoh says talks. His advisers said, well, we need to put someone in charge to manage all this. Who do we do? And so now I want to pick up and I'm one. Reed, this is Genesis 41, starting in thirty nine. [00:16:55] And then it says then Pharaoh said to Joseph, Since God has shown you all this, there is none so discerning and wise as you are, you shall be over my house and all my people shall order themselves as you command only as regards the throne will I be greater than you. In other words, Pharaoh now puts him in second in control of all of Egypt. [00:17:19] Then Pharaoh took his signet ring from his hand and and put on Joseph's hand. Here's the significance. The signet ring means that Joseph can do anything in the king's name. [00:17:30] By the way, as Christians, we've been given the Lord's signet ring. Okay. [00:17:39] So now there's some deep implications on how effectively we end up using that. But that's another story. So he takes a signet ring, puts it in Joseph's hand. And then during the seven plentiful years, the earth produced abundantly and in the seven years of plenty came to an end and a seven years of famine began to come, as Joseph had said. [00:18:05] So here's kind of the summary I want to go through with all this. The Lord is directing all of these events in Joseph's lives. Would you agree? Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:18:17] So Joseph was a man at God's own heart. [00:18:19] And even in his flavouring, in imprisonment, we know that he sought the Lord because he always tried to do what was honorable and. [00:18:28] The Lord always put him in charge of bless everything that was going on. So we see the Lord's hand upon Joseph. Even in the dark times. Did you in your dark times, have you ever seen the Lord's hand kind of still working with you and through you during those tough times? [00:18:44] Yes. Yes. It's hard to say. You know, you're natural. I tend to focus on the dark. But for sure. For sure. God was there. [00:18:53] That's right. And I've seen the same thing over and over again. And. And so back Joseph, because he was faithful in the small things as he was coming through. We'll call this his wilderness experience. As he was coming through this wilderness, then the lord put him in charge of much, just as what Jesus says, because you had been faithful in a little. Now be in charge of tent cities as he's the parable with the miners. And then. But here's the key. From Joseph's perspective, as he's going through it, each event merely seemed to have a natural cause and effect. His brothers hated him. He has a dream. They hated him more. He goes and they decide to kill him. They throw him in a well. Then they say, lis-, thelen, every single thing. There is a cause and effect that Joseph is putting together. Does that make sense? Oh, yeah. Okay. So from his perspective, it was just one bad even after another. I'm sure he felt bitter. Bitter. I'm sure he questioned God on what was happening. And yet here's the thing. The Lord is directing every step of his, so if you remember last session, passage after passage after passage. Lord Lord is telling us he guides our step. He directs our step. He's cha-cha-cha path even tells us where to stop and rest. And what we find here is every step is guided and directed by the Lord. And finally, Joseph comes to that same realization once his brothers come and provides food. Okay. Because Joseph set for God sent me before you to preserve life. Joseph finally figured out what was going on. Later. He figured out it was his destiny that the Lord was working on. And until we see the Lord guiding all of this, let's see. Let me think a couple other thoughts on this before we shift some topics. So. So here's a question. When bad things happen. Does guide calls it? We can obviously look at this life of Joseph. All these things that were seemingly bad. Here's the question. Did God cause all those events to happen? [00:21:23] No. No. Then what happened? [00:21:29] He used them. Yeah, he did them for yeah. Did he know they were going to happen? All right. Who knows all things? [00:21:41] He knows all things. And he used them. [00:21:45] So sometimes we find a guy who uses the bad debts in the world to propel us. To the good destiny that he has for us. Does that make sense? Yeah, I think think about Jesus. Satan was gonna try everything he could to stop Jesus. Do you think I knew that? [00:22:11] Oh, for sure. [00:22:13] And do you think everything that Satan did to stop Jesus actually playing God's hand to fulfill Jesus's destiny? [00:22:22] Yeah, they're. [00:22:25] Do you think God is a respecter of persons? [00:22:32] I think he treats us all the same. I think he loves us all the same. [00:22:36] Yeah. Paul says God is no respecter of persons, right? Yeah. [00:22:41] So he thinks of his favorite neighbor. We're all here, too. That's right. [00:22:47] We're all his favorite. So here's the thing. God is the same yesterday, today and forever. What he does, for one, he does for all because he respects no one greater than someone else. This is why when and this is what it says. You know, because faith was reckoned righteousness was reckoned to Abraham because of his faith. So is righteousness reck into us because of our faith? In other words, God sets a precedent what he does for what he does for all. And what we find here with Joseph, the Lord is leveraging all of these evil things that are going on. [00:23:28] That guy knows ahead of time. But he uses those almost like the picture I'm getting is saw like that. Have you ever played a pinball machine? Yes. What? The ball. It hits a thing. It goes somewhere else. It bounces around. Okay. It's almost like God knows every little post out there and swiped the ball in just the right direction to hit one post and another post in the next post pushes the ball a little bit further and it guides all the way to homerun. [00:23:57] Okay. Enter into the goalpost. And that's kind of what's going off and going here. So. There is a possibility that God caused some of this to happen. These think God caused a Israel to love Joseph more than the other brothers. [00:24:17] Oh, that's a tough question. No. The only reason I say no, God doesn't cause bad is because God is good. [00:24:27] Right. No, I don't. I don't. I don't. Okay. [00:24:31] Is Israel loving Joseph more than the other brothers? Good or bad? [00:24:38] Then God says, Jacob, I loved you, so I hate it. Is that good or bad? [00:24:46] Which is bad for itself, but is God good? Yes. [00:24:52] Ok, so what is good for God? [00:24:55] Can it also be good for man? [00:24:58] Yes. So if if God cause Israel to love Joseph more than the other brothers, is that good or bad? [00:25:11] Aschen, I think. [00:25:14] Yes, he says he's not causing Israel to hate the other brothers, but just to love Joseph Moore. Do you think God caused Joseph caused Israel to make Joseph a bright, multicolored jacket? Yeah. Do you think God knew that that would create jealousy and hatred among the brothers? Yes. Do you think God caused Joseph to have those dreams? I do. Do you think he knew that those trains would cause jealousy and hatred among the brothers? [00:25:50] Yes. OK. So here's what we have. We see God causing a lot of events that had the repercussions of evil responding that God uses to push Joseph toward his destiny. Do you think that's possible that he's doing the same thing in our lives at times as well? [00:26:14] Yeah. Okay. Is kind of cool. [00:26:18] Yes. Very cool. All right. [00:26:21] So. So we pick up a lot of things and just some really interesting things. Let's say this to try and catch up on where I am on my notes. When bad things happen to us. We must first try to decide, are they truly bad or are they simply not what we desire? Is it truly bad that the brothers hated Joseph? Is it truly bad that they wanted to kill him? Is it truly bad that they sold him into slavery? Are all these things truly bad? Or ultimately, are they just simply not what we desire? But they happen to be the best thing for us because they push us where the Lord is directing us and we don't. We can't tell that as we go through. OK, from our perspective at the moment, we can't grasp God's big picture. It's only after a period of time that we can look backwards and see. And for Joseph, it took twenty two years before he understood that all these bad things that had happened to him were actually God's hand leading him. Let me ask you a question. Twenty two years later. Do you think if he had the perspective before he was twenty two years as he was going through those processes, do you think his heart toward God would have been different? [00:27:53] Oh, gosh, yes. [00:27:55] Do you think he's one had it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:27:58] And so what can we pull out of this? What we can rattle out. Yeah, we got it. We got to we got to trust the Lord to be a faithful father. Quinn We know that we're truly seeking the Lord, honoring him, really following him, trying to do our best. Yeah, we stumble. But when bad things happen, things that we consider bad, we have to trust the heart of our father. Like I mentioned last time. When you can't see what the Lord's hand is doing, you have to trust his heart. Does that make sense? Yeah. So now I want to shift stories and talk about Esther, because here's what I would call the lord tells the same story with the same message over and over and over again all throughout scripture, because he's constantly revealing who he is. And it's our job to pull out of those scriptures, the understanding of who he is. And so I want to walk through another story that has really neat implications, very similar. So this is the story of Esther. Okay, trivia question, what is Esther's real name? [00:29:21] I probably can't pronounce it. [00:29:26] I right. Yes. Yes, I know that something like that. Yeah. Yeah. [00:29:33] I was just discussing the future of you. No, no, no. Big deal. Big deal on that. OK. So let me kind of give you the background and lay out the storyline of Esther. So Israel has been Jerusalem has been destroyed by neighbor Nasr. All of the people have been taken out in exile. This is the time of Daniel, okay. He was taken as captives. And Mordechai, a guy named Mordecai and Esther, are gone as well. Then never. Nasir's kingdom is overtaken by getting that guy name King a hazardous. Who's king of the purge, Persian in the Meade's or something like that. And and he's having a feast and throwing a great big party. He calls the queen in to show her off in front of all of his guests. She refuses. He gets upset. He banishes her. Then he's upset because now he doesn't have a queen. So they say, well, let's go throughout all your kingdom. Get the most beautiful virgins that are out there. And we'll bring him into your hair, him and you get to choose. OK. So that's kind of the storyline. So now we come to sue. So the capital where he is. This is where Esther is living with her uncle because Esther is an orphan. Chances are her mother and father were killed during the Beattylonian captivity. We don't know that for certain. But that would make sense. And then she's living there peacefully with Mordechai, her uncle, and now she's forcefully taken from him to be thrown into King's Haram. Is that good or bad? Bad? [00:31:18] Yeah. I would think so. Take away from our family. [00:31:23] Yeah, the only family she's got. So then she becomes king later. Mordechai gets a job working for the king. Says he sits at the Kings Gate. OK. And while he's a sharpie, overhears a plot from two people that are upset with the king and they want to kill the king. All right. Do you hear that noise in the background? Is that problematic? No, you don't. OK, perfect. Great. [00:31:55] So I'm out on my deck when I do this. And I just want to make sure you don't hear the background noise. So. So he reports. Mordechai reports this plot to the queen, who then takes it to the king. The king investigates, kills those two people. [00:32:11] The king is saved. OK. So then later, the king appoints a guy named haymon as prime minister, essentially to run the country. And Heyman is an evil man and everyone is supposed to bow down and basically worship him as he comes by. And so every time he comes by and comes by Mordechai, he goes to the King's Gate. What do you think Mordechai does as a Jew? He does not. He does. That's right. So you have an evil Preibus man, everyone's falling down except this one man who stays standing. What do you think? Who you think's going on in Heyman's heart at that point? [00:32:51] Why are you not backing down? That's right. [00:32:54] He gets real angry. Okay. And so he finds out that Mordecai doesn't bail because he's a Jew. So now Mordecai hates all the Jews. So he decides I'm going to get rid of all of them. So he goes the king and says, I'll pay you ten thousand talents. A silver. That's a huge amount for Mordechai. I mean, haymon is really rich. I'll pay you ten thousand talents a silver if you let me write a decree to kill all of the Jews because they're bad for your kingdom. King says, Hey, that's good. All right, I'll do that. So he he lets the king lets him do that. So then haymon writes a decree and sent it out through all of the province. This is basically all of the world at that time and says on this date, in about twelve months, every person can rise up against ologies, kill every Jew, every man, woman and child. [00:33:49] And whoever you kill, you can plunder everything they have. So now all the Jews are scared to death. Certain death is marked out and they're powerless to stop it. Does that make sense so far? Yeah. Yeah. Is is this bad? [00:34:05] Yeah. [00:34:07] If it's rooted in evil. Yeah. I think it might be even Satan trying to get rid of the Jewish race pressure. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So then Mordechai comes to Esther. She goes the king and wants to plea for help. And so she's gonna do this through two life sessions. So she says, King, will you come to lunch with me today and will you bring Heyman's? Now, this is really, really interesting. The fact that she comes before the king, she puts her life on the line. So the king realizes something really important. She she has something really important to ask where she would not have risked her life. Okay. So he says, yes, I'll be there. He grabs haymon. They go have lunch. He says, what do you want? She says, I want you to come tomorrow to another banquet and then I'll make my request now. So then haymon goes home right after that. And he's all excited, he calls this France. He tells his wife and his friends how great he is, how powerful he is. And even the queen invited me to a private lunch with the king. And then he says, is this is hatred coming up? And yet none of this is worth anything as long as I see Mordechai alive. So now his wife says, well, look, you got the king's favor. You're powerful. Why don't you build a gallows tomorrow morning? Go ask the king if you can hang him. Mordechai on the gallows before lunch and then you can go to lunch with the king and the queen and just have a wonderful time. So can you imagine haymon all excited, giddy that night saying, oh, finally, I'm going to kill Mordecai tomorrow. You see this thing going on for now. What gods? Humor. Okay, so Mordecai is about to be killed. His runway of options is about out. He doesn't know it, but in probably 10 hours, he's gonna be dead on that gallows. [00:36:24] Okay. There's nothing he can do to escape. You get the picture of this? Yeah. Have you ever been in a position you felt like there's nothing you can do to fix the problem, you are doomed? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So but God has a sense of humor. God is in control. And what happens that night with the king? Do you remember? [00:36:53] I feel like somehow Esther says something that kind of like trapped. [00:37:01] Almost almost, yeah. So that happens in a moment. So that night, Paul Heyman is all giddy and probably can't sleep. The king can't sleep. [00:37:14] Do you think it might have been providentially God keeping the king away? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so the king says someone read me a book I know remade a book of all the good deeds in my kingdom. So these pull out this book and they start reading all night long and then they come to the story of Mordecai, how he reports this plot by these two employees to kill the king and two employees were killed and the king was saved. And the. And that's where we now pick up in an extra six. So I am now going to start reading from here. So that's the background. And let me start reading what the scripture says. So the king says, what reward did we ever give Mordechai for this? And his courtiers replied, nothing. Well, he's on duty in the outer court. The King inquired. OK, so this is early morning. He's still in bed. They're still reading. So you can get them. This is really early in the morning. And now that it happened, Hayman had just arrived in the outer court to ask the king to hang Mordechai. Okay. He's so excited. He gives up early and that's the first thing on his mind. So the courtiers replied, Hanemann is out there. The King said. Oh, great. Bring him in. So, hey, haymon comes in. [00:38:40] Now he's coming into the king's private chamber. Okay. And the king says him, What should I do to honor a man who truly pleases me? And what do you think a man is thinking to himself? [00:38:52] He's going to honor me. That's right. [00:38:55] That's right. The scripture says. Well, who would he want to honor more than me? Pride comes before the fall. Right. So he replied. He so haymon says, we'll bring out some of the royal robes that the king himself has worn, and the king's own horse, and a royal crown. And it struck one the king's most noble princes to robe the man and lead it through the streets on the king's own horse. Shouting This is the way the king honors those who truly please him. Hey, man, was grand jury. Can you say this? All the pride and praise from all the people out there? [00:39:32] Yeah. [00:39:36] God, wonderful. So the king said, excellent. Hurry and take these robes and my horse and do just as you said to Mordecai, the Jew who works at the chancellery, follow every detail you suggested. What do you think's going on, right, Ben? I'm haymon. [00:39:58] I can not. I mean, I was I could fly on the wall. I'm sure his face fell to the floor. And. Yeah. Can you can you imagine? Can you imagine the embarrassment even that he probably felt? [00:40:12] That's right. And here's something I want you to recognize. All of this is happening in Mordecai. Doesn't have a clue. So often God is doing all kinds of things behind the scene and we don't even have a clue yet. And yet. God is in control. So we pick back up. So haymon takes the robes and puts them on Mordecai. I can just imagine. [00:40:40] Mordechai, come here. I want to robe you. I want to set this crown. I am ready. And I can just imagine what more ecchi is doing. He's going, yeah. The Lord is about to save us. So he puts a rose on Mordechai Mount's him on the king's own state, and leads him through the streets of the city, shouting, This is the way the king honors those who delights in them. [00:41:04] And then afterwards, who? Mordechai goes back to his job, and haymon hurries home, utterly humiliated. [00:41:15] So now he's sulking. So keep in mind, this is the morning, the second feast with the queen. So later that day, just a couple hours later, as he's mourning and he's complaining and though his wife is saying, well, if Mordechai is a Jew, your plans are gone, completely fail. No, he still doesn't know. The queen is a Jew. So then the king's men come and get haymon to bring him to lunch. And in at Lighton. And I can just imagine that haymon is all sulking and morose during this banquet. And the king asks again to Esther, What can I do for you? We pick back up. This is Esther, seven. And at last, Queen Esther replied, If I've won your favor OKing, and if it please, Your Majesty, save my life and the lives of my people. For my people have been sold to those who will destroy us. We are doomed to destruction and slaughter. If we were only to be sold as slaves. Perhaps I could remain quiet, even though then there are being calculable damage to the king that no amount of money could begin to cover. So she hits right on. There is money that's been paid on this and don't matter how much has been paid. Even if we're disowning slavery, this is gonna destroy the king. Okay. And then the king replies. What are you talking about? And who would touch you? Assa replied. This wicked haymon is our enemy. Then haymon grew pale with fright before the king and queen. The King jumped to his feet, went out of the palace garden at Heyman's, stood up to plead for his life. The queen asked her, for he knew that he was doomed. [00:43:08] You know, this happens so frequently. All that loss and the enemy that's attacking us, we think they're about to win. And yet God has everything in his hands. And in just a moment, boom, it's all gone. So. In despair, haymon falls upon the couch where Queen Esther was reclining, just as the king returned for the palace garden. Will he even rape the queen right here in the palace before my eyes? The king roared and instantly the death fell. That hood was placed over Hanemann face. And then when the king's aide says Sir haymon is restored, order to 75 foot gallows constructed to hanging Mordecai. The man who saved the king from assassination. It stands in Heyman's courtyard. Heying haymon on it. The king ordered, so that's the end of haymon. Then the king is well, Mordecai Heyman's position gives Esther all of Heyman's possessions and in Mordechai writes, a decree that the Jews can not only defend themselves on that date. This is now about 10 months to go. But he can. They can also kill every one of their enemies who hate them. And and so on that day when it comes, the Israelites destroyed seventy five thousand of their staunchest enemies. So that's the story of Esther in that. Pretty cool. Am I wrong? All right. So now let's. I want to wrap this up and I want to give some really cool takeaways out of all this, because I think this is really kind of what's cool, cool with this. So the central thought on all of this that hit and hits me as I'm as I've gone through it. Is do you think the Lord could have prevented haymon from coming to power? [00:45:05] Could have. Yes. Yes. If he prevented haymon from coming to power without a protected his people and they would never have been in peril. [00:45:16] Yeah, unless someone else came and did that. But yes. OK. [00:45:21] But God chose not to do that. Yeah. Think about it. God allowed his people. To go through tough times. So he can deliver them and not only deliver them. But give them greater blessings, I think someone said that the darker the times you go through, the greater the blessings on the other end. OK. [00:45:51] So what we have to realize is because the Lord directs those events that have a major impact on our lives and accomplishing his will then as we go through these events, even though it's scary. Are are honest response should be to be at peace knowing that the Lord is in control and that all of these things, if we're in God's will. Okay, if we're doing our best to follow his guidance. OK. As we talked about last time. Then whatever happens, we should be at peace. And content knowing that God is guiding everything that's going on for some reason, for his glory and for our destiny of where we're to be used to that make sense. [00:46:39] Yeah. [00:46:41] And how often do we get our eyes off the law and back on ourselves and we start to get afraid and question the Lord. So if Heyman comes to powers, Prime Minister, the Lord allows him to do, he's choosing to destroy all of the Jews. But watch this long before he ever came to power. God put Queen Esther in position to deliver his people. God is playing this big game of chess and he knows exactly what's going on and he's positioning the pieces. Already. But watch this, see? God could have prevented haymon from coming to power in check. Instead. He chose to show his own power and sovereignty by delivering their people once they were in peril. And. And not only that, though, here's the kind of the other key is because haymon came to power, because all these events came through, because all the Jews were terrified and scared to death for their life. Then through that problem, through that process, God deliver the Jews even more. He didn't just deliver the Jews from haymon and the threat of being killed. He delivered the Jews from all of their enemies at that time because they killed all 75000 of them. So it was a greater blessing for them to have come through that process because they ended up in a stronger, safer, more secure position. Does that make sense? Yeah. So it seems that God allows us to go through tough times, not only so he can get the glory delivering us. But that he can bless us more through that. And I think there are five takeaways is that I get from this. First, the Lord is in control of all things. In the big scheme of things, okay. He doesn't control haymon. He doesn't control the evil, but he is in control. He has his overriding control of everything that goes on. That's the first thing we can get from this. The second thing we can get is that he's coordinating the activities long before their purpose is known. [00:49:05] Think about this. So. First. [00:49:09] He coordinates the activity to get rid of Queen Baster. I think that's her name. And then that forces King hazardous to say I need another queen. Who do I get? [00:49:22] They rip ask her out of her home. They thought that was bad and God is doing all that to position her. [00:49:30] In a position of power, but not only that, Mordecai then gets a job with a king. And he overhears his plot and he reports it. That plot and Mordecai overhearing it has a key role to play in this. By the way, do you know how long it was from the time of that plot to the time that the King read back through the Chronicles and said, we honored this person for saving? [00:50:02] I felt like it was. I felt like it was over a year, but I don't know exactly. [00:50:07] Yeah, yeah, it was. It was about five years to watch that one seemingly insignificant thing. He just happens over here, this plot and reports it five years later. Is the key to saving the entire nation of the Jewish people. Then so God is causing a lot of things that we don't even see long before they ever come to fruition. The third thing we can take out of this. If the Lord allows us to face complete loss, complete destruction, or, as I call it, running off the cliff, it seems like we're just about to run off that cliff and there's nothing we can do to prevent it. He allows us to get into that position. For us to be scared to death but rely and trust on him, in fact, one of the things Mordecai said to Esther. She said, I can't go before the king because. I could be killed. And watch Mordecai Faith in the Lord. He said, we'll ask her. Who knows if maybe you haven't been put in as queen for a time such as this to save our people. But if you don't do it, be assured that the Lord will save us. But it'll be through some other means. [00:51:31] So more ecchi has this great faith in the Lord. Great worry of what's going on, but great faith as well that the Lord can take care of it. And that's what happens. The Lord allows us to go to the edge, to go right to the edge of that cliff, then force. He always intervenes. He always protects his loved ones from destruction. He allows him to get to the edge, but he won't allow them to go over the edge. And fifth, which I think is pretty cool, is during that process. And because of that process, he also as a bonus, he blesses us even more, you know, with not only with the Jews and destroying all their enemies, but Mordechai is taken from just a lowly employ to prime minister of the entire country. So it you just see God's hand in all of this. And as I go through this, I am encouraged that he's always in control. He's coordinating all these events in my life and in your life that we don't understand, that we get concerned about, that we're afraid of. Sometimes he allows us to head straight for the cliff and we feel that we have no control in the matter because ultimately we really don't. [00:52:54] We are moving down. If you recall, one of the sessions we did early about God's timing versus Manson. I mean, we're in that little pipe. You're right. Going down that raging river and you can't stop it. You know, it is moving and you're just going along with it. So there are things that we can't stop. We see this cliff we're about to go over and we seem to be powerless. And then the lord comes in. And here's how he saves us. He saves us through a miraculous set of events. We may see them as circumstantial. When we see God's hand moving miraculously in a natural, we call it providential, providential circumstances. But make no false assumption. It is the Lord's hand guiding and directing all of it directly for our care, directly for his will, directly for where he wants to lead us, and this is time back into the last one. This is where it says the Lord will get us to his destiny for us. And he says, even if I had to put a bit in your mouth and force you that direction, you will go where I am sending you then. In that call. [00:54:16] Yes. Great. And even though I was just thing about, you know, what does this guy with all those all that does does that. I mean, he was before he was just a CEPR boy, basically just a son that helped on the farm and then look at where he ended up. Yeah. Only in command under the pharaoh. [00:54:38] Well, you know, even in my own life, I'll tell you a story. I don't tell this much, but I got involved with Amway as a freshman in college. You know what Amway is? [00:54:49] Yes. Yes, I do. [00:54:51] Yeah, it's a network marketing company, pyramid company, as people call it. And I come from a well-to-do medical family. And we had a great lifestyle growing up. My dad did very well financially and faithful before the Lord. But in freshman year college, I get hooked in Amway. I get hooked into the approach of, oh, my gosh, you're going to be rich. I thought literally that I was going to graduate college as a millionaire. [00:55:25] So I was. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Well, that's kind of what they told. I apologize. One moment. You can probably hear that helicopter back there. Good. Is kind of loud. Can you still hear me over the helicopter? [00:55:38] I can. Yeah. OK, great. OK, great. So. So I was about to quit college because I knew I didn't need it. My parents wisely tell me, just finish it. So I did. But I changed my degree and just had a great time in college and in studying. So I get out of college and then I find out I'm not making a bunch of money. In fact, I have to go home and live with my parents and all my friends who got a regular degree. They're getting all these nice cushiony jobs and they're buying homes. And woe is me, every time I see a friend drive by in a Mercedes or BMW or, you know, I was driving old jalopy. [00:56:17] My comment was there. But for me, go I. And after a number of years of that, I really thought I'd screwed up my life. You know, that pivotal point of my life and everything was screwed up. I went from job to job trying to earn money here and there. Nothing was happening. By 10 years, 12, 13 years later, I was still broke. Okay. I found myself unemployed. We had a small house and we've been faithful to the Lord all the time. But nothing was going on. And then the Lord bless us with this business that I started. And do you know what that business was? Adele, tell me it was selling, so during this time I started to really learn about marketing, started to really consume it. I tried a couple of businesses with a friend of mine. They never really amounted to much, but we honed a lot of marketing talent and we developed a product that really was great in generating leads. And so the Lord blessed me with just a little inkling of a business. And my first customer base. Was network marketers. [00:57:39] And then we started to take all this stuff that I learned in Amway, the attitude, the go get it, all this stuff, and we applied it in business and two and a half years later. [00:57:52] We were making a hundred thousand dollars a month in profits. Wow. Can you imagine that? And I look back and I think if it hadn't been for the Lord directed me into Amway, I would never be in business today. But during the time, I really thought I made a bad mistake. And I think all of us can probably look backwards and say the Lord's hand guiding them and kind of on that same topic. [00:58:21] I want to share one other thing. I was at church one day and man was asking me how how is my how my business was. And I told him, You mean in the natural or in the spiritual? Right. I shared that, you know, in the natural. It's like running full speed. The engine is running. The drive shaft is running. The wheels are spinning. But we're going nowhere because we're stuck in the mud, because at that time it felt like we have this big elephant standing in front of us keeping from moving. But I told him in the spiritual God has told me that we're going through wilderness time. Once I get to the wilderness, he's going to move that elephant out of the way. And we're gonna then just take off. And the man said, well, you know, he has a brother and or friend or someone like that who'd gone through some dark times in his business as well. I tell him, no, we're not in dark times. I've been in dark times. My business, but now is not one of them. I said you're only in dark times when you get your eyes off the Lord and put them on the natural. When you become afraid, that's when it's dark. But when you keep your eyes on the Lord, it's always bright. And and I was sharing the example of Peter walking on the water. So when we go through these times in our lives, it's important that we don't keep our eyes on the natural because we get become afraid. We start to question God. We put our eyes on the Lord. And that's where we have our trust. That's where we have our confidence. For sure. Yes. So any any other comments? We got to wrap up. But any thoughts, your comments? [01:00:02] Yeah, just for me. Trying to turn to keep my focus on knowing that all the little things like he just said, all those little things that I think might be ruining me or a bad decision or gas, ash, gas, I should have gone that way or whatever. The Lord still uses it all in his promises to take care of us as his children. Yes. [01:00:27] And I would go one step further if we're faithful before him. And we can honestly look at our life and say there is no sin in my life. I mean, no, no focus have seen in my life. Obviously, we all sin, but there's no sin in our life. Then we can know that we're in the center of wherever he has us. And therefore, not only know that those bad things, Glaude can bring something good out of it, but he's using those bad things to bounce us like that pinball machine. The next step down the path of where he's leading us, it's all part of his plan. [01:01:05] Yeah, to become fully mature. Yes, okay. [01:01:12] He matures us and he puts us where he wants us to be. To be used in his kingdom, to build his temple. And yeah, it's really cool. Really cool. All right. Awesome. [01:01:26] Oh, Beatty. I think we're about out of time. We probably need to wrap it up. But thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for your expertise. And just that, the diligence that you put into studying the word and and teaching it to our listeners and myself as well. This was a great call and I'm excited about our next one. [01:01:45] I am, too. We'll be talking on part three. [01:01:48] Sounds good. I guess we'll see everybody then. [01:01:52] Be blessed. All righty. Bye bye. P059 [/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
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Please ignore any speech-to-text errors) [00:00:04] Well, hello, everyone. We're so glad you joined us again today. My name is Kenny Thomas. For those of you who haven't heard my voice yet. And welcome to this next session. I was calling you Beatty Carmichael. Beatty is the CEO of Master Grabber, the creator of Agent Dominator and one of the top marketing experts in the real estate field. Beatty, I'm excited. What are we going to be discussing today? [00:00:29] Well, today we're going to talk about how to increase referrals. That sounds like a interesting topic for real estate agents. [00:00:37] Yes, I would say a very important one also. [00:00:40] Absolutely, very important. In fact, I was at a convention. It was a a weekend convention, hundreds of real estate agents. And they had a bunch of breakout sessions on the Saturday event that agents could go and choose what topic they want to learn. And one breakout session, Drew, I think it was like two thirds or three fourths of all of the attendees and all the other breakout sessions. Some of them actually had no one attending because this other one drama. Can you. Can you think what that one topic might have been when they get referral? [00:01:24] That's right. How to increase referrals. Exactly. I was talking to another client of ours, and he's a top producer down in Florida. He's been coaching with a coach for a number of years. And the coach got all of his coaching clients together. It's like 18 or 20 different, really strong top producing agents. And they went around the room actually as a conference call. So they went around the call and they were asking every single one last year, where did most of your business come from? Would you like to guess where all but one, my client, all the others who are the bulk of their business came from? [00:02:09] Any idea? [00:02:12] Referral, referrals and repeat from past clients. So this, if you do it right, can really sustain a business. And especially think about this, Penny, the real estate world is going into through some pretty dramatic shifts right now. Are you aware of some of those shifts taking place? [00:02:36] I've been hearing a little bit, but I'd love for you to expand on that if you can. [00:02:40] Well, there are shifts with what's called a buyer's Zillow's moving more into an aggressive competitor. Amazon's looking to get in. [00:02:49] There's this large class-action court case dealing with buyer commissions. And the bottom line is all these things are putting immense pressure on what's going to happen in the real estate world as a profession. What do you think would be one the best thing someone could do to protect to get all these market shifts that could eat away at their business? Any idea? [00:03:17] Obviously, increase increased their amount of sales to increase sales, but increase referrals and repeat sales from past clients. And so this is a huge topic because it really can help someone take their business and solidify it and be less susceptible to a range of market forces that they have no control over. And this is one thing that's real interesting is I've worked with our clients. Penny, you have complete control over getting referrals and getting people to do business with you again. You don't have much control over what the market does. So this is one area that you can really start to control your business. So let me ask you a question as we get into this. [00:03:59] Let's assume that you're a home owner and a friend comes to you and says, hey, Penny, I'm thinking about selling a house or thinking about buying a house. Do you have anyone that you would recommend I talk to? So you're going to make a referral, refer a friend to an agent. Here's the question I have for you. Which agent are you most likely to refer? One, that you would choose yourself or one that you would not choose yourself? [00:04:34] One that I would choose myself for sure. [00:04:37] So then the question if we move into this topic. Why would you choose one agent over someone else? Okay, so now let me turn the tables just a little bit. Imagine for a moment that your real estate agent, what causes someone to choose you over another agent? If you were to try to figure that out, do you have any idea of what that might be? [00:05:04] Well, off the top of my head, I would have to say my level of service and commitment to my client, how available I am and how relational I am. There needs first. [00:05:17] Okay. Now, let me ask you a question. That person who has never done business with you before. How do you articulate these things that you're talking about? How do you express to them what you just mentioned? [00:05:36] Customer service being available for the client. Just getting to know them. Engaging with them. Phone calls, meetings, that kind of thing. [00:05:48] Okay, so here's the problem I want to pose. I, um, I actually sat down with three agents when we're thinking about selling our home. And from top producing agents like the number two sales agent in our suburban city all the way down to good producers. And I asked him the question, why should I choose you over one of these other agents that's really qualified? You know what they said? [00:06:14] What? I don't know. [00:06:18] They could not give me a reason why I should choose them over someone else. So think about that. Now think about your answer to because what you shared with me is what most agents would say. Customer service, I'm available. I'm engaging with them. But how do you really quantify or measure that? But more importantly, how do you. What do you do to get someone to choose you? I'd like to suggest there's a different reason people choose you than what you just gave. And here's the point. Here's the thing. What you gave is the reason all agents think people choose them. [00:06:55] But when you really boil it down, the reason a homeowner chooses an agent either personally or to refer them is for something completely different. It ties in to what you mentioned, but it's completely different. Until you know why they choose you. Does it make sense? It's hard to get them to choose you. [00:07:15] Yes. [00:07:16] So if you want them to choose you, we got to go a little bit deeper. Peel back the onion a little bit more and say what the fundamental reasons they choose an agent. And once we know what that is. Then you've got a competitive advantage, because now you can start doing things that cause them to charge you more. So this is what working with clients. One of the things that has happened over the years is I'll follow up I follow up with our clients and they just get started with us with Agent Dominator. Once they've been with us for a month or two and they're starting to get their feet on the ground with us. And I cover this very same topic because this is the most important thing. My goal when I call them, is to ensure their success with us. And success is simple because success is a pattern. If you fail to do the pattern, you will fail the success. So here's what I tell them. People two for three reasons. And all three of these reasons have to be present. It's like a stool with three legs. If you take one leg off that stool. What happens to the stool? Okay. So unbeknownst to most agents, these are actually the three reasons people do business with you. [00:08:38] And once you can clarify and quantify these, then you can start to act on improving them in the experience. Number one is they like you, right? Do you know a person that would choose you as an agent if they did not like you? [00:08:54] Absolutely not. [00:08:55] Okay. The more they like you. Is it likely the more they're going to choose you? Yes. Okay. So liking you. By the way, I just want to. Does that have anything to do with customer service being available that been engaging? Or does it? Are all those different than simply disliking you? [00:09:17] I think it all. I think they all tied together. [00:09:19] They all tied together. But as a person, as a friend, I want to suggest that those qualities of what you do as a professional are separate from the qualities of why someone chooses to like you as a friend. [00:09:38] Does that make sense? Yeah. This liking you starts initially at the very top level. Most powerful is that they really like you as a friend. If you have five real estate agents that you know and one of them is your best friend. Which of those five agents are you most likely to choose? [00:09:57] My best friend. There you go. Relationship trumps everything else. So that's number one. Number two, the third. First, they like you. Second, they trust your expertise. As a real estate agent, this is where your customer service. This is where you're always available. This is where you are constantly staying on top of things. This is where you understand the contracts. You understand the process and negotiation. You understand what buyers want. You understand what sellers want. It is this professional level of expertise within your craft. [00:10:37] The third reason they choose you is you happen to be top of mind at the time that they're thinking about choosing an agent. If you're not top of mind, then you're never going to be chosen, right? [00:10:54] Okay, so all of these kind of tie into each other to put them like circles on a page. They all kind of overlap to a degree, but they all have different functions. And I want to walk through. How do you do that? So let me ask you if I were to ask you, Penny. How do you get someone to like you? [00:11:16] What would you tell me? [00:11:22] Oh, gosh, that's a really that's a broad question. I think it depends on the person. I would have to get to know their needs and the things that make them feel white. Some people feel white when you buy them a gift. Some people feel liked when you spend time with them. [00:11:41] Some people feel like when you do a service for them, some sort of act of service. You have to get to know the person first and kind of figure out what it is that makes them feel like, okay. I would probably from a business standpoint, I'd probably try to like them in that way. [00:11:58] Okay, good, good, good. Now you're married to Brian, right? Yes. When Brian was dating you, how did you. [00:12:11] Grow to like him. Spending time with him. Lots of time. [00:12:18] That's just the simple answer, you just spend time with people, right? Yeah. Okay. If you wanted to get someone to trust your expertise. [00:12:30] How do you do that? [00:12:34] Let's hear yes. Yes. No, no. Okay. Simple answer. But I think integrity has a lot to do with it. [00:12:44] Okay. All right. How do you get someone to always remember you? Keep well, you top of mind with them. [00:12:56] I would need to stay in contact with them in multiple ways, whether it's a phone call or text message, email, planning to take them to coffee or something like that. I'm always on their mind. [00:13:09] So here's where I'm going with all of these simple questions. For someone to want to choose you or refer you, they have to like you, trust your expertise and you have to be top of mind. [00:13:21] All you have to really do is ask your ask yourself this question is how do I get someone to like me? How do I get someone to trust me, not trust me as an individual? That's important, but trust me as a professional in my trade of selling real estate, how do I get someone to always remember me? I'd like to go through just a real short synopsis of how to do all these things, because this is the key to getting referrals. If they like you a lot, if they trust your expertise a lot. And if you happen to be top of mind, does it does it make. Does it make sense that you're absolutely going to be getting that referral? When when someone asked them, who should I use as a real estate agent? [00:14:06] So it's really not a mystery. It's just stopping slowing down and saying. What's really at play and how do we do it? So let me talk about liking you first. Okay. Okay. So ultimately everything you said about liking is absolutely correct. But I like to try to simplify a little bit more. Ultimately a relationship. Is all about. Do you truly value me as a person when you are spending time with Brian, did it. Was it clear that he valued you as a person? And the more he valued you, did that kind of make you value him more? [00:14:48] Yes. [00:14:51] So the question then is how do you go about just making people know that you value them? Let me let me suggest if I call you up, I'm a I'm a real estate agent, your friend. Hey, Penny, how's it going? What do you say? All right. Oh, we're doing fine. It's a beautiful day. The kids are great. Are your kids home from college or high school? [00:15:16] Yeah, I'm from high school, from high school. [00:15:19] I know how that works. Hey, by the way, do you know anyone who's thinking about buying or selling a home anytime soon? [00:15:27] I do, actually, my neighbor. [00:15:29] Okay. Pull out. Do I value you as an individual or as a sales prospect from that call? [00:15:38] Both. [00:15:41] Which way do you. When I finished hanging up the call and you were to ask yourself what was Betty's motivation in calling me? What comes top of mind of my motivation? Personal or business? Business. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here's here's the interesting thing about relationships. Relationships are fragile. All it takes is one inclusion. That is not an authentic relationship. And it turns the table on the entire experience. And takes away. From the authentic portion of that relationship, does that make sense to use the wording? [00:16:23] No. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. [00:16:25] So what happens in a relationship? It's a sensitive situation. And if you want to get people to like you, your contact with them needs to be purely relational. Not business. Business will come if they like you. But if you ask for a business immediately, that engagement you had with them is perceived as entirely self-centered, self-motivated simply to get business. And it really had nothing to do with you as a person. Let's role play that scenario one more time. Hey, Penny, it's Brady. How's it going? [00:17:09] Hey, great. How are you guys? [00:17:11] Oh, we're doing super. [00:17:12] The kids home from high school now they are getting ready for the holidays. [00:17:17] Oh, I know. That's wonderful. Tell me about them. You don't have to go any further. But now the whole conversation is just about you, the kids. Husband, how life is. We share something. And then I say, hey, hey, I've got to run. I've got an appointment coming up. But I just want to give you a quick call. Hensala hadn't spoken with you in awhile. Have a great day. Talk soon. Click hang up now a moment. You ask yourself, what was his motivation of that phone call? What comes to mind? [00:17:46] Just checking on me, just saying hi and friendly. [00:17:49] Does that make you feel good? [00:17:51] Yes, absolutely. [00:17:53] Does that make you feel that I value you as a person and as a friend? [00:17:58] Yes. Is that tough to do? [00:18:03] No, no, it's not. Do most agents do that? No, no. So here is the key. The easiest thing you can do in the world. Most agents don't do because they get too busy. Right. I feel led to ask this question. If your husband gets too busy. To value you as his wife. What does that do to your marriage? [00:18:38] Not good things. [00:18:39] Not good thing. You could actually lose a marriage by being too busy, by not focusing on the little things that are most important, because you get. See, that is the big things that are really the important things in life. [00:18:52] And we lose out on the relationship. And I would like to suggest that what you do in building your real estate business is very much the same. It's the little things you do. Just touching people. That's the most important thing. So now let's go a step further. Let's take that same scenario. I call you up. We just have a little fun chat. It doesn't last long, but I leave the phone call and you're thinking, I really like Baity. He saw me. Now imagine the next day or two you get a note from me, Penny. It was so good talking and catching up with you. So excited about the kids. Hope you guys have a wonderful holiday season. And I sign it. What does that do to you, your feeling of my value to you at that point? Does it increase it? [00:19:50] Do you start to start to want to reciprocate that relationship? Does it make you like me more? [00:20:04] And the more you like me, more likely you're going to choose me as an agent. More likely you're going to refer me. Okay. So what I would like to suggest is to get someone to like you and to keep them like you even more. It's just a periodic reach out. You could even do it by text. Hey, Penny, how's it going? Just thinking about you. What's up? Now a text is bad. The default to a phone call. But it's a nice little touch. It has no ulterior motive behind it. But the phone call is the best because now you can interact, you can ask questions, you can share about you. They get to know you more. They get to you get to know them more is just catching up. And then if you'll follow up with that with a handwritten note, I suggest that handwritten notice on your real estate stationery. In fact, if I were a real estate agent, I'd get a bunch of note cards printed with my name and my real estate brand and my real estate information. And I would hand write you a note on my real estate card if my note if my personal note comes to you on my real estate card. Does that detract, in your opinion, from the authentic ness of my note? In other words, plenty of so great talking with you. Love catching hope. You guys have a great holiday and I sign it. Does it detract at all if it's coming from my personal stationery versus my business stationery? [00:21:41] Actually, I would feel like it was more heartfelt if you actually read it, right. [00:21:47] Okay. So I handwrite it, but I handwrite write it and it just happens to be on my work stationery. Does that cause any consternation on your end? If you were to get that. [00:21:56] No, it doesn't. Okay. [00:21:59] Okay. Okay. So it may be imperceptible. It may be more. But here's what I found when talking with one of our one of my friends who has been selling real estate for, gosh, 30 years now. He may actually made it, he said. I've never advertised for business. I've never spent any money to get business. I've always had as much business as I want, in fact, so much that I actually turned business down. And, you know, his number one thing that he does. [00:22:35] Call people. [00:22:36] That's right. He just makes these simple phone calls and he writes them a short note on his business stationery. That's it. Wow. [00:22:44] And here's what happens. They like him. And they remember that he is a real estate agent. [00:22:54] Top of mind, they like him. Bye bye. Curiously, the fact that he's in business so long, they trust that he probably has expertise. Unless he's actually done business with them and then they know that he has expertise. So this is really, really, really powerful. And by putting that little thank you note on a personal on your business, stationery, real estate, it might have a slight detrimental effect. Slightly degrade the touch, the value that touch. I don't think you'd be much, but what it does is it reinforces two things. I like you as a friend, but then you see me as a real estate agent as well. So that keeps that top of mind. Something else you can do. You mentioned this. Some people love gifts. If I were to drop by your house, even if you're not there and I leave some cookies and brownies, hey, I was in the area. Normally night out this way. I was in the area. Drop by. I got some brownies for you guys. Hope you enjoy it. [00:23:59] Does that make you feel good? [00:24:01] Oh, gosh, yes. [00:24:03] Does that increase my no pun intended? Does that increase my brownie points in your mind in terms of our relationship? Sure. Okay. Okay. So this is something else you can do, just a little drop by and just say even if you don't have a gift. Hey, I was in the area showing a house over here to another client. I remember you were here. I just want to drop by and say hello. Does that make you feel good? Yeah. So these are the little things that go a long way. Now, let's talk about being a little bit more strategic. Okay. So we got the relationship thing. Make sure people like you. They like you because you value their relationship and you demonstrate it because you reach out to them. And when you reach out to them, you mentioned nothing about real estate. Okay. Now it's okay if you ask me. Hey, Beatty, how's the house real estate going? Oh, man, it's going really great. I share a little bit. That's okay, because I did not volunteer it until you asked it. So it's still a personal call, but it's something you can do is take your list of friends, past clients, people you know, and identify those people who are a what I'll call a connector role. Do you have any idea what a connector role might be? [00:25:28] I guess I'm assuming it's just people that like if I'm my neighbor, I have a connection with her and then she knows somebody else. That chain. [00:25:39] Yep. So people who know other people. So let me give you an idea. Let me let me see if I can kind of lead this discussion just a little bit. You've got two people on your list. One person is a local Little League coach. And another person. Is a computer programmer who works from home. Which of those two people do you think would probably be more likely to be a connector to other people for you? [00:26:14] The first one. Why is that? [00:26:18] Outside the home, outside the home, I'd like to. There's one more element. Can you figure out what that element is? Why is the first one the little the Little League coach more likely to become a good connector for you than to work at home? Programmer. [00:26:35] He knows so many other people. [00:26:38] That's it. That's exactly it. So if you go through your list and ask yourself who is likely to know a lot more people, a lot of times simply by nature of their job, you can determine that a hairdresser, a bank teller, a little league coach, the choir director, a pastor, a youth minister. I mean, I could kind of go down the list, but they all have one thing in common. Their job, their occupation involves working with a lot of people on an ongoing basis. Repeat people in the local area. Does that make sense? Yes. If you were to be friend. The programmer and friend, the literary coach. Which one do you think you would likely get more referrals from? Yeah, for sure. So that's what I call a connector. And I suggest that you go through your list of people and you start to mark. Okay. First off, let's make sure you have a list, right. You create a written list. Okay. And then you identify those people who are connectors by virtue of the fact of how many people they probably know locally. Okay. So this would be those people who would just lie for the party. They love people and they know everyone. They may not have a job that is a or type job, but that's their personality. That's who they are. My brother, by the way, is that one. He knows everyone in town. And then you, those who have the other jobs that constantly have a flow of people coming through, those people who are connectors, you want to be a lot more strategic with this relationship building. [00:28:30] You want to pop by. You want to actually put it on sort of a schedule maybe every four to six weeks. Drop by. So let's say that you work at the bank. You're a bank teller. Okay. I'm going to swing by. Hey, Penny, I was in the area again, brought you some doughnuts. How are things now? I looked at all the tellers. Now y'all can eat any of these doughnuts without Penny's permission. These are hers. Okay. All right. Okay. So you feel special, right? Well, now I've made you feel really special. The more I do that, when you hear someone coming through, they're a little old lady or that or that someone coming through the tell tale teller slot and you're engaging with them because they're one of your normal clients types things and they're starting to talk about they're thinking about selling their home. Who's the first person you're likely going to think of referring them to you? Yeah. And when I swing by that date, bring you doughnuts, are you likely going to remember to say, oh, what did so-and-so call you? Because I was talking to so-and-so and they're thinking about selling their house. You think you might actually. Yeah. So the connectors are going to have their ear to the ground. Because they were involved with all kinds of people all the time. And the stronger the relationship, the more you pursue that relationship, the more likely two things are going to happen. They're going to refer you. [00:30:02] And when you happen to pop by, then they're going to bring back to remember it. Oh, you know what? You're the real estate agent. This person was saying just a week ago they're thinking about selling. And it's going to remind you to tell me because I'm actually there. I can't. In fact, I can't tell you how many people have told me. So when they start using our services, we guarantee results. But one of the things that we require is one that we guarantee it is that you have to at least call your prospects. Couple of times a year. I can't tell you how many times people have told me when I'm just on the phone and I'm talking to them, I'll pick up a deal because I've been getting the postcards, they're getting the emails, they're being reminded of me. And now when I call them, it's like, oh, you know what? A friend of mine is thinking about selling. You ought to call them engagement, interaction that prompts them to remember about the referral. So really, really powerful. So that's getting them to like you. Back to the question, how do you get someone to like you? You like them back? That's the easy answer. You do those things that let them know that you liked them. Second thing. So we go back to the store. Three reasons people choose you. They like you. They trust your expertise. And you happen to be top of mind when they're thinking. So let's talk about trusting your expertise. Here is the challenge in marketing, there's a concept known as outside perception versus inside reality. [00:31:39] Here's what it means in real estate. Let's say, Penny, that you are a real estate agent. And you want to market to a group of homeowners. That group could be people that, you know, there's your personal list or that group could be people that are just in a neighborhood. By the way, let me ask you a question. Is there fundamentally any real difference between someone, you know, who lives in a home and someone you don't know who lives in a home? In other words, no, there's no difference, only differences. You have a relationship with one, but not with the other, but they generally have the same like same desires, same feelings. And what we find is this the typical homeowner believes that all real estate agents are the same, that all they do is take a sign in the yard, list a home in the MLS and wait for someone else to bring a buyer. Would you agree that that's probably what most home owners believe to be true? So let's say that you are a top notch. Dedicated real estate agent, you serve your clients better, far better than the typical real estate agent. But as long as those homeowners believe that you're just like anyone else, are they more likely to choose you over someone else? They believe you're just like everyone else. Are they going to choose you or are they going to choose someone else just as easily, just as easily they would pick someone else for sure. [00:33:16] Yeah. [00:33:17] So the implication, real simple, if all agents are the same, it doesn't matter who I choose to sell my house, I won't get the same result. Same price and the same amount of time with one agent over another. But let me ask a different question. Let's assume that those people on that list, your personal list or that neighborhood, if they understood your skill and your expertise. And they understood it to the same degree that you understand it about yourself. Would they realistically choose any other agent besides you? No. [00:33:50] Okay, so that's what we call your inside reality there. Outside perception is you're like everyone else. So there's no reason to you, but you're inside. Reality is there's lots of reasons to choose you. If you could transfer your inside reality to them so they know as much about you as you know about yourself. Would that drive a lot more business? Do you think? [00:34:18] Yes, absolutely. And fundamentally, why? [00:34:27] Because there is a connection established. [00:34:30] There's a kind of a connection. They know more about you. Right. Let me go back to reason number two. If they understood you're inside reality, then does that mean that now they are trusting your expertise? [00:34:47] Yes. [00:34:48] Because you're inside, reality is your expertise. And if they don't know your expertise, they can't trust it, and therefore, on that stool with three legs, you're missing one leg. So what do you think would be a simple way to help them trust your expertise? [00:35:12] Guys, tell me. [00:35:15] Guys say anything most. Most real estate agents say, oh, gosh, I have no idea. Okay. Because I've never thought about this. Let me tell you the easiest thing. Okay. So let me pose it as a question to you. You're thinking five real estate agents. You're going to be selling your home, you know, five real estate agents. And one of them you see all the time making another sale, listing another house, closing another sale all the time. Boom, boom, boom. Sold again and sold again and sold again. Just listed. Just listed. Sold again. Sold again. And the other four agents don't say anything about them all. [00:35:57] They're real estate agents out of those five agents. Which one are you going to choose? [00:36:01] The one that's always selling for? [00:36:05] Do you think you trust that they probably have greater expertise than the other four? [00:36:11] Yes. [00:36:13] And what was your reasoning behind that? [00:36:20] The proof is in the pudding. All those things sold, sold, sold by the same person that I know, they're actually selling houses. [00:36:28] There you go. It isn't that easy, isn't it? That's the first step. Is simply showing off your successes all the time. [00:36:38] The way you transfer expertise as you get them to start to trust you more than someone else. And the first level of trust is, are you actually doing what you're supposed to be doing? Are you selling homes? That's the first level. But then there's some things you can do to increase that level of trust. And they're really simple. Any idea what you might be able to do to increase the trust? Just beyond showing off yourself. [00:37:02] Probably you would need to offer something, some sort of guarantee. [00:37:06] Maybe you could. That definitely helps. But before we get to that more complicated thing, let me ask you a question. You have you have those five real estate agents. Two of them you see are constantly selling. Three of them you don't see anything. So now it's a choice between those two. One of them, you see. So the other one you see sold for full price, sold in three days, sold for two thousand over asking price. Now, which one do you choose? [00:37:38] That one. Because I'm getting more thinks about not only are they selling that, they're selling for more and they're selling faster. [00:37:47] Bingo. Okay. So now we add a little bit more information that causes them to trust you more because you're now telling a little bit more about why they should I sell this home in three days. That's impressive. I sell this home for full price. That's impressive. So the more you get to share the inside reality of that sale, the more they start to trust you that maybe you can do the same for them. Makes sense. Yes. OK. Now let's take it a step further. What do you think? Before we get to a guarantee before you. What do you think? There's something else I could do. To get someone to trust me even more than simply saying sold in three days or so for full price or something like that. Tell me I can share what I did to cause it to sell that fast. For example, before I put this home on the market. We pre marketed it for an entire week. Mailing to the neighborhood door-knocking, letting people know the home is about to come on the market, and if they have any friends that want to be in this area, let them know. [00:39:12] We started to we went through the house and we made sure everything was absolutely perfect in order. No, no does. No, no burned-out light bulbs. If there is a room, there was a room that was kind of an awkward color. We had the owner change it back to a neutral color, took away everything that could have been a detriment that would cause someone to go. That's just not quite a good feel. In other words, the level of preparation and the level of pre marketing I did. So this home faster. Now, if I were to tell you that, does that give you greater confidence in my expertise? [00:39:47] Absolutely. [00:39:48] Okay. Yes. And then I could even guarantee to sell it in next days or I pay you or I could do all kinds of things. But trusting your expertise starts with just showing them that you're always selling. Then showing them what's going on with those sales. Explaining some more information behind that shows what you did. What you did may be what every agent does, but the homeowner doesn't know that because no way to tell them. So that's the second leg. Okay, so back to why did someone why does someone chooses an agent? They like you, they trust you, your expertise. And then you happen to be top of mind. So on top of mind. [00:40:34] Have you ever heard in selling the ABC of selling? Always be closing. Okay. Well, there's an ABC in real estate. It's always been contacting. Right. If you want to stay top of mind, you're just always there. And this is where the automated remote touch systems are in place come into play. So if you think about this. [00:41:02] Only you individually can get someone to like you. Your touches need to be personal. Hey, how's it going? Just thinking about you. Hey, I was thinking about you last week. Hadn't spoken with you in a while. Just want to call and say, hey. Only you can do those. Your assistant can't do but everything else in terms of trusting your expertise and staying top of mind. You can now automate that. You can send those out in postcards. You can do an email campaign. You can do social media and constantly be posting, posting just lists at another home to Facebook. And so all your friends are seeing that they're seeing that activity. You can share write a little explanation of what you did to sell this home in five days. All that can be done in an automated fashion, but you need to be consistent in doing that. But part of that is going to be your personal touches, because that's another contact part of that's going to be writing those will hand written notes or doing a pop by. But it's more on top of mind is more than that. It's doing all these other things. So now with that as a backdrop, I want to talk the last couple steps about how this realistically put this together. But before I go there, do you have any questions on any of this or how to do it or anything that's cropped up as we've been talking on it? [00:42:29] I don't actually I'm interested here. Just this last little part and this thing top of mind and strategies for because I can I can see a lot of agents and I think the best way to stay of mind. [00:42:44] Let me ask you a question before we get there. What do you think is the number one reason people agents aren't consistently touching their personal contacts? [00:42:54] I think for sure they're too busy. [00:42:58] Too busy, we don't have time for that. [00:43:03] They're too busy. Don't have time. And they're not prepared. Are you? Are you a busy mom? Busy employee? [00:43:12] Yes. [00:43:13] Busy wife? Yes. Have you gotten more accomplished in all your roles by bringing structure and knowing what you need to do and having things prepared to do it? Absolutely. [00:43:27] So here's a simple thing. If most agents would just create a little bit of structure, then they can easily fit this in their day. The reason they don't do it is they don't have the structure in place and it doesn't take that much effort. Let's go through the action. [00:43:48] So let's put a little bit of structure in place that takes very little time. Number one, make a list. The easiest way to start making a list of who all your friends are. [00:44:02] Just going through your phone contact, go through your phone contacts and go through your Facebook friends. [00:44:09] Yeah, I mean, there's a list right there. So write it down in one spot and then you go through it strategically, add contact in their phone number and what's their mailing address. Okay. And if you don't know their phone number or their mailing address or an email address, you probably don't want Facebook to send a quick message updating my records. Can you give me your mailing address? You know, how many people would give you your mailing address? Their mailing address, if you ask for it? All of them ask for it. Okay. So you put your list together and then this is real important to you. Want to categorize your list by A, B and C.. Okay, everyone, you know. Okay, A, B and C, here's a simple way of what I understand for this to be most effective as a real estate agent. Aides are going to be those people that you have the closest relationship with. The easy way to understand if you have a close relationship is if you know their spouses name and you know their children's names and they know your spouse and your children's name. In other words, the more you know about them, it's going to be an A. [00:45:26] Then the bees are going to be the people that you have a relationship with with them individually, but it doesn't go much further. So this would be like your work relationships. You know, John, down down on the second floor, you see him a lot, but you really you've never met his wife. You don't really know much about the kids. That's a relationship. A C relationship would be someone that is you. No pun intended. You see them only once in a blue moon. Okay. But you don't know much about them. So they bfc. Okay. So you start with your A's and B's and you then go through and list everyone that is going to be a connector. And if I have a, B or C, that is a connector, I want to move them to an A because that is the priority. And I want to build a relationship with them strategically because I I want that relationship now. So you're gonna make the A's B's. And then depending on how big the list is, you narrowed only to the A's or the B's or you include some C's. [00:46:34] But generally speaking, like if we're targeting when we work with real estate agents to help them market to their clients for 500 people is fine because so much of the marketing can be automated. But those that maybe they're personally touching may only be like two hundred. Okay. So it depends on what you're doing. But then the next step is once you make the list be strategic. An easy way to be strategic. If you don't have a fancy system, you put it all on an Excel spreadsheet and you just get loaded to Google Docs. On Google Docs, you can access it from your phone and you can access it from your computer. Does that make sense? [00:47:14] It does. [00:47:15] Okay. And then all you do is you put a column on and Google Docs says Date last touched and you scroll through your list. I've got five minutes before an appointment. I'm out on the roads. I'm gonna pull up my phone. Go to Google Docs and find the next person on my list that I haven't touched recently. Their phone number is going to be there and I want to reach out. Hey, pettiest Beatty. How you doing? Hadn't thought spoken to you in a while. Just wanted to visit a couple minutes. Oh, my appointments here. Gotta run. Okay. So it's a natural end of the conversation. But you like it. I've touched you. I'm gonna write you a handwritten note. Now I've got a system in place and it doesn't really take much time. So structure that approach and working from the list means that now you can go through that list and touch everyone. So let's go back. And I just want to review a couple of key things. Okay. That, too. Why did people choose you? They like you. They trust your expertise. You happen to be top of mind. [00:48:16] Your personal touch 100 percent needs to be authentic. Relationship only mentioned nothing about your business unless they ask you don't ask for a sale. Don't ask for a referral unless they volunteer it or the conversation just naturally goes that way, but may give them no reason to believe that the motivation of that call was for business purposes. Okay. Now, let me put this back in perspective. So I'm reaching out. I'm touching you. We say hello and checking on the kids. I'll write you a handwritten note. Couple of weeks later, I may say say hello again. A couple weeks later, I may call. Hey. Question Do you know anyone who's thinking of buying or selling a home? Does that spoil the relationship that you and I built simply by asking that as a friend? [00:49:13] Oh, God. That's a great question. [00:49:16] I don't think it was shit. It shouldn't be a trick question. You and I are friends. And I've demonstrated that over time and then I ask and say, hey, you know, anyone who's thinking of buying or selling home the relationship? [00:49:32] No. As long as you like. He said you have made that connection and stayed in contact with me on a regular basis. And it's not like you're just calling me out of the blue. That's right. [00:49:44] That's right. So here's the here's the key. It's okay to ask for business. But make sure you've established and nurture the friendship first and make sure you do it on a call that is strictly business related. Don't try to make it a personal call and then throw business into it. So keep the personal calls completely separate. And then as a separate event, you can ask for business on another call. And it's not going to spoil the relationship as long as the momentum of what you're touches or as long as your touches are really focused. Generally speaking, on the relationship. But that's your personal touch. Then your automated touches are rarely personal. This is where you get post-card set up. And by the way, as we're putting the structure in place. Okay, so let's talk about automation. Let me ask let me ask you, what do you think is more important content or technology? [00:50:52] Content. [00:50:53] Content. Exactly. Content is what you say, technology is how you deliver what you say. So don't get caught up with, oh, I've got this real fancy super duper e-mail auto responder system with artificial intelligence in it. That doesn't. That's great. But it's the content that's most important. Don't get caught up with. Well, I've got this automated postcard marketing system already. I just buy it off the shelf from this company. It's the content, not the technology. So make sure you focus on the content. On the content. Couple things you really think you really want focus on the core message. You want them to always remember about you. What is that? That makes it unique, that makes you special. That gives them a reason to want to choose you. And you want to make sure that that content is always there. You also want to be on the receiving end of that content. Make sure. Is this something they really want to get for me? Like an email? [00:51:59] Okay, if your if your email campaign is sending out an e-mail during springtime that says it's springtime, it's time to plant flowers. And that's the whole focus of the e-mail that's going to take your people off, because that's just wasting my time to tell me the obvious. Okay. So make sure that what you're putting out is good. And then the last thing and this is for a lot of agents, also fail. Years back when we started working with real estate agents and we were asking why are you doing business with us? And a lot of these are top producing agents that are doing business with us. And they gave me two answers. One is I need help. In making this happen, because I don't know what to do the other in about 50 50. The other half says, I know what to do, but I keep starting it. And then something comes up and I stop it. And it's a year or two before I remembered that I stopped it. Now I need to get back into it. And I'm just not consistent. Okay. So the way that you build that consistency is you create everything up front and then you have what I call lock and load and then you do put on autopilot. So you don't have to do it if you have to touch it every single week to get another e-mail out, every single month to get another postcard out, you will fail because you will get busy. You're going to it's like a diet. You break the diet, you cheat on your diet one meal and it's three or four months before you realize I'm off my diet because you just totally lost it. Does that make sense? [00:53:38] Yes, it does. You got to create everything up front and lock and load and then put it on autopilot so you don't have to touch it again. If you don't do that, then you're most likely going to be the yo yo person, you start it. You stop that, you start it. You stop in and it's never really worked for you. [00:54:00] So that can I put an unabashed plug for what we do with Agent Dominator? Absolutely. Okay. I know you would say that since your paycheck. Right. So everything we're talking about here is what we built in to Agent Dominator. The reason it works is not because Agent Dominators Fest is a fabulous system. It is the reason it works is not because Agent Dominator does what most agents don't do. It does. The reason it works is not because we have some fancy technology that no one else has. We do. But the reason it works is because it's right down the middle of the best practices of what you ought to be doing anyway. If you can constantly personally touch, constantly educate them on what creates your true why they should trust you and constantly say top of mind, you don't need any other system out there. Just like my friend I was sharing about earlier has more business and he can than he can handle. He turns it away and he's never spent a dime in marketing because he stays on top of it. But most people don't stay on top of it. Most people don't really know how to do it. And what we do with Agent Dominator is we do it all for you. [00:55:19] Okay. And as long as you're willing to pick up the phone and call or write a handwritten note to your personal contacts, we actually guarantee your results. So I would just encourage you to check that out. Here's something also were real cool because a lot of agents don't know if you realize this, but especially the long term producers sell both residential and commercial. So if that's actually one of you guys listening to this call, we do agent dominated with commercial as well on the investment properties because the folks who own investment properties are very similar to those who own houses. Right. If I own a little apartment building or a gas station also in my home, I'm not in an institutional investor. I just happen to have some real estate investment. And so finding listings there, getting them to choose you in the investment world is very similar to what you do in the residential world. So anyway, that's our plug before we wrap this call completely up. Is there anything that comes to mind that you'd like to ask or comments that you'd like to share? [00:56:38] I think I would just. And this is probably just me speaking from a personal standpoint, but I would encourage agents to offer above and beyond what other agents around them are offering. And I think that would be a great way for them to capitalize on referrals. It goes back to the trust buying and getting their name out there and really attracting business. I feel like they need to make themselves stand apart. That's something that help us choose our agent offering something that other agents we're not in addition to the fact that we always saw sold. So, you know, makes a difference. [00:57:19] You bring up one thing. I I'm a myth because I totally forgot it. So let me add it now at the end. This is this is bonus material. Great. If you're if you're one material. If you're one of my friends and you refer me a client and I send you a really special gift as a thank you note. What does that do to you? How do you respond? Does that make you feel special? Yes. Are you are you more likely to refer me again? Yes. Yes. So don't go cheap on that referral gift and don't give it only if that person that has been referred actually does business with you. The simple fact that, Penny, you referred someone to me, I'm going to woo you because I want more of that. Okay. That's a bonus for today's call. [00:58:14] Great. All right. This is a great call. Thank you so much for your time and expertise today. [00:58:21] Before we close out, do you have any last minute things that you want to share with our listeners? [00:58:26] I really don't. Unless you want more information about Agent Dominator, you can go to Agent Dominator dot com. There is a little forum there you can fill out. And if you love this type of teaching. Visit our website. Get sellers calling you dot com and you can find all kinds of other content there as well. [00:58:45] Yes, absolutely. I wish everyone a great week and a successful time in their business, whatever they're doing. Thanks for joining us, everybody. And we'll see you guys on the next one. Thank you, Beatty. [00:58:58] Thanks. Have a blessed day. All alrighty. p058 [/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent="no" equal_height_columns="no" menu_anchor="" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" class="" id="" background_color="" background_image="" background_position="center center" background_repeat="no-repeat" fade="no" background_parallax="none" parallax_speed="0.3" video_mp4="" video_webm="" video_ogv="" video_url="" video_aspect_ratio="16:9" video_loop="yes" video_mute="yes" overlay_color="" video_preview_image="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" padding_top="" padding_bottom="" padding_left="" padding_right=""][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type="1_1" layout="1_1" background_position="left top" background_color="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" border_position="all" spacing="yes" background_image="" background_repeat="no-repeat" padding_top="" padding_right="" padding_bottom="" padding_left="" margin_top="0px" margin_bottom="0px" class="" id="" animation_type="" animation_speed="0.3" animation_direction="left" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" center_content="no" last="no" min_height="" hover_type="none" link=""][fusion_text][/fusion_text][fusion_text] Listen via YouTube video if desired [/fusion_text][fusion_youtube id="https://youtu.be/OM8N56n0N5o" alignment="center" width="" height="" autoplay="false" api_params="&rel=0" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" class="" /][fusion_text] The topic is Heaven First, Earth Second. This is a fascinating walk through parts of the old and new testaments as I share a pattern most people miss ... and which I believe have great application for us as believers. In a single sentence it's this: everything God does on earth was first already done in heaven before it was manifested on earth. Understanding this pattern will have tremendous impact as you live out your Christian life and step out by "radical" faith in serving the Lord. Transcription (was completed by automated process. Please ignore any speech-to-text errors) [00:00:01] Well Beatty, I’m so excited to be on the phone with me again today, and I just want say welcome to everyone who was listening to this session, I guess I was calling you with Beatty Carmichael. Beatty is the CEO of master grabber and the creator of Dominator, one of the top marketing expert in the real estate field. And always a privilege and an honor, to be honest with you, Beatty. I'm excited that we're going to be talking about today. [00:00:26] Yes. And just as a quick reminder for those listening in, today is not one of the days we'll be talking about real estate. Today is when the days we're gonna be talking about walking with the Lord. [00:00:39] It's what we call radical faith. So feel free if that's not an interest of yours to turn off this podcast and come back for the next one. But I have a really exciting topic I want to talk on today. The general topic headline is Heaven first or second for Penny. This is it's really significant. It's been almost once a earth-shattering, but that may be too glorious of a description in terms of of what we're going to talk about and what it's done for me. But I'm hoping we can get it in one session. We may have to break it into two depending on how the discussion goes, but it's really cool. So are you ready? [00:01:28] I am. I'm ready. [00:01:29] Ok, great. Also, let me just make a real quick statement for everyone listening. There is a foundational set of training for the radical faith teaching and you'll find it earlier on. And it's listed as what is faith and getting out of the boat, OK. And if you haven't listened to those two sections, there is a series of trainings on those. Let me encourage you to go back and listen to those as soon as you can, because everything we talk about in radical faith hinges off of that foundation. OK. [00:02:05] So that's really those are the foundational sessions on really understanding and applying a lot of what I'm going to be talking about moving forward. [00:02:17] So I want to turn real quickly to Ephesians Ephesians Chapter 2. Penny, OK. [00:02:24] And I want you to read real quickly in just a moment, we're going to reverse this four, five and six. But I want to set the stage of what's going to go on. And so you kind of know where we're headed on this. I was reading this one day and this is one of those passages that always confuses a lot of people because they talked in past tense. Something that we haven't received yet. And the question is, what's going on? And I want to establish right up front that there is not a linear connection in time between heaven and earth. And so when we read the scriptures and we read the truths of God's word, we have to realize that our concept of time does not apply in heaven. And therefore, that's going to be part of the disconnect. But the disconnect also creates some really neat opportunities on how we walk by faith and how we see God work in our lives. [00:03:19] So with that said, let me let you take it from there. Invasion's 2 versus 4, 5 and 6. [00:03:28] But God is so rich in mercy. And he loved us so much that even though we were dead because of our sin, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. It is only by God's grace that you have been saved, for he raised us from the dead, along with Christ, and seeded us with him in the heavenly realms, because we are united with Christ Jesus. [00:03:54] Ok. So here is really something amazing. [00:03:58] It says that we in my translation and raised us up with them and seated us with them in the heavenly places, and it so raised up and seeded us. Is that past, present terms for future tense. [00:04:22] Rail. Yeah. Here. [00:04:27] Well, so here's the key in some mysterious way. We are already seated with Christ in the heavenly room, even though we're still here in the earthly room, because that makes sense. [00:04:42] Okay, so this serves to shed light on where this currently. Okay. We're talking on a recent session. The conflict between walking by faith and hope. Ah, I see. And that faith. We walk by faith and not by sight. And there is always this conflict. And part of the conflicts, it also extends into this this understanding that we've we've been crucified with Christ. Past tense. We've been raised with him. Past tense. And we've been seated with him in the heavenly places. Past tense. That means we're actually sitting on the throne where Christ rules. That's what this is talking about. It says right before this. [00:05:25] He says that the Lord raised Jesus up and seated him above all all rules and powers and authorities and dimensions above everything. [00:05:35] And then here it says that we've been seeded with Christ in those having places. And yet we're still here on Earth. What's going on? [00:05:44] So I want to suggest that a lot of things are done first in heaven before they're done on earth. This gives us a glimpse of how things have already been done in heaven before we actually see them manifest in the physical or in some way in our lives. And so with that, I want to go to another passage. We're gonna hit a lot of passages today and I won't try to tie some things together. So go with me to Matthew, 16, verse 19. This is one of those passages that's been really difficult to understand. And I want to give you possible understanding of some of what this might mean. [00:06:29] Matthew, 16 19. When you're reading. [00:06:33] Take it away first. Hold, hold on. Before you take it away. Let me give you the background. OK. So just think is in season refill API and Jesus is walking along with the disciples and he says, who did people say that I am? And someone says that you're a prophet, that you're a man of God and all these things. And then Jesus says, Who do you say that I am? And Peter says, You are the Christ. You're the Messiah. Okay. And and then and then that brings us now into this passage. Matthew, 16, 19. So go ahead. [00:07:12] All right. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you forbad on earth will be forbidden in heaven. And whatever you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven. [00:07:24] Yeah, that sounds kind of difficult to understand. That means that. Is he talking to Peter only? Or is he talking disciples or he's talking to all believers? Jesus says you're Peter. And on this rock on this rock of understanding that I am the Christ, then. Then he makes a statement. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Keys represents authority. Okay. So what he's talking about is I will give you the authority of heaven. And in that, a story of heaven, it says that you can bind on earth and there'll be bound in heaven and loose on earth and you'll be loose in heaven. That's why most translations read this. What does that mean? Does that mean we have some supernatural authority to. [00:08:16] Dictate what happens on Earth. [00:08:22] Well, I think if I'm thinking about the scripture, we just read any feagin. If I'm seated with Christ. Then I have the same authority he has. As far as whatever I choose to bind on the IRS's. If I'm actually seated with him, he's through me going to make that happen. [00:08:46] Yes, I think you're moving the right direction. There's gonna be a. I won't use the term gradient. Okay. Right. As all authority. But we don't always operate in all authority because of our flesh. Does that make sense? [00:09:01] Yeah. OK. [00:09:03] So so there are some gradients there. But I want to go into this passage has a little bit clearer. OK. If I were to read this passage from the new American standard Bible, it says Whatever you bind on earth shall have already been bound in heaven. [00:09:26] And whatever you loose on earth shall have already been loosed in heaven, in other words, the the actual translation of the Greek words. I'm not a Greek scholar, but this is what the translate strong concordance and some other things have shared that the actual translation is the only things we're able to bind or loose on earth have are those things that have previously been bound or loosed in heaven. So we're able to the kids have having means that we have the authority to then bind on earth what's already been previously bound by God in his sovereign will in heaven. And we're able to loose on earth those things that have already been by God in his sovereign real loosed and in heaven. Does that make sense? [00:10:14] Yeah. Okay. So we're not able just to say I want this and I'm going to bind it or lose it. [00:10:20] It's only under the authority and under the headship. The lordship and the will of God, the father, he's already done it in heaven. So that's kind of really what this is. But here's the interesting thing. We're only able to. In fact, on earth. What has already been infected in heaven? Does that make sense? [00:10:43] Well, OK, so now we come into the first of the understanding here of heaven first, earth second. We've been seeded with Christ in the heavenly places already, heaven first. But yet it's not really yet here on Earth. Okay. [00:11:03] But it says in Matthew here, Matthew 16, that we can lose and on earth or bind on Earth, whatever has been loosed or bound in heaven already, heaven first or second. So now let's with that understanding, I want to now go through some other passages and show you how this starts to really play a part. Go to John 5. First 19. OK, pay. John Five. First 19 and the real quick backstory, if I recall this passage correctly, Ferris's have asked Jesus, you know, how do you do this? Whose authority? What do you do? And then Jesus responds and you can read it. [00:11:52] All right. Verse 19 said, Jesus explained. I tell you the truth. The sun can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the father doing, whatever the father does. The son also does. [00:12:08] Whatever the father does, the son does. The son only does what he sees the father doing. So does that mean that when Jesus healed a blind man, the blind man had already been healed by his father in heaven? [00:12:24] Yes. [00:12:25] Does that mean when Jesus turned the water to wine at the wedding that the father had already turned it to wine in heaven? [00:12:36] Does that mean when Jesus called Lazarus from the dead and raised him from the dead, that Lazarus had already been raised from the dead in heaven? [00:12:47] So we see this pattern heaven first or second. [00:12:51] We see Matthew, 16, being lived out by Jesus, who has full authority. He looses on earth what's been loosed and have any any binds on earth, what's been found in heaven. [00:13:04] He only does what he sees his father having already done this making sense. What? [00:13:12] Okay. So now let's go to Matthew 6. And we're going to do Matthew 6 versus 9 and 10. This is real interesting because the disciples come to him. You know, John the Baptist had taught his disciples how to pray. And Jesus, his disciples say, we don't want to be left out. Oh, my dear teacher, teach us how to pray. Okay. So that's kind of. [00:13:36] So then Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray. Matthew, 6 versus 9 10. Tell me what it reads. [00:13:44] Pray like. Our father in heaven. May your name be kept holy. May your kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. [00:13:58] So where to pray for a God's will to be done? Where? [00:14:04] On Earth as it is in heaven. [00:14:07] So we're praying for his world that's already been done in heaven. To now be made manifest on earth. Right. Yeah. That's right. That's just what Jesus did. Was it Jesus? Was it the Lord's will that the blind man had his eyes open? Yes. [00:14:25] And so while Jesus did is he brought to Earth God's will that was already in heaven and God's will that Lazarus be raised from the dead. So all Jesus did is he brought to Earth what was already God's will in heaven. And now Jesus is telling us when you pray. [00:14:50] Here to pray, Lord, may your will be done on earth. As it is already done in heaven. So we see again this pattern of heaven first or second. Pretty cool, isn't it? [00:15:08] But we're not finished yet. [00:15:11] So now let's turn to Marcie Levin. First 24, Marcie, 24. And so this is another teaching moment where Jesus teaches his disciples something we actually spoke about this passage a time or two ago on our radical faith calls. Read it again. I will make some comments on it. [00:15:36] I tell you, you can pray for anything. And if you believe that you've received it, it will be yours. [00:15:45] You can pray for anything and if you believe that you have received it. [00:15:50] Past tense, present tense or future tense? [00:15:55] All right, you believe that you have received it in the past. [00:16:00] Then it will be years past tense, present tense or future tense here, future. [00:16:06] So we have past and future altogether. There's a conflict there, right? [00:16:15] In our natural line, yes, in our natural mine, the conflict is again, we start to understand there seems to be a time disconnect between the heavenly realm in the earthly room, because in this passage, Jesus is telling us that we're to believe that we have received it. [00:16:37] Now add the words in the heavenly room and then we will receive it. It will be ours. In the earthly realm. [00:16:49] Because essentially, that's what Jesus is saying. You believe that you've already received. You believed that my father has already given it to you. My father lives in heaven, so it's already been given to you in the heavenly realm. And then you will read. Then it will be years physically in the earthly realm. [00:17:07] Heaven first. Earth second. [00:17:12] Does this start to help with understanding what faith is, faith is the assurance of things, hope for the conviction of things not seen. How can you have a conviction of things not seen? [00:17:23] Because by faith we understand and believe it's already been done for us in heaven. And then we're going to pray that God's will be done on earth as it has already been done in heaven. And that's how we receive it. [00:17:40] Pretty eye opening in it. Yeah. [00:17:43] Okay, but we're not done. Let's go back coefficients to verse 10. So let's look a little bit more about how, again, how God works in the heavenly realm. [00:17:57] All right. So for we are God's masterpiece. He has created us a new in Christ Jesus so we can do the good things he has planned for us long ago so we can do the good things he has planned for us long ago. [00:18:15] Let me read it in a different translation. Let me pull up a different translation one moment and then read it in the E.S.P. And this is a patient's to 10. Because this clarifies it a little bit more for where his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand. [00:18:44] That we should walk in them. In other words, the good works that we walk in. Have already been prepared beforehand. OK. Before we ever walk in them. Does that make sense? Well, no. [00:19:04] So here's this. You probably won't remember this, but some of you listening to this who are old enough to remember the Jetsons Karmichael cartoon. [00:19:17] Yet do you remember it? Okay. You remember the beginning of the Jetsons. Everything's automated and there is a data stand there and the set of the suit of clothes comes on them and they just kind of walk right into that suit of clothes. And now they're fully dressed. Remember that every time I read this passage, that guy prepared these good works beforehand that you might walk in them. In other words, we're walking down the road down our path of life, and all of a sudden we walk into the good works that have already been prepared and waiting for us to get there. [00:19:57] That's what this is talking about. Those good works have already been done in heaven first before they get done in here on earth. And then they happen on earth, heaven first, earth second. Okay. Yeah. [00:20:16] So now let's look at another one. Okay. [00:20:19] Because what you're going to see is this is throughout scripture. Old Testament, New Testament. Once you have your eyes open to it, then you go, huh? Here's one those here's that one that's sacred to the kingdom. I never caught. But now I'm understanding. I see it everywhere I go. And now I can live in it. And now I understand more of what's going on, because all this is how do you walk by faith? How do you live by faith? You got to understand more. So the more you understand, the more you can you can do it well. So we're going to now turn to Hebrews for. Versus 3 3/4. [00:21:04] All right. He was 4, 3, 3, 4, 4 only we who believe can enter his rest. As for the others, God said in my anger, I took an oath. They will never enter my place of rest, even though this rest has been ready since he made the world. We know it is ready because of the place in the scripture where it mentions the seventh day, and on the seventh day God rested from all his work. [00:21:36] Let me share something. As we move into this, because I'll give you the background, an interesting understanding. So right now, this is talking about the time of Exodus. [00:21:49] The twelve spies were sent into the light land, into the promised land. They came back. Joshua and Caleb said, it's great and we can take it because God is with us. The other 10 said on, my gosh, they're giants in the land and we can't conquer it. We're like grasshoppers in their eyes. And they got all the visual to be afraid. And so God gets upset and says, I swear that you will not enter into my rest, OK? So that's where this passage is coming from. What's real interesting is if you read the Old Testament, it is a metaphore of our Christian life. [00:22:30] We were once in bondage in slavery. We've been set free baptism through the water. [00:22:38] We then go through a period of wilderness where we learn to trust the Lord without being able to see trust him for our daily bread, our daily sustenance manna. It dissolved at the end of it, you know, by the end of the day. So you use it now, but you can't store it. So you have to always trust him every step of the way. And then you move into the promised land. And the transition from the wilderness to the promised land is a time of great turbulence and additional trial as you punch your way into God's promised blessing. And when you get there, you're in a land of rest in peace, restoring back what the first atom lost that now the second atom gives us, which is in the first ad and before the fall, before he lost what was originally his, he lived and walked in Eden, and it produced abundant fruit with very little effort. Once he fell and lost that, then he had to toil in slave, and worked by the sweat of his brow just to get sustenance to survive. So as we move into this promised land, God calls and talks about it as his rest. And just as he rested from his work. So can we rest from ours? And this isn't simply saying you go to heaven and you rest. This is the Christian life that when we we go from slavery through baptism, through the welna's, into these these last periods of 10 more intense trials of fighting into the promised land. Now we enter his rest where what happens to us is all God's beautiful, wonderful will full in this of life. Now, in this life and fullness of life later in the afterlife, does that make sense, as is the whole metaphor? [00:24:30] And so so what this is talking about. Reading it from I think this is a new American standard for we who have believed. Enter that rest. Okay. There is a key word. Believe we'll talk about it. As he said, as I swore my wrath. You shall not enter my rest. Although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. So this is now saying God's works were finished from the foundation of the world. Have you ever seen God work in your life, Penny? Work was done before the foundation of the world because God finished all of his work before the foundation of the world. Who do you think is going to be working in your life in the next year? Oh, hell yeah. Those works have already been finished because it says that his works were finished from the foundation of the world. And it says, and God rested on the seventh day from all of his works. If he rested from all his works, how many works did he not accomplish? [00:25:43] Zero. Is he still working today? [00:25:49] Yes. And yet those works have already been accomplished. Does that make sense? [00:25:54] Yes, it does. OK. Kind of mind boggling in it. All right. [00:26:03] Don't you love getting paid to come on these calls? Love it. [00:26:09] So what this means is that the works that God did in the day of Moses in leading Israel out of Egypt through the wilderness and into the promised land had already been done long before. At the foundation of the world. What this also means is the word that God did through Jesus 2000 years ago. All these mighty signs and wonders and miracles. [00:26:40] Had all been finished before the foundation of the world. That means that they were done in heaven first. Before they were manifested on Earth. And we come back to the same conclusion, heaven first or second. [00:27:00] Right. Yeah. [00:27:04] We're not done yet. I want to show you how this continues throughout. In a few more passages. Let's go back to Genesis, back to where it all started. Not while, not where it all started, but shortly after it all started. Genesis 17, verse 5. This is God speaking to. [00:27:26] Ok. OK, go ahead. [00:27:29] All right. What's more, I am changing your name. It will no longer be a broom. Instead, you will be called Abraham, for you will be the father of many nations. [00:27:44] Did at that moment when a broom was changed to Abraham. [00:27:51] So this is the promise you're gonna be the father of many nations. And we know from Hebrews that the promise came through Isaac, not through Ishmael. Okay. And so this is a promise and a spiritual promise with spiritual blessing. So at the time that God changed his name. [00:28:12] Had did Abraham have any children of the promise? No, no. [00:28:19] But yet he said, I will call you Abraham, the father of a multitude of nations. [00:28:28] Past tense, present or future tense? [00:28:33] Who you will be called Peter. [00:28:36] You. He's changing his name because you are. I. Here's my translation. I have made you the father of a multitude of translation of nation. So my translation, New American Standard and in ESV are more very specific exactly what the word means. I think your translation may loosen up a little bit to try to make it read easier, but the more specific translation of the words being used. I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. [00:29:11] Okay. And then he said, I'm gonna change your name from Abraham to Abraham in order to confirm. So at this point, Abraham had no children of the promise that yet God had said, I have already made you. The father of a multitude of nations, because in the heavenly realm, it had already been done. [00:29:37] It just hadn't manifested into the earthly room. But we see this again, heaven first for a second to more passages. I know I'm probably I'm not trying to kill this, you know, kick a dead horse. But I just want to show you how complete throughout scripture, all these things that we read about when we read it with this and this understanding, it now all starts to come to mind. So let me ask you a question. When was this crucified? When was the lamb slain? [00:30:09] Beginning to bang around a B? I mean, I'm sorry. Prior to his death. And then we're. [00:30:21] Well, he was 30 ish when he was crucified, 33 oh, 31, yes, street. [00:30:29] Then it would have been probably around that same time. [00:30:31] Okay, so let's go to a question. [00:30:37] There are two answers and they're both completely accurate. Let's see if it depends on whether you look for a man's perspective from Earth or a guy's perspective from heaven. And this is the new challenge in walking by faith. We typically look from man's perspective from earth, and we come up with one answer. That's absolutely true. But when we look from God's perspective, from heaven, we come up with a completely different answer. That's absolutely true. The question is, which true answer? [00:31:06] Has overriding power over the other. Okay, so let's turn to because we're going to talk about that statement in just moments. Revelation 13, verse eight. Tell me what it reads. [00:31:20] Chapter 13 verse. Yes. OK. 13 verse 8 says. [00:31:28] And all the people who belong to this world worship the beast. They are the one whose names were not written the book of life that belongs to the land who was slaughtered before the world was made. [00:31:41] When was the lamb slaughtered? [00:31:44] Before the world was made. [00:31:45] So it was not only two thousand years ago? [00:31:49] No. [00:31:52] So we see it again. The land was slaughtered before the world was made in the heavenly room. But then that slaughter was made manifest in the earthly realm. About 2000 years ago, one. [00:32:08] Haνen't first. Our second name pattern now there is another pattern I want to show you, same pattern, but a little bit deeper and understanding this so revelation, just to give you an idea, revelation is when John goes to heaven and he physically sees everything he writes about. It's not metaphorically speaking, it's not using, you know, very colorful language to just to kind of be poetic. John sees in the spirit and then tries to interpret what he sees in the physical love. I was reading a book and this guy is a seer. He sees in the spirit room a lot and he makes a great statement. He says, when you see in the spirit realm, like demons or angels or things like that, it is a physical representives representation of a spiritual reality. What he's trying to say is. It doesn't. It's not. It's not an equal translation because spiritual realities have no real physical boundaries like we do. And so when you see in the in the spiritual, it's a physical reality. It's a physical representation. So their eyes can kind of translate and understand it of a spiritual reality. So when he's writing the book of Revelation, we come up with all these things that we try to understand. And yet it's it's all true. It's exactly what he saw. It's not colorful language is exactly what he sees. And with that, I want you to now go to Revelation Six. We're going to read a series of versus one through eight. Revelation 6 1 3 8. And then I'm going to share what all this means. [00:34:00] Okay. All right. [00:34:02] As I watched the Lambreaux, the first of the seven seals on the squirrel, then I heard one of the four living beings say with a loud voice like thunder come. I looked up and saw a white horse standing there. Its rider carried a bow and the crown was placed on his head. He rode out to win many battles and gain the victory. When the land broke the second seal, I heard the second live in beings say come. Then another horse appeared. A red one. Its rider was given a mighty sword, and the authority to take peace from the earth. And there was war and slaughter everywhere. When the land broke the third seal. I heard the third living beings say, come. I looked up and saw a black horse, and its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. And I heard a voice coming from among the four living beings saying a loaf of wheat bread or three loaves of barley will cost a day's pay. And don't waste the olive oil in the wine. When the lamb broke the fourth seal. I heard the fourth living beings say, come. I looked up and saw a horse whose color was pale green. Its rider was named death, and his companion was the Grays. These two were given a Scarlatti over one fourth of the earth to kill with the sword and famine and disease and wild animals. [00:35:31] Pretty dramatic, innit? [00:35:33] Yeah. [00:35:36] Prophecy of what's happening in the what's going to happen in the end times. [00:35:44] I think that question could be answered a lot of different ways, depending on your personal belief. [00:35:50] Right. When John wrote about it, had those events already happened? [00:36:01] It was happening as he was watching it. [00:36:03] It was happening as he was watching it in heaven. They had manifested on earth, right? Right. OK, so here's the cool thing about this. He's in heaven. [00:36:16] He sees all of these events past. And future events happening and occurring. All right there in front of his eyes, but yet they had not all occurred on Earth. He sees it all happening, but it hasn't yet happened on Earth. Regardless of your eschatology. In terms of whether this passage is about the end times or something that's already occurred at the time he wrote about it. It had not occurred yet. [00:36:51] And so what we see is even in these very dramatic things that only the land could break the scrote, the break the seals on that scroll. [00:37:01] These are events. They had already occurred in heaven. By the time John wrote about it, but they had not occurred yet on earth. So we see the same pattern. Earth first. Excuse me. Heaven first or second. And so what this all these passages seem to indicate is that there's this time disconnect between the heavenly room and the earthly room. How can you pray believing you've received something and yet you still don't have it? How can you pray by faith that the Lord is going to save one of your loved ones when you don't see it? How can you pray all these things that we walk by faith, not by sight. And so what this show shows is things happen, that things that happen in the physical seem to be a reflection and a manifestation of things that have already happened in the spiritual. Not always 100 percent, but all good things that occur have already occurred in a heavenly room because the Bible says that all good things are from the Lord and says that the Lord has done all of his work and has rested and he's prepared beforehand. All the good works that we should walk in them beforehand. So everything that occurs here in our life that's good from the Lord has already been previously provided and has already occurred. [00:38:37] When I go out and pray, or you go on and pray for people to be healed and God heals them, they were already healed in heaven first. So what's the implication? I think the implication on this is really significant. Almost tempted to break right now and say we're gonna have to cover the rest in another session. This be a break, but we'll go a little bit longer and then we'll cover the rest of the other sessions. So this, you know, like the end of the chapter or the end of the chapter, I'll always leave you hanging. You want to go to the next chapter of a book? Well, let me wrap up this section and then we'll cover the rest on another session. But I think the implication with this is significant, because the only way we. You know, the Romans, they talked about the mindset on the flesh this and in death. But the mindset on the spirit is life and peace. We know that we are spirit and body. We operate in the spirit room. But we also operate in the physical realm. This is how this time does connect. [00:39:54] Is how when we started this whole talk, it was decisions, too, that we have been raised and been seated already raised with Crites, seated with him in the heavenly places, because that's in the spirit. But in the physical, we're still on earth in a in a fleshly body, so we receive things of the spirit by spirit and we receive things so the physical by flesh. This is what John was to Jesus was talking to Nicodemus about in John Three. He says there are only things of the spirit. Can receive the spiritual things that you only know you have to be born of flesh, flesh and spirit, those things are blood and spirit. I forget exactly. But he says those things to the flesh or fleshly. But only those things are the spirit. You had to be born again in the spirit to enter the kingdom of heaven, because the kingdom of heaven is a spiritual place. And so this is talking and shows that our flesh exists in the earthly realm. But our spirit exists in the heavenly realm. In the spiritual realm. And so when we live. In the spirit, by the spirit, we're living from the heavenly realm. Does that connection make sense so far? [00:41:18] Yeah. [00:41:19] Okay. When we're living. In the spirit, by the spirit, mind folk, the mind focus on the spirit. Then we're living from the heavenly realm. From God's perspective of what had already been accomplished. We're talking earlier about gradients. Okay, I want introduce the concept, the gradient. We're seeded with Christ. Far above all other rural power, dominion and authority. And we're not talking only about Dominick Dunne demonic rule, demonic power and authority in Dominion, but the entire hierarchy of the spiritual realm is governed by layers of leadership and and rulers and powers and dominions and authorities first and the angelic room. And then I believe the demonic realm just copied it. So what this is saying is above everything. That's where Jesus sits on the throne of God. And we sit there already in him spiritually. As sons of God who are co-workers with Christ, and therefore he calls us brothers. Whether you're female or male on Earth, spiritually, we're all sons and therefore we're all called brothers by Jesus. But yet we don't have the same level of authority that Jesus does. When Jesus walked on Earth, he fully represented. And I'll use the word transmitted God's will from heaven to earth without any restriction. We operate operating gradients and that's why. Even though we said in the spiritual realm, in the same saint where Jesus said when we try to lose on earth or bind on Earth, those things that have already been loosed are bound in heaven. The translation doesn't always come through making sense. [00:43:29] But at least understanding this helps us to understand. Knowing what this passage means, but a little bit more the power that the spiritual realm has over the physical realm. And when we understand the power that the physical room, the spiritual room has over the physical room, then that leads us into a greater understanding that we have. An authority in our relationship with Christ and our ability to tap into the spiritual realm. To influence the physical realm, the realm where we live now. We were not able to change what happens in the physical outside of God's will. But the more we live by the spirit, operate from the spirit in the heavenly room, from God's perspective, then the more we're able to affect on Earth the will of God that has already been effected in heaven. We were talking recently. Remember the discussion we had any where we're talking about walking by faith. You come to a a junction in your life and I think we're talking about this as part of the timeline. OK. You're using like a clear garden hose as an example. We come to a junction and we can either take the path in a natural or path by the spiritual. We call their path by side or path by faith. You remember that one. [00:44:59] Ok. So what this you know, to tie in these concepts together. [00:45:03] God has his highest will for any purpose for us, already created in heaven. But it's only when we live by faith in the spirit, from God's perspective, that those things get manifested from heaven to earth. If we operate, the more we operate by flesh and less by spirit, the more those things are already in heaven. Do not get manifested on earth. That's what we call those natural consequences that we talked about when we walk by sight rather than by faith. That's kind of bringing it together all okay. So if we want to. Have our life conformed to the will of God. If we want God's will to be manifested more fully in our life than it is, then it's walking by faith. With our mindset on the spirit, seeing things from God's perspective, from the heavenly realm. Rather than from our natural perspective, in the physical realm. And with that, then we influence the outcome. This is kind of what we talked about with Peter. And I think let me cover a couple more thoughts and then. We'll stop and we'll pick up a new session and finish out this discussion that's going now into two sessions for sure. So. Our identity. So I want to kind of focus a little bit on identity with Christ, because really this is what this is talking about. [00:46:46] The more we live in true identity in Christ, the more. All of these heavenly realities, heavenly truths become earthly realities. And our identity in Christ has been one with Christ. But as long as we live in our sin nature bodies, then that identity that we have is only in the spiritual realm and not in the physical realm. That's why in the spirit, we've already been seated there. But we're not seated there in our physical body. The more we live in the spirit, then the more we operate in that idea and with identity with Christ and a more authority we have over the physical room to manifest God's will in every situation in our life. This is the ultimate understanding with all of this is the more we live by the spirit, then the more authority we have over the physical room. To manifest God's will in every situation. Because as the spiritual realm that governs the physical realm. This is the the ultimate understanding where one of the ultimate understandings in all of this haven't first or second is all these amazing spiritual promises, these signs and wonders. These believe it. And then you'll receive it. [00:48:13] All of these things is because the. Spiritual realm. The truths of the spiritual realm override the realities of the physical room and actually causes a change in the physical. Okay, we see this with Peter walking on the water. You know, as long as we walk by faith, he walked on water. As soon as he took his eyes off of faith and saw from his own perspective, not God's perspective, he sunk. Same situation, two different outcomes. And so, you know, so that's living by the spirit. The more we live by the flesh, the more we are servant to whatever happens by the natural laws rather than God's truth. So I think that's kind of where I want to start to wrap up on this call as we pick up the next session. I want to talk then about the difference between truth and reality, God's word being truth. What we see, what their eyes being reality and start to talk about, know the real implications of all of this kind of wrapping, this understanding. Now, how did we start to walk by faith in it? Before we wrap up the sessions, do you have any questions or any comments up hard or anything that you'd like to share? [00:49:31] Gosh, you know, I just was thinking about how since our boys were little, we've always tried to teach them that they are more spirit than flesh. And that sounds funny, but that's just been something that our family has focused on, you know, being more spirit than flesh and knowing that we were created before time that the father knew us intimately. That's a whole nother conversation. But to say that the father knew us before we even came to the earth and so that this is bringing all of that together for me and just something we taught our kids. [00:50:07] If bring some meat to that vague understanding that we kind of knew was there. But now we start to see it more clearly. [00:50:16] Right. [00:50:17] Well, absolutely. OK. All right. [00:50:21] Also, we'll wrap up this call and join us back for the next session of radical faith. And we'll continue this on part two. [00:50:31] Sounds great. Thank you so much for your time and your on just the effort that you put into today's call. This is really good. And I look forward to our next one. [00:50:40] Me, too. All right. 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[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent="no" equal_height_columns="no" menu_anchor="" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" class="" id="" background_color="" background_image="" background_position="center center" background_repeat="no-repeat" fade="no" background_parallax="none" parallax_speed="0.3" video_mp4="" video_webm="" video_ogv="" video_url="" video_aspect_ratio="16:9" video_loop="yes" video_mute="yes" overlay_color="" video_preview_image="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" padding_top="" padding_bottom="" padding_left="" padding_right=""][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type="1_1" layout="1_1" background_position="left top" background_color="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" border_position="all" spacing="yes" background_image="" background_repeat="no-repeat" padding_top="" padding_right="" padding_bottom="" padding_left="" margin_top="0px" margin_bottom="0px" class="" id="" animation_type="" animation_speed="0.3" animation_direction="left" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" center_content="no" last="no" min_height="" hover_type="none" link=""][fusion_text][/fusion_text][fusion_text] Watch the live interview below [/fusion_text][fusion_youtube id="https://youtu.be/QMyfkeQjFI4" alignment="center" width="" height="" autoplay="false" api_params="&rel=0" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" class="" /][fusion_text] Transcription (was completed by automated process. Please ignore any speech-to-text errors) [00:00:01] This is the get sellers calling you marketing podcasts for real estate agents. And I'm Beatty Carmichael. [00:00:06] For simple to do proven marketing strategies focus exclusively on finding sellers and getting more listings. Visit our Web site, get sellers calling you dot com. And now let's begin our next session of get sellers calling you. [00:00:22] All right, well, hey, this is Beatty Carmichael again. And welcome back to the Get Sellers calling you realtor podcast. I'm really excited today because I get to visit with not only a real top producing agent. One of our early clients, but also another one of my personal friends named Josh Vernon. And what's really interesting, we're going to talk about this a little bit, but this as a real quick background. Josh catapulted into his fourth year doing over 100 transactions a year. And he's done a lot in this business. He's got a great balance and just a lot to share. So, Josh, welcome to the call and thanks for being with us. [00:01:06] Thanks, Beatty. Appreciate the opportunity. And always get to spend a few minutes talking with you. So I enjoy it. I'm glad to be here. [00:01:13] Well, I appreciate you taking the time, because I know how well I was going to say I know how busy you are, but I'm not really sure you're all that busy. I think your team is. But I don't know about you. [00:01:24] It's you know, it's funny. It's it's been busier for probably the last month than I've been in a while. You know, we just recently made a brokerage change and there's been a lot of a lot of fun with that, but also a lot of a lot of extra work. But yeah, the people on our team are definitely be the ones responsible for most of the business now. So we're thankful for it for all they do for. For us. For sure. [00:01:46] Great. Well, I'm also for the listeners and viewers. [00:01:50] This is an Internet interview that I'm doing. So please pardon any type of Internet interruptions that may occur like what may have just happened. Did I lose you, Josh? I think we may have lost Josh. [00:02:08] Ok. [00:02:09] All right. So we're back. And I think, Josh, we just got to pack. I was just reminding everyone that this is an Internet interview and take part in any type of interruptions. And just at that moment, everything idea and shut down. Perfect timing, right? It is perfect timing. So. [00:02:28] So, Josh, I'd love to find out this little bit about your actually, I know a lot about you, but for the folks listening, can you share just a little bit about about who you are and how long you've been in business and just just a big picture overview. [00:02:43] Sure. So I've been in business going on nine years now, about 8 1/2, 9 years. I got in the business in 2010, very end of 2010. I've been in banking for almost 10 years. When I got into this, I was a branch manager at a local bank here. I really loved what I was doing, but I felt like I needed more time with my family and just, you know, really to be rewarded more firm for my efforts that I put in and felt like getting into a business like real estate would would offer me those things. One of the things I and I know you know this baby and you know, I always point to this when I when I first started, I'd been almost 10 years at the bank, had a great career and just felt like I was led to go do something different. And I felt like real estate was the right option. And, you know, I thought that I really fought it for about six months. And the more I thought it, the more I knew that it was what I needed to do. And so obviously, it's been it's been a good run. I had a goal of selling 12 homes my first year just to keep my family afloat. We sold 34. So it was it wasn't too bad of our first year and then while that early been up ever since. So anyway, that's kind of the high level overview of that. [00:04:10] I love it. So. OK. So that's a high level overview. Now, let's fast forward a little bit. Thirty four homes in your first year of business. You were expecting to do twelve. [00:04:21] And last year, which was, let's see, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. Said last year was your eighth year in business. How many transactions did you do last year? [00:04:31] We rented 62 last year. So you've had quite a growth rate. Yeah. It's been pretty good for sure. [00:04:39] And then I gotta ask you this high level. [00:04:43] Average hours a week you put into your real estate. This is how many hours do you think it is? [00:04:48] I would say, you know, it's different every week, but on average, I'd say around 20 to 30 in 20 to 30 hours a week. [00:04:55] I love it. So. So now we've got encapsulated why people need to listen to this call. [00:05:01] I want to roll the video back just a moment. You felt led to go from banking where you had this secure, secure job, great income, and to go into straight commission sales with real estate. When you say let me give me a little bit more idea of what you're talking about and what you think was the reason for that. Well, sure. [00:05:23] So let me probably take one even further step back from that. I was actually part of a networking referral group, and I most people probably heard of that. I was the banker in the group. We had a real estate agent in the group. And I had been sending her a good bit of referrals. And she kept saying, why don't you get your real estate license so that when you send me referrals, I can pay you a referral fee on those. And I'm sure, you know, I can do that. But, you know, I wasn't really in a big hurry to do it. I'd always dabbled in real estate. And that was kind of right after the time when flipping homes was a big thing. I'd flip a few homes with some family members and had good success with that. And so I always thought about real estate, but never, never as a full time job for sure. So that being said, after she made that suggestion, I went ahead and started the course and started working my way through that. And about halfway through that course, my wife was actually pregnant at the time with our second child. About halfway through that course, I started feeling like I was being led by my my God to to make a career change. And I'll always call it my Moses moment where I argued with God. You know what I mean by that? Know, Moses argued with God saying, I'm not the right one. I can't do this. You know, that's that's kind of where I was. [00:06:42] And, you know, I was I was fighting it from a standpoint of, you know, I've got one child already, one on the way. My wife doesn't work. She she works hard at home, but she doesn't work outside the home. So it's all me. So if I don't make money, we're gonna be in big trouble here. So that's where the whole twelve homes a year came from. I basically was figuring what it would take to really more or less keep our current lifestyle that we had. And anyway, like I say, I I thought God for I would say probably close to six months. And it was literally all I thought about. I couldn't eat without thinking about it. I could I couldn't go to sleep. It was first thing I thought of when I woke up, like there was no question in my mind it was where I needed to be. So I actually mentioned it to my wife. Finally, after about probably four or five months of this personal battle that I was having with myself, and her response was, well, OK, let's do it. And I'm like, are you serious? You know, you're supposed to be the one to talk some sense into me and tell me, you know, we can't do that. We can't afford this. But no, she was supportive. And anyway, so it was. It all has worked itself out. Obviously, I was always say if you're where you're supposed to be, it's all gonna work it. [00:07:54] You know, that's really neat because I actually have a similar story. I won't tell you the full story. [00:07:59] But I we had a young child. My wife was pregnant. She was like, you're your wife. A stay at home mom. Very busy. The only difference is, rather than me having a really successful career and a nice, steady paycheck, we found ourselves at the beginning of that year with me being unemployed and my wife being a stay at home mom. You know, we had the mortgage on the car and mortgage on the car payment and those type of things. And through a series of events, that's when the Lord led me. I didn't realize he was leading me. It's just something I did. And actually it was October of nineteen ninety seven Euro, October 2010. So October of 97 we started this little business and put in perspective how difficult that year was. My adjusted my adjusted gross income for that year was eleven thousand eight hundred eighty two dollars. Okay. So you know, nothing really happened. But let me see if I get this right. So when you when you're in the center of where God's leading you, you mentioned that things just happen. I think it was so two years later, we bought the home that we just moved from that you helped to sell and we pay that home off in five months. Okay. I mean, the thing had just taken off and it was obviously a God thing. And and seeing how your business has been growing, I would say is definitely a good thing for you to know that. [00:09:33] A question. When I started, people would ask me all the time, like, you know, what do you attribute your success to? And I would say lots of prayer. Just kind of get a giggle and I'm like, no, I'm saying I'm serious, you know. But that's that's what I attributed to. So. [00:09:49] Well, let's talk on that for a moment, because you've had you know, you you started your career hoping for 12 transactions. You got over 30. And then the second year you got how many transactions in your second year? [00:10:03] Well, it was mid 40s, I wanna say was forty four. Forty five, something like that. [00:10:07] Ok. And then your third year was fifty. [00:10:11] And then in North Wales, 108. That was the first year I had someone helping me. I had Jamie Reynolds. You know Jamie. Yep. They joined me from outside of real estate. You never sold a home? No. Really? No clue what he was doing. And he actually joined me, I think was March or April, if I remember correctly. And he had actually. He'd been kind of helping me behind the scenes a couple of months. But he really he quit his job and jumped in both feet in March or April with me. And we had a good run that year, for sure. No question. [00:10:44] So I want to you know, a lot of times I think a lot of the interviews will, especially with someone of your track record in growth, will focus on what did you do in the natural. If that makes sense, you know, what did you do as a real estate agent? I want to find out. You know, the battle is won in the spirit realm and the spiritual side before it's won in though natural. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You know, you mentioned the Moses moment. Moment. Well, there is a really significant Moses moment in the Bible. God had just brought his children out of Egypt. They're battling. I think it's the malachite. Moses is up on the hill with his staff and and down in the valley is the battle going on. Do you remember that? That section of the Bible? Yes, that's right. OK. So here's what's cool. He takes his staff and as long as he holds his staff up. Right. The Israelites win when he lowers his staff because his arms get tired. The Israelites lose. OK. And then Malachi went. So they two guys prop up his arm. All the staff. Right. And I think this is a perfect picture of how life really is, is the activity we do in the natural. That somehow in this spiritual causes victory and then that manifests itself back out into the natural circumstances. Are you following that connection? Yes, definitely. So talk to me in terms of what was your practice in the as. As a Christian. OK, what do what do you contribute? Because you keep focusing this back, you know, is prayer. Talk to me in terms of of what you think, you know, when you say prayer. What do you mean? How did you live your life? What are you what are the things that you feel are really the things that cause you to win in the spiritual realm where God had favor and right. Last you in the natural? [00:12:44] Well, and I think to kind of point back to even my career as a banker, you know, I was I was one of the youngest bank managers they had ever had in one of the smallest branches out of about two thousand in the company. And I think when I went out the year I quit, I was actually number two out of two thousand branches in the company in one of the bottom one hundred branches based on size in the area. Wow. You know, I feel like I always point back to when you do for others that it comes back to you. I've always focused on doing what's right for others. One of our our team models that we talk about, it cost us some money sometimes, but we do what's right. Every time no questions asked. There is not to be any any discussion if it's the right thing to do is what we do. The agents on our team know that and we just put others first is what it comes to. And I feel like that's one of those things. My focus wasn't, you know, God, please bless my business so that I can make lots of money. It was please give me opportunities to help others. And that's what I've looked for throughout the career. And I wish I could say I've been perfect on that. You know, obviously, weight, we're all week from time to time. But that's been my focus and my my prayer since the beginning has helped me to help others and use me to help others. [00:14:03] So, you know, it's interesting as as he said that my mind popped back to Solomon and ah, and God asked him, what would you like Solomon? And he says, Give me wisdom to rule your poor well down. And God said, Well, since you asked for that, I will do that. But since you did not ask for riches and stuff, I will blessed you with even more riches. What a greater great testimony. So you're if I were to look at your daily practice. OK. In terms of your walk with the Lord, your daily attitude as you approach. Things peel back that onion a little bit more, help us help me understand more of what you mean. You know, asking the Lord for opportunities to help people and and what that really means. I don't have. I'm not sure how to couch the question. I'm trying to pull out of the. [00:15:01] I'm really trying to think how to answer that question. I mean, yeah. I think, you know, obviously having a strong prayer life, having having that daily Bible readings, things like that. You know, there's there's there's a lot of good information in that in that Bible sitting on your table, you know, pretty much any answer to life that you wants in there. [00:15:23] You just gotta know how to read it, know how to find it. That being said, I mean, I don't know if that's answering your question or not, if that's what you're looking for. But I do I do make it a point everyday to find time to read. One of the things I made a decision to do. I felt like I kind of slacked off on on those things. And I actually just personally made the decision. I really don't watch TV anymore. We've got TV where we haven't cut the cord. First day I do still watch football on Saturday is when football season is on. But we just we don't watch network television in the evenings and you'll be amazed at how much extra time. You know, I mean, like one of the things we are I personally set a goal for last year was to read 40 books throughout the year or actually read 42 this year. I've got a goal to reach 60. And these are, you know, business, personal development, threesomes, some Christian. And there, you know. I've got some some favorites that I've read recently, but one of them was a rhinoceros success from from you, actually, that I thoroughly enjoyed. But I've just tried to really spend some time working on myself over the last couple of years. And that's made a big difference, too. And I mean, honestly, the the better you do, better you build yourselves, the more you're able to help others as well. So I don't know if that answers your question. That's kind of the model at this time. [00:16:46] Know, and what it also shows me and tells me is you're not just saying, OK, I pray to the Lord and I ask for him to guide me. [00:16:55] And then I do sit back and wait. I mean, just your goal of reading 40 books and you did 42. OK. You're driven. And so let's talk a little bit about if we were to look at. If I were to ask you, Josh, what would you say are the top three reasons you have been successful both and what you did in the banking business and now what you do in business? How would you rank those top three reasons? And and what do you tell us? What those are littlest. Let's start. [00:17:30] There was a. So that's a really tough one. [00:17:36] I mean, I do think obviously the focus on others is is high up there. I mean, I think a strong drive for success is in there as well. You know, I mean, that's something when I was running by myself, you know, you mentioned 30, 40, 50 homes a year that I was selling when it was just me. I would work 20 to 25 days in a row without taking a day off. And my wife would be like, you've got to stop. And I'm like, no, I'm fine. I'm I love what I'm doing. [00:18:02] Like, you know, when you love what you do and love what you do, it's never work. You know, they say it never felt like work. No, I mean, I can even remember. But maybe one or two days in the last nine years that felt like work. But at the same time, she needed to be happy here. You know, she. She needed me to stop and do things around the house and things to help her out. So that being said, like, I would say that that strong drive to to just be successful. I know. I'm not giving you a one, two, three. You know, this is this is Colby's dance around the questions when you ask me things like this. But, you know, I mean, I think it just I think a drive to be better to, you know, to to better myself and to better others. So I think we're all capable. We just have to put the effort in. [00:18:50] Well, let's let's talk about Tom. So you're working all these hours. [00:18:53] You're working all these days without stop and then you started to change your model. Let's talk about how do you go from being that one man show, doing all the work, working all these hours and start to put a team together? Can you guide us on that which you did? Sure. [00:19:13] I can actually kind of tell you where it where it all started. And I'm just going to throw the the the credit on that to Jamie. Jamie, actually, I mentioned before I was part of a bee sting when I left banking. I got that great call. Jamie joins that group a year or two later and his business was different. Like I said, he was he was actually selling carpet for covering artwork, things like that. And he wanted to connect with me being a realtor. Well, he saw I was doing an open house one day, but I wasn't doing one. I was actually doing three at the same time on the same street that I had for sale. Go big or go home. Right. So I was I was doing three open houses at the same time. Jamie stopped by, met me. We started talking and more or less built a friendship. And from there, he had actually read the millionaire real estate agent book. Gary Keller kind of had a vision that this team model would work. Well, I was kind of at a phase, I guess I was around 50 sales where I did not feel like I was really getting great customer service anymore at that point. And it honestly kind of got out of control. And to a point where I really wasn't able to manage it well. So I was doing my best, but I wasn't doing great for anyone anymore. I was getting more complaints than I had ever had before. More disappointing customers than I'd ever had before. And honestly, the reason was just I was dropping the ball because I couldn't I could not manage that many people at one time. So that's when Jamie got his license to kind of more or less be a support system for me. And from there would run into a pretty great partnership and a really, really great friendship, too. [00:20:56] So, you know, I remember in Gary's book, It's Been Fat is fascinating for me because as you know, I have never sold a house profession in my life. Right. All right. And I'm reading this book and it's like peeling back the onion of all the things that people been told. But now it measures that in one of the things that I remember so clearly, because I thought, wow, this is you know, it's it's it should not be it should be common knowledge, but it's not. And that is as soon as statistically when someone hires an assistant, their volume doubles on average in that per share. And and you know, what you're talking about with with what happened with Jamie is know you'd reach that level of you could spin no more plates because they were starting to follow. Fall in customer service. Now you bring someone else on board. Tell me what happened at that point. Not not just by me. I know the volume came up a lot. I would talk in terms of what it meant to you in business to have an extra pair of hands and someone who is capable. [00:22:08] And it's funny you mention spinning plates. We always use the description of juggling balls, but I describe real estate as juggling a bowling ball, a basketball, a tennis ball, a golf ball and a football. All right. Well, there's so many different tasks that you're doing, you know, and so each one is a different weight, a different size, a different texture. You try juggling all those different balls at the same time and see what happens. So that's. One of the things, again, that we took from the real estate model that Jamie believed in so heavily when he joined me that I had to read this book. You just got to do it. So I did. And we bought in. And that's actually what brought us to where we are today. I don't want to get ahead of myself here, but you know, where we do have a specialist model, where we have someone who is an expert at listening and that's all they do. And, you know, our by a team, that's all they do in our admin team. That's all they do. So that being said, when Jamie first joined, we jumped from 51 sales to one hundred and eight sales the very first year. So like you said, is actually just over double, double the business. [00:23:09] And that's with Jamie. And I don't think January would be upset with let me say this. He's never written a contract to date. Never really until he saw how I got. [00:23:18] I got to stop. Got to stop. I've always thought that Jamie was a buyer's agent for you. [00:23:25] He was you know, he's never written sales contract and he's never written a sales contract. [00:23:30] That's not to say he doesn't review every one of them that goes out. But he has never himself sat down with a paper or typed on the computer and written the contract. And again, that's one of those things. Figuring out leverage. We've got our wives involved. And and, you know, it's changed the game for us. You know, I became the listing agent solely Jamie became the buyer's agent solely. And our lives kind of were support on the backside. My wife read all of our contracts, helped support us. Therapist She had learned that over time. Help me. His wife did a lot of our marketing and helped with that stuff, you know, and she was influential when we first started with you designing our postcards and things like that. [00:24:07] So we figured out really quickly that we, you know, and the support of our wives obviously could take this thing to the next level. We really didn't know how far we could take it. [00:24:19] And we jumped 100 a year for the first two years from 100 to 200, 200, 300. And then we can really close to doing it. The third year in a row. We got to 390 for that. That third year. And then, of course, last year we were just under that. Like I said, around 360 to. So we fell just short. We actually we made some big changes last year. And, you know, I mean, obviously, I wish this. I wish it always went up. But eventually it's got got to shift a little bit. So we feel like our our move to Keller Williams recently, you know, we moved last month. [00:24:53] Like I told you and you know, we actually we've hired three new buyers agents in the last 48 hours. So we're about where I to see this. This thing's going back up again. We're pretty excited about it. [00:25:05] Oh, this you're listening to the get sellers calling you podcast to increase sales from past clients and sphere of influence or from a geographic farm. Learn about Agent Dominator. [00:25:15] We guarantee your sales in writing or give your money back to learn more. Visit our Web site and get sellers calling you dot com. That's like Agent Dominator from the menu. [00:25:24] And now back to the podcast. [00:25:27] It's real interesting. So. [00:25:29] So when I work with client agents across the country, a lot of times there is a disdain for the millionaire real estate agent because from their perspective, is the competitors book. OK. Yeah. And and I look at it as a great resource. But you just move to Keller Williams. You were not working with you were not a Keller Williams agent back then and all of this was happening. [00:25:54] That's right. Yeah. So it was the competitors book for years. We always knew Keller Williams was a great place. But we for whatever reason, we had great friends in the business that we were working with. And, you know, for for a multitude of reasons, we didn't make the move. But we're seeing the light now, so to speak, in a way. We went ahead, made the move. And I mean, it's been incredible for us, without a doubt. I mean, this is it exceeded every expectation we had so far and where we're right at 30 days and at this point. Wow. I love it. It happen. It was all in our minds right now. [00:26:30] So I love it. I love it. [00:26:32] I don't want to make this a promotion for Keller Williams, but I do as much as I want to make this point. The content in the book is great. And even if it's the competitors book, still learn from. Because what you guys did, you were pretty much modeling your business after what the model was in the book. [00:26:53] Isn't this right? I mean, we're about 95 percent after the model in the book. Very, very little tweaks. Yes. [00:27:01] So it really works how it really works. [00:27:05] And I think a lot of people that I've spoken to, they fight it for. For, again, different reasons. And I've heard some I've heard some some good, good excuses and I've heard some really bad excuses, too, just like anything. I think I think that anything, anything that you buy into an implement properly is going to work to some extent. But why not follow after someone who has the history and the knowledge that Gary Keller has? Right. [00:27:33] All right. So let me ask you and your so you went from into simple numbers, 50 to 100 to 200 to 300. [00:27:44] What were you doing? So I know you're building a team, but somehow you've got to drive business to that team. What? Sure. What's the big rock stuff that you did that drove the business and. [00:27:58] I think a lot of it, you know, to some extent there was a lot of buying zilla leads. They haven't been down leads. That paper like leads. Google stuff like that. Obviously, we did the postcards. Are you guys that worked great. We actually do you we took over a neighborhood that we had never even sold a home in. It was a neighborhood that we wanted to be in. And I pretty much thought was unattainable for lack of a better word. I guess, you know, I called it a day that it was, you know, basically saturated, you know, with two or three who are our really good friends, actually. But they were pretty much only my neighborhood. And I'd never sold a home in there. And I got with you and we teamed up and came up with a plan. And in less than a year, we were number one. Not only in that I report in that zip code had been number one. And there's a sense of 25th through current number one and trustful trust. Alabama's where we are. It's my hometown is where most of our team lives and where up until just recently our office was located. But, you know, we have we have a great reputation in the community now. And I feel like we have a pretty strong base here. It's still where we work. You know, we all who we all work from trustful. It's just our our home base is now in Keller Williams Stadium. But anyway, that being said, yeah, a lot of a lot of purchased advertising like as the Zillow needs, things like that. We've tried a lot of different things. But I think honestly, the thing that's helped us the most is just having a lot of homes for sale and selling them quickly. I say all the time signs that go up and then go right back down are probably your best advertising you can do. The challenge is getting those signs up in the first place. So that was the where where we got some help from you and from two other sources as well. [00:30:00] So let me ask you. So. [00:30:01] So you use a lot of advertising dollars in various forms to drive this Zillow boomtown. Working with us and other things, we want to hit a mass. Do you have to keep that spend up or is just your exposure now driving a lot of business to you automatically? [00:30:24] Well, I mean, I think we have what we've done is we're still spending almost the same amount of money we have pulled back. So no question. Last year we pulled back a pretty good bit, actually. Just there was some market shift in our area. Definitely a lack of inventory. I think every realtor who has been a realtor for more than a year can attest to that. But at the same time, we have we've been able to shift our dollars. I feel I can the more dollar productive areas and I mean, I think we're probably spending 10 percent less to produce about the same results. So we did have about a about a 8 percent drop from 2017 and 2018. And again, I feel like that was as much a lack of inventory as it was some changes that we were making for our team structure last year. We're on pace to do better than that this year already. So that's all right. A little 10 percent reduction in spans. [00:31:19] So what are you finding right now is where your dollars are best spent? What's puts most productive? [00:31:26] I mean, I still go back to the tried and true as the lone boomtown for buyers. As of right now, we're not really spending a lot of money to bring in sellers. We have some things that we think we probably will do over the next six or eight months. [00:31:43] But mostly at this point we're Lionel's sphere and referrals and reputation to drive that ship. And I mean, that's been huge for us to be able to, again, like I say, shift those dollars over to paper, click and Zillow and stuff like that, and let the reputation and sphere kind of drive the listings. [00:32:04] You know, something we're experimenting with. And right now, just to kind of throw Allen in case you have interest, is a video OK? Just like we're doing a video interview here. But video testimonials drive, you know, multiples of, you know, four to eight times more responsiveness than a written word. What you get out of the millionaire real estate agent is that I met list is much more productive than a non met. And so one thing you might want to consider doing, and this is what I've been doing, experimenting on this in a plug for me, I'm just saying that. So I'll interview people like I thank you. You do remember suits Gerard Sutton. Did they reconnect you all together? Yes. Okay. So, like, I did two interviews for him because he's targeting two separate farms. And the interview is basically. I may say so, sir. I live in very critical. Why should I do business with you? And it's a back and forth that then can be promoted into that farm to these people who've never met him. They've seen his signs and now they get to meet him and get to understand more. So as you guys are. Are working with you through referrals and other things. One thing if you can create a strategy around it to work would be to generate know do it through a video of some sort that now vicariously allows you to meet the people they get to get comfortable with you and probably drive even more business. Gotcha. That sounds great. Hey, let me ask you this. Just curious. The best day. KW branch, is that Jenny? Is she the team leader? Jen tumour. Yeah. OK. Yeah. Okay. Because, you know, we have more connections than I realized that you started every day. [00:33:56] Yeah. You started similar to May the Lord led you into it. Yeah. Young child and one on the way. All risk. And now your team leader is the daughter of my pastor. [00:34:08] Right. So she told me so. [00:34:10] So that's really neat. Hey, I want to shift gears real quickly and talk about family work life balance. Talk to me a little bit about that, because you went through that period time where you were way out of balance from your wife's perspective. Now, at the beginning, the call, you said you were maybe 20 or 25 hours a week. Quite a number. What have you done deliberately to manage on that and why? [00:34:36] So I think obviously having a team like I mentioned. So wait, we do have a specialist model. So there are basically three three categories in the specialist model. [00:34:47] Honestly, we truly believe one is not any more important than the other. [00:34:52] So we do have a team of listing agents, only a team of buyers, agents only and a team of admins. A team of admins are probably many, if not the most influential group on our team because they're the ones that keep the wheels of this bus turning. They're the ones that keep our contracts in order order all of our services that have to be done prior to closing the schedule or closings and manage. They they check with the lenders to make sure everything's on pace. And I can keep going for four hours, you know. That to me is by far the biggest, most important thing that we added to the puzzle, because I do take so much time off of our our agents. So the agents on our team get to do what they're best at. We just focus on nurturing leads. People who are interested in buying, selling and get them in homes, decide what they want, help them get the contract ready to write up and then handed over to the admins and then start the process over our listing. Agents were able to go out, meet with sellers, help them get their homes staged, get the home listed, hand it over to the admins, move on to the next one. So it's a it's a great model. One of the one of the highlights of billionaire real estate model is Leeds listings leverage. That leverage to me is by far the most important thing because we can do this over and over and over again and we can replicate it without anyone feeling the burden of of that extra work because it spread over everyone equally. [00:36:23] But I can certainly attest to that because you guys were the listing agent on my home. [00:36:30] We bought this home and then after we bought it, so that one. And it was such a smooth process and everything was you know, everything was I was looking at it from a business owner standpoint a little bit. And I think, man, you know, everything is systematized. Everything happens at the perfect time. I'm dealing with this person for one thing, where I'm dealing with the listing agent for something else. And then even after the sale, there is this process that I'm thinking, wow, this is why you guys have such a phenomenal business, because you have driven a process around that. [00:37:06] So right on that. Thank you. [00:37:10] So talk to me in terms of what I want to go back, if we can. I want to kind of open up the door a little bit more in your relationship with the Lord, with what? That how that drives your behavior. Okay. So real simple. This is kind of what I'm trying to get to. You know, our belief drives the behavior which drives the action. And your belief is up here with your relationship with the Lord. And I want to talk about how does your relationship with the Lord, how is it driven if you can? And I don't know if you've ever thought about it, but, you know, how does it driven what you do in your business, what you do in terms of how you structure it so you have time with your family. Can you talk to us a bit about that? [00:37:58] Yeah, I mean, I I would say a couple of things. I mean, one of the things I mentioned was, you know, in the beginning, I was working 27, 28 days in a row without a day off. I mean, obviously, now I don't work Sundays anymore. It's just one of those things. It's it's a personal thing. I don't work on Sunday. My team knows I don't. I will check messages Sunday evening. Make sure I haven't missed anything important. But otherwise, I spend that with family and just just get my mind focused on the Lord rather than on 20 things at work. And that as far as I think you and I talked about this a little bit before we get started. But one of the things we strongly believe in is do the right thing every time, no questions asked. It doesn't matter how much it cost, doesn't matter what it is. My my desire is to when I get out of this business one day. There can't be anybody that said Josh didn't do the right thing in this instance. And honestly, just I'm speaking about myself here, but I don't know that there is an instance where we haven't done the right thing, even when it meant costing thousands of dollars in costs, because, you know, if we're responsible, we're we're going to take care of it. [00:39:10] So I'd like to I'd like to pipe up on that because I've experienced it. [00:39:16] So you and I are in addition to being personal friends. There's also a vendor client relationship between us under vendor. You're my client. And we've gone through a number of different opportunities to work together in various capacities, each with its own agreement. Well, the thing that's always impressed me with you is doing the right thing. You know, you would follow you. So we were. I remember we were doing something and working with you on a farm. And you wanted to get out of that agreement because there was something else that you felt would be better. But a big conflicting. And this is when you were working with Isaiah, if you remember that. Yes, that's right. And so you called me up and you said, you know, can I get out? What would I have to pay you? Okay. And this is just one example of where, you know, a lot of agents we find when they get to the end of wanting to be someplace. Then at that point, they usually choose to just pull out, OK. And and force their way out. But in every single instance where we would make a transition, you are always there to do the right thing and to make sure that the way it was managed was done properly. And I just really appreciate that that well. [00:40:42] And I always point back to my grandfather. He was in business for years when I was growing up, and he didn't always have the most successful business, but he had the best reputation in the business. And he told me all the time there's more time and make money than there is time to rebuild a reputation. So I try to try to always live that well. [00:41:00] I just think that's really neat. So in what other ways has the your relationship with the Lord impacted besides doing the right thing? [00:41:10] Is there anything else? No, I'm not trying to get to anything specific. I'm just trying to figure out if there's anything else there. [00:41:16] I don't know that anything necessarily comes to mind. [00:41:21] I think that we've I mean, we've sold homes for free before. [00:41:26] I mean, I don't love it. It's not what we're in business to do. But, you know, for instance, I always point to this one because it made sense at the time. But there was a guy moving from our area out of out of state to go start a church. He didn't. He needed some help. He wanted to sell his house and basically I couldn't make a commission. And he said his house is what it came down to. And I said, you know what? I'm just gonna take care of it. We're gonna we're gonna do it. We're gonna sell it for you. But what I need from you is I need a referral like this. That that will help pay me back. Since then, he sent me twelve. I love it. You know, I mean, that's just one of those things. I mean, I don't recommend selling homes for free for everybody. Obviously, we wouldn't be in business for long if we did. But at the same time, it was the right thing to do at that moment. I had no question about it. No. No care or concern. And since then, he's become just a great friend that I followed. And he's now moved out of state again to start another church. And, you know, I mean, I feel like, if nothing else, I was a very small part of him helping reach others for the Lord. And in south Alabama now, now he's out. [00:42:33] So my great job, I am someone I remember someone saying you can't you can never lend to the Lord. [00:42:43] Without getting a whole lot more in return, we don't you know, we don't give to get. But when you give from the heart, you can never be. [00:42:51] It's always in your life is the way I look at it. So, I mean, I'm just doing you know, I'm just trying to show my thanks. [00:42:57] Yeah. Hey, let me ask you something else. And and I don't want to probe too deep that there's something there that you don't want to talk about. But it's an open ended question so you can do whatever you want to with it. [00:43:08] I know a lot of folks who so they they call themselves Christians. OK. They they are. They bash Christ into their life. But maybe their relationship with the Lord is just kind of part time or it's on the side or it's just something Sunday. OK. But they don't really focus on it. I get the impression that your relationship with the Lord is an everyday event and not just an everyday, but it's it's a part of who you are. Am I correct on that? [00:43:40] I would like to think so. I mean, obviously, I still say, like I said, I'm not perfect by any means. I mean, I have my my moments just like everybody else does. But I do try to make it a focus. No. I can always do better. I think we ought to know. But at the same time, I try to try not to just let it, but to show it, you know, and at least try to at least try on a daily basis to do that. [00:44:07] Well, I wanted to say if because, you know, we go through struggles in life all the time and, you know, this is as humans and as Christians. [00:44:17] Is there anything, anything that you can share that you like to share where maybe you or your family went through some sort of tough, challenging times, things that were nerve wracking? Anything that may wear. You can see God's hand really involved. That would just be an encouraging story. [00:44:40] You know, I have. I think of this from time to time and you never know when you do it. I always said I feel like you never know when God's taking care of you until it's done. And then it's like, wow, you know, that was that was definitely God in that. I've got moments. You know, it's hard to just like recall. I mean, I know one of the things that, you know, my first home that I had. It was amazing. Very nice. We loved it, but it was not in the greatest neighborhood, you know. And it was just it was what we could afford at the time. I had my first daughter, and from there we knew that we needed to move just for safety reasons and stuff. I mean, I had a car broken into. Things like that. You know, it just we felt like it was the right place to go. So we my wife actually found a home that she loved while she was out one day. This is when I was working for the bank. I was even in real estate. So she's I come see this house. So I got off of one of them and looked at it. I'm like. Love the house, too. And we prayed about it. We thought we could make things work. And, you know, we. We made the decision to go ahead and do it. And then I realized that's when banking kind of started making some changes. [00:45:46] And I realized I had made some decisions based on bonuses that I was receiving, not off of my paycheck alone. And it was probably not the greatest business decision I could have ever made. Almost a little more expensive. And and it was just it was tough to make payments. But I was actually another bank called and offered me a job. And this was about thirty or forty five days later, you know, and again, we were just praying that we made the right decision. You know, this is what we've done. And we felt we needed to get out of that other other place because it wasn't necessarily a safe neighborhood. The other bank offered me the job and it was a 50 percent pay raise. But what's funny about that is the pay raise was exactly the difference in the mortgage payment from one else to the other. Oh, wow. This isn't this isn't coincidence. You know, I mean, and I've got dozens of stories like that, but like, I don't feel like it was a coincidental thing at all. I mean, it was it was dollar for dollar. The difference in the mortgage payment and the kind of the lifestyle difference there. So anyway, I mean, like I said, I've got I've got plenty of those. But, you know, we didn't we didn't need the bonus money anymore. You know, the the regular salary covered. So I love it. [00:46:58] Well, the Lord is good, isn't he? [00:47:00] Yeah. That's just one example that, you know, I guess I can I could give you many, but that one's the ones by one of my favorites. [00:47:07] I like that a lot. And kind of wrapping up. This has been really a lot of fun. I would love to delve a lot more into some things, but just kind of netting out what I've heard. OK. There just seems to be a reliance on the Lord with your business that he led you there for, you know, even before then with this house and this your new job that paid for, you know, pay for the increased mortgage, you're trying to follow him and you're not doing a perfect job. I get that. In fact, I was just reading in Romans 7:00 this morning where Paul is talking about you got the law of God, which is spiritual, the law of the flesh, which is contrary, and that the sin in me does the things that I don't want to do. So there's constant, constant struggle. Absolutely. And yet you follow the Lord's leading and to real estate. And he gave your wife a wonderful piece about it that surprise you. And he started to bless you. And I think that, you know, a lot of these blessings you guys have had has to be because the Lord has chosen to bless you. He's put you there for a reason. And and to add to that. [00:48:27] It seems like every time I follow what when my wife has a piece about something, it's the right thing to do. I've learned that over time, you know, there's God gives us to help me, as he says in the Bible. So, you know, I mean, she she she is definitely a great partner for life for that kind of stuff, because she gets this pace. And I'm like, well, if you're comfortable, I'm comfortable. You know, I feel like I followed that, that God, every time that works and is. [00:48:54] You're saying how the Lord uses different people in our life to direct us in his will? [00:49:01] Yes. Well, this is really cool. Is there anything else that you'd like to share either on business or personal or spiritual? [00:49:09] Before we close up, I'm nothing I can think of. I'm I'm an open book. I love to share and say anybody has questions. I'm always up for answering them. You know, I get calls from time to time from people that have talked to you. They want to. Want some feedback. I love getting those calls and hand on that and giving you a good testimonial. You've always been great to partner with for us. [00:49:31] I appreciate that. [00:49:33] Hey, I don't do this on these calls, but and I don't know if you're wanting to offer this because this will be out there for a long time. Are you offering that? People can call you. And if so, we can have you tell, you know, how to reach him or. [00:49:51] Yeah. Absolutely. I'm always open for having the conversation. If I can help somebody, I'd love to. So. OK. Wonderful. [00:49:57] So how did they reach out to you? [00:49:59] If they want help in business or help with just maybe they want to apply, you know, serving the Lord and really following them a little bit closer. And they want to talk with you about that. How did they reach out to you? [00:50:14] They can call or e-mail. And I don't know if you can if you can post the information on their phone numbers, 2 0 5 7 0 6 5 2 6 0 email address. Is Josh Josh for an income? [00:50:26] Ok. That's pretty simple. And thanks for allowing that. Oh, very good. Well, I've really enjoyed visiting with you, Josh. This has been a lot of fun. [00:50:36] And for those who are listening or watching, if you've enjoyed this podcast too, please subscribe to it. That way you'll get more podcasts coming out like it also on iTunes and on YouTube. And please go to our. Get sellers calling you Facebook page and in like that as well. And if you want to learn more about what we do. Or maybe there's some services we offer, then feel free to go to our Web site and get sellers calling you dot com. You'll see a link up there that says Agent Dominator and you can go into it from there. My light just went off, so that must mean that the power bill wasn't paid. So this must be the time to close off the call. Josh, thank you so much. I've really enjoyed it. [00:51:22] Thank you, Beatty. Same here. [00:51:26] If you've enjoyed this podcast, be sure to subscribe to it so you never miss another episode. And please, like our get sellers calling you Facebook page. Also, if you want to increase sales from past clients and sphere of influence, dominate a geographic farm or convert home valuation leads. Check out our Agent Dominator program. We create custom content that differentiates you from other realtors, then use it to keep you top of mind with your prospects with postcards, targeted Facebook ads, email campaigns, video interviews and more. And the best part is we guarantee your sales or give all your money back. Learn more. Get sellers calling you dot com and select agent dominator in the menu. Thanks for listening to the Get Sellers calling you podcast. [00:52:09] Have a great day. P043 [/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
Transcription (was completed by automated process. Please ignore any speech-to-text errors) [00:00:00] Hi, Beatty. I'm so looking forward to carrying on our conversation today. For those of you who were not with us last week, we will be talking more about my medical plan. We're going to be naming Beatty Carmichael next. I guess I was calling you Beatty master Barber. The creator of Dominator is one of the marketing experts in the real estate field. And Beatty, I'm just really looking forward to hearing this discussion. No, I'm fine. [00:00:35] Yes. And again, just as a quick disclaimer, if you're coming to this call to learn about real estate marketing, this is one of our radical faith calls. We're not going to talk anything about real estate. We're all gone. We're going to be talking about Christian principles and living your life for Christ. So if you don't want to listen to this one, go on and turn it off and go to the next podcast. When it comes out. So. Yes. So last time we talk about ties today, I want to talk about offerings because ties and offerings go together because they're both our treasure that we usually hold on to because it's our money. But before we do, I wanted to clarify or actually correct one thing from the last session, if I may, Penny more in the last session we talked about no longer under law, but under grace and I talked about it no longer under the Mosaic Law. Well, after the call, the law kind of convicted me, said you better research that, because that may not be exactly accurate. So I went back to Romans 6 and Romans 6 and 7 and 8 and 9 and realized, no, it's not. The mosaic clocks that were no longer under it is the law that then Moses wrote down. But it's not. All of the light of the Mosaic Law are the do's and don'ts of all the little action items that you do. But I want to clarify what scripture says is the difference between underline under grace. So real quickly, I'm just going to go through a bunch. This is in Romans 6, 7, 8 and 9. I just want to pull out some some things if you go through it. [00:02:23] Paul is making a constant comparison between law and grace, but he starts to use different terms. I think as I run through these, you'll start to see the difference. It's not that galore. We're no longer supposed to do what the law says. That's not what. No longer under law, but under grace means we still do it. It's just that we do it from for a different reason. So Romans six 13 is where it says we're no longer under law, but under grace then enrollments six, 17 and 18. It says that we went from slaves of sin to slaves of righteousness. So now we start to see that under law, you're a slave to sin, under grace, you're a slave to righteousness. Then we move to Romans seven. Twenty nine. And and Paul says that I serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh, I serve the law of sin. So you're still talking about under a law? Under grace. Under grace. I serve the law with my mind. Under law, I serve the law of sin with my flesh. Then we move into Romans a wine. And it says, The law of the spirit of life has set you free from the law of sin and death. Still going back to no longer under law, sin and death, but under grace, which is spirit of life. Romans age six to set the mind on the flesh his death. But to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace. So we've gone from law slave to sin, which is flesh, which is that grace is slave to righteousness, which is mine. And the spirit which is life is. Are you following me on this, Penny? [00:04:12] Okay. [00:04:14] And the end of the final thing is Romans nine thirty and thirty to the Gentiles have attained righteousness by faith. But Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not obtained it because they pursued it as if it were based on work. And so here is basically what it means and not no longer under law, but under grace. It's two sides of the same coin. So we have a coin. In that coin is God's spiritual law. This is what we were talking about last time. We were going to talk about this time. Last time, the spiritual always focused on tithing. This time we're going to focus on offering. But on the law side of the coin, you have to do the works. Works could never get you there because it says in Romans 7 the law is spiritual, but the flesh cannot comprehend the law cannot do the law. So it is always the law of failure and therefore sin and death. But on the other side of the coin is still the spiritual law. But on the other side, it's grace, which is by faith. I've been saved by grace through faith, say by faith. Through grace. I think it's grace through faith. I'm not no longer myself. But the work of Christ that has worked within me. Okay. So it's we come at it from a different perspective. I'm a slave to righteousness because I'm now righteous as opposed to I'm a slave to sin because I'm central. That's no longer under law, but under grace. So that's the clarification. All right. So let's jump in to financial stewardship really quick through this. I want to look at a couple of things. So if you've got your Bible handy. I'm going to have you look it up. So we're going to start in Second Corinthians Nine so you can just kind of turn there. We're going to start with first six in just a moment, but I want to lay the groundwork for what we're doing. OK. [00:06:13] So when the Lord has us, he has our money. If he doesn't have us, he doesn't have our money. As I mentioned on the last session, you can look at someone's checkbook and their calendar and say pretty much exactly what they really believe in. OK. How do they spend their time and spend their money? So when we talk about ties, we talked about it being a spiritual law of tithing and it's holy to the Lord. But tithing is 10 percent. OK. It's the first tenth is what God says it is. So the next thing we want to talk about is this thing called offering, because offering now takes us above the time in real simple terms to kind of put some terminology when we earn money. A tenth of it automatically belongs to God and the 90 percent of it belongs to us to handle it in a way that God wants us to. Now we know that God owns it all, but from a spiritual law standpoint, the first tenth is holy and set apart to God. The rest of it is ours to do with as we choose within levels of righteousness and how it would please him. Follow me so far. OK. So now we want to look at is what is this thing called offerings and how is is expressed. And so in Second Corinthians 9, Paul is talking to the Corinthians on financial giving, but he starts to use some really interesting terms. So read Second Corinthians 9 6. [00:07:57] 0 farmer or a small crop, but the one who won a general crop. [00:08:07] Ok. So right now, Paul is using an agrarian term to express financial truths, because this agrarian term actually is a spiritual law. It's a law that seed always reproduces after its own kind. The seed of man produces man. The seed of a fruit tree produces another tree of that same fruit. The seed of sin reproduces sin. The seed of righteousness produces righteousness, the seed of God. It says that Jesus was formed that from the seed of God, essentially. And that he had no sin in him because his seed was righteous. And so we have this concept that a spiritual law that seed reproduces after its own kind. And now Paul is talking in financial terms as a seed. Okay. So then let's read the next next first verse 7. [00:09:14] All right. We must decide in your own heart how much to go and don't get reluctantly or in response to peer pressure. God was the person who gets cheerfully right. [00:09:28] So we have a couple of things here that you must do. My translation says, Lady, each one do justice. He is purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. So it just takes fewer words to say the same thing. So the first step is it's a heart thing. It's not a mind thing. It's a thing of the heart. Okay. If you only do what's required, it's under compulsion. What your. Your version says peer pressure. [00:10:02] I think you can go beyond peer peer pressure and say, well, the Lord requires it. So let me give it right. And that's not what the Lord is looking for. Let me have you. I want to show you something real interesting. Do you remember Cain and Abel? [00:10:18] They are all OK and they both offer sacrifice or in offering up to the Lord, God accepts one and rejects the other. [00:10:26] Remember that war? Do you remember why? [00:10:34] I think it was the heart, the heart behind it. One of them gave cheerfully and knew that what he had been given was the laws in the first place. So he was happy to return it to the Lord or to offer it to the Lord as a sacrifice, cause he knew where it came from. And then the other one. I feel like it was a jealousy thing in his heart. That was a heart issue. [00:11:00] The jihadist who must turn their traditions genesis for verses 3, 4 and 5. For Genesis 4 versus 3, 4 and 5. [00:11:12] Would you marry that? Yes. All right. [00:11:15] When it was time for the harvest, Cain presented some of his crops as a gift to the Lord. Abel also brought a gift. The best portions of the firstborn lands from his flock. The Lord accepted Abel and his gift. But he did not accept Cain in his gift. This made team very angry, and he looked dejected. [00:11:38] All right. So tell me. Look at the look at what he just said. What is the difference between the two offerings that Cain and Abel made? What is the scripture? Tell us about how it describes those offerings. [00:11:53] Cool presented some of his crop. He took a portion of what he had or horrible as a gift to the Lord. This all part of it doesn't it doesn't specify which part, says some partners. All Moore brought the very best course. The first part. [00:12:16] Yeah. So. So that this is the difference. Cain brought his gift under compulsion. I got to bring this offering to the Lord. Let me just swipe some of my fruit and I'll come bring it to you. [00:12:31] Abel says, I won't give the Lord the very best of the very best. So he's not only the first. It says that he gives of the first born of his flock, but he gives the fat portions of the firstborn. So the fat portions are the best of the best of that animal. And so he gives the best of the animal of the best of all of the animals. Do you see the difference? Yeah. And so one was giving under compulsion. The other was giving cheerfully out of a heart of love. That's what God looks for. He honors the heart, not the action. Simply to give and to give more doesn't do it. And this goes back to it's a spiritual thing. It's not the action that we go through. It's the heart in which we go through. In fact, James talked about this. He said. You say you have faith. I have work. And I'll show you my faith by my works. In other words, the actions emanate from the heart. And that's what that's what Paul is talking here. In Second Corinthians 9 7, God loves a cheerful giver, not one who gives under a compulsion. [00:13:48] Ok, so let's go back to Second Corinthians 9, and that's why. [00:13:54] So let's go now to the next verse. Verse 8. OK, so real quickly, Sade reproduces after its kind. God wants us to give from the heart out of a cheerful heart, not any compulsion. And now we're in verse saying, let's see what it says there. [00:14:13] All right. And God will generously provide all war. Well, will all come every single point we love to share with others. [00:14:24] God will generously supply all you need. Does that sound like it's a maybe or it's a fact? [00:14:34] Welcome back. [00:14:36] Well, now for those more literal translation is out there. You'll read an ESB or an ISP and it says, well, hold on, it says God is able to make all grace. How are you getting this? God will do it. OK, we'll generously give. So. So let me talk on this. This is really cool. So my version, NAACP says and God is able to make old grace a bounty. So, Penny, when you and I use the word able, like I say, hey, Penny, are you able to grab that chicken out of the oven for me? [00:15:21] Are you OK? [00:15:23] What does that mean that you will or does that simply mean that you physically are able to if you choose to? [00:15:35] If I ask them, how are you able, what are thinking about how I grew up in school? [00:15:41] Me that means I'm physically able to make them do it. [00:15:46] You can do it. Exactly. So that's not how this word is used, because the actual Greek word that says that's been translated into the English table actually means is powerful, mighty and will very emphatic. Just like your translation says he will generously give. Okay. So the key point here, one of the key points. Is that God says that he will generously give back to you. Rick, you read your your version again. I love the way it reads. [00:16:25] God will generously provide all your stuff for you. [00:16:29] Oh, God will generously provide all you need. My version and God is able. Will is powerful, mighty, and will make all grace a bounty. So they're saying the same thing will generously provide all you need. [00:16:47] Ok, now continue. [00:16:51] Then you already have everything you and you left over. [00:16:56] Always does that sometimes. Part of the time or all the time. All the time. [00:17:02] Always have everything you need. Does that mean there going to you know, you're going to run out of money and can't pay your bills? [00:17:11] No, that's everything. [00:17:13] Everything you need. All right. And then what's the last part of that verse? [00:17:16] And plenty left over to share with others. [00:17:20] Ok, so now for the really deep questions. You ready? [00:17:28] Ok, I hear that hesitancy. [00:17:31] Ok, so the last time we talked about the tide being 10 percent, because that's technically what the tide is. [00:17:38] That's what God says. The first 10 is mine. So an offering is everything above the tide. Are you following me? [00:17:50] Ok, now we're supposed to give the tides cheerfully and not earn a compulsion. But regardless of how we give it, it's supposed to be given. [00:17:58] Ok, so but the offering is purely what's called a freewill offering. It's from the heart. So if I give 12 percent of my income, technically what that says is I'm giving tithe plus 2 percent offering. Follow me so far. OK. Does God God's word ever lie? [00:18:24] Now, is it completely true? [00:18:27] 100 percent. [00:18:29] Ok. So based on this passage, Second Corinthians 9 8. [00:18:35] If I cheerfully give 12 percent of my gross income. Does this mean that guy? Can and will meet all of my needs and everything at all times. [00:18:53] Absolutely. [00:18:55] All right. If I give 14 percent of my income. Does this mean that God will generously meet all my needs in everything at all times? [00:19:09] Yes. [00:19:11] If I give 20 percent of my income. Will he still meet all of my needs and everything at all times? [00:19:20] Yes. [00:19:22] So here's the big question. At what point is God unable to do that, to meet all my needs? At what point of my giving is God unable? [00:19:35] I think about the fact that his nature and his character is not. It's not possible for his nature and his character not to meet a need. Does that make sense? No. I came out right, but I just I'm thinking about his nature and character. It's actually it would go in complete opposition of who he is as a father to not me to meet. [00:20:01] I might qualify that statement because there are some technicalities there. There are people who have need of healing that don't get healed. Would you agree? When there are people in financial struggles that aren't getting out of financial struggles. Would you agree? Well, OK, so that statement is true within two caveats. Number one, that we're living and acting by faith and that there is a legal opportunity for the law to act in that direction. Say when we sin, we give the enemy a legal right to attack us. And when we have unrepentant sin, that legal right remains. God may want to relieve us of the attacks, but legally, until that sin is repented, he is not able to release that legal. That legal right from the enemy. I don't know if that makes sense. Am I right? I don't want to get too far in that direction, but. [00:21:07] Okay. Okay. [00:21:09] So. So there is God at the heart of God. And then there is the spiritual laws that God is put in place. And he wants us to follow his spiritual laws. [00:21:25] And when we followed them by faith, forgive those who have trespass against you. And and we have repented of our sins. We've denied ourselves. [00:21:37] When we do all of these things, the more we operate in unison with the father, the more the father can bless us fully as his son. [00:21:50] But the less we operate in unison with the father, the less the Lord can bless us as his son. [00:22:00] Did I lose you or is. [00:22:02] No, I'm just thinking, yeah, and I totally agree with that. Okay. So, yeah. [00:22:07] So I just want to qualify your statement because it's not quite so black and white. But generally speaking, it is, yes. So. If so, back to this topic. If there is no point in giving that we can give guys ability to meet all of our needs and take care of us and provide an abundance. Then here's a simple statement that we can pull from this Scripture. You cannot give God's ability to provide for you as he has promised. [00:22:45] Would you agree with that statement or or. [00:22:49] Ok, so now let's look at another passage. We can go back to Malachi 3, verse 10. So last time we talked about verses 8 and 9. Which says because you haven't been bringing in your ties into the storehouse, as is my spiritual law, you are Kirst with a curse. And he's talking to the Levitin, the priest of which we are royal priesthood. [00:23:17] So he's talking to us. But then he says something really interesting right after that. And so now we're going to go to Malachi 3 10 and read that verse. [00:23:29] Ok. Bring all your tie into the storehouse. So there will be enough food in my temple. If you do that as the Lord in heaven. Amen. I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing. So great you won't have room enough to take it and test me in there. [00:23:52] Try it. [00:23:53] Perfect. Did you hear that last part? Test me. Where have we put something else? We've heard in the Bible about testing the Lord. Anything come to mind? [00:24:03] Oh, for sure. Old Testament. [00:24:07] Do not test the Lord, not just the Lord, but yet hear the Lord's suggestion. [00:24:14] How do we reconcile those two statements? Jesus even told us. Satan says no, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. And yet here the Lord says test him. What is the difference? This is important to understand the difference. [00:24:34] That's a good question. Yeah. [00:24:38] All right, so let me let me make it real easy. All right. When your child disobeys you, are they testing you? [00:24:47] Yeah. Okay. That's. [00:24:51] The type of tests that God says, do not put me to the test, do not test me like a disobedient child. But the Lord also has put certain promises in place and he wants us to test those promises. In other words, to prove those promises, true. Here's a picture, an illustration. I build a chair out of wood and I want to make sure that it's going to hold you up. I want to make sure it's strong. So I have to test the chair. I'm gonna get on it. Stand, jump, jump up and down. I'm gonna find the biggest, fattest, heaviest person I can find. Or two or three of them say, y'all sit in the chair all at the same time, jump up and down on the chair, and the more they can stress the chair and the chair doesn't break and the chair has passed the test. Does that make sense? So what the Lord is saying in Malachi 310 when he says test me now and this he is saying, this is my promise if you'll bring the whole time. And we know that he's actually talking about ties and offerings because the verse right before is talking about ties and offerings. So to bring the whole tied into his storehouse. He will open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows. That's my translation that it has. And he says, test me now in this. And prove it true. So here is the cool part. If we go back to Second Corinthians 9. [00:26:29] God says there is no limit to how much you can give cheerfully, and I not only cannot but will not generously provide even more for you so that in everything and at all times you will have an abundance. [00:26:50] But then he says here in Malachi, test my promises and let me prove them true to you. You see the connections here. So now what do you think the implication is now that we see what God's word says? What do you think is the implication? [00:27:13] Overflowing, blessing, abundance, always having what we need. [00:27:18] All right. What's the implication for? [00:27:23] Us personally. [00:27:30] Well, if we're testing a promise that the Lord has given us, and he tells us that the command test, when I read that it's a command to me, he does put me to the test. Yes. Then I have to have faith and believe that when I do put him to the test, that he is going to fulfill the promise that he just gave me. [00:27:51] Yes. The implication is, number one, we have to test him. And we need to test it by faith and trust him and see what happens. So let me share a story. I want to share several testimonies on this because it's cool. So. We go back to 1988 for some of you listening to this. You go, oh, my gosh, are you really that old? Yes, I am. And others, you're going. I remember that, you know, 1988 wasn't all that. I don't want to ask you if that's old for you or not. [00:28:25] Good. [00:28:27] So at this time, I was out of college, I had a class, a job. And and I started to prior to that, I I realized that the, quote unquote, required giving the spiritual law, you know, God's ties. What was his was 10 percent. So I gave 15 percent because I wanted to be sure I was giving cheerfully. So I gave over and above what was required. And that's where I found myself in 1988. And I read a book called Trust God for Your Finances. And in this book basically hones in on these two passages in Second Corinthians 9 and Malachi 3. And I was convicted in my heart that I needed to test God's word because that's what his words said. Now, is that what his words said? But his words said, there is no way you can give my ability to take care of you. So. This was my prayer and this is no embellishment. This is exactly as I remember it. The heart and even the words make it the words wrong. But the heart is there. All right, God. So pure, that big of a God. Prove it to me. If you if you if you can take care of me. Improve it. I'm going to triple my giving from 15 percent to forty five. Oh, I forgot to tell you last part of the story. Every month. I only had twenty five dollars left over after paying all my bills I had. I mean, I was month to month on my cash. And so I said, if you can if I cannot, I'll give you. Prove it to me. Show me you're that big. [00:30:16] I'm going to triple my giving for 90 days and I'm not going to look back until 90 days. [00:30:22] So I went from 15 percent giving to 45 percent giving for 90 days. [00:30:30] And guess what happened? You always had enough. [00:30:35] Yeah. Nothing changed. [00:30:39] At the end of each month, I had twenty five dollars left over, and then at the end of 90 days I looked back and I thought, wow, I save twenty five dollars a month. Just like before. But I had triple my giving and the Lord providential words and reducing my expenses that allow that giving to go through. But he didn't increase my income. He didn't give me more money after his all said and done. He simply made it all work out. Moving forward, I can never see how you can make it work out. Looking backwards when God acts providential, you can always see what how God made it work out. But we always act before we can see that's what faces and so Faith is acting on God's word in such a way is that you're completely out of control. That failure is certain unless God intervenes according to his word. And that's what he did. And so that gave me this great confidence. I can trust the Lord. So I increased my giving to 20 percent as a way of life. And then fast forward. I'm going to give you a whole little set of testimonies are all focused on trusting the Lord because you'll see this pattern. Nineteen ninety seven. January 1997. [00:32:02] I have a home with a mortgage payment. I have a car with a mortgage payment. If you ever had one of those. [00:32:10] My wife was a stay at home mom. We had a small Beatty and another one that was coming that year. [00:32:17] Our number two, we had five thousand dollars in savings and I was unemployed. And I gave the five thousand dollars in savings in the month of January to a missionary. So now we had nothing. And I did 13 different things to make money that year. My adjusted gross income, which is what you actually is, is what you end up keeping out of after any business expenses was eleven thousand eight hundred and eighty two dollars for the year. [00:32:58] We had no savings and we continue to give 20 percent from every dollar we earned before we lived on anything. So let me ask you a question. You're a mom to live in. This is nineteen ninety seven. So 20 some odd years ago. Eleven thousand eight hundred eighty two dollars to pay a mortgage payment to pay a car payment to pay off food, all expenses, diapers and everything else. By the way, my wife had to have a root canal that year and it was eleven hundred dollars in cash that we had to pay. So you had to factor that in those eleven thousand eight hundred eighty two dollars, cover all those expenses now. [00:33:48] And that was the year I got married. No. Okay. [00:33:53] All right. So let me tell you even more. We never missed a payment on anything that year. We were never so much as even late on a payment. I don't think we even had a late charge on any payment. How can you do that? [00:34:15] Looking back, I can see what guy did. [00:34:17] But moving forward, we live by faith based entirely on his word that says you can out, out, give God's ability to take care of you when you give cheerfully. He will always provide for you. [00:34:31] Does that make sense? [00:34:34] All right. And then I want you to look up a verse, Hebrews ten thirty eight. [00:34:45] Say ten or thirty eight. And my righteous ones will live by faith, but I will take no pleasure and anyone who turns away. [00:34:58] Yeah, my version, but my righteous one shall live by faith. And if he shrinks back, that means turns away. My soul has no pleasure in him. The only way you can please the Lord is to live by faith, which is acting on what he says is true. Anytime you live by sight because you don't believe what he says is true, he takes no pleasure in you. So what we did that year, not two not boasting on me, but just showing how true God's word is. We live by faith. We didn't know how he was going to provide. But we knew he would. And therefore, we lived as if he would. And then he always did. So something else happened that year. In October, I one of the 13 things I did was starting a little business that I didn't think was going to go anywhere, and it ended up being the business that we still have today. But it goes even further. So that was October 1997 when I started that little business. Two years later. And I think it was October and maybe in September of nineteen ninety nine. In two years we bought a new home and the second most influential suburban city in Birmingham called this debut. And one of the nicest sections of that segment of that area. And we paid it off in five and a half months. [00:36:43] Wow. [00:36:46] That's the increase. Of what God says will come to pass. Whatever you say, so that all seed reproduces after its kind. You cannot give my ability to take care of you. You cannot. Out, give me to meet all your needs at all times and poor. If you go back to Malachi and test me now and this, if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows. [00:37:18] Ok. [00:37:20] And so I got to continue this story because it doesn't always end as nice as you think it might. So we buy our new home. We paid it off in five and half months. I then increased our giving from 20 percent to 40 percent and then I wanted a different house. OK. There is a home that is coming on the market over in Mountain Brook, which is the most influential of financial influentials area of Birmingham. And it was in the nicest section of Mountain Brook. [00:37:56] And I wanted that house. And and I started to feel this nudge. By the Lord to increase my giving even more. More than 40 percent. And I'm going, no. And that nudge was persistent. Have you ever had one does know just by the law that just continues to persist? [00:38:17] Yeah. Yeah. [00:38:19] All right. Advice. Handle it now rather than later. OK. It's a lie. He's not gonna give up on you. You're eventually gonna have to do it. So I kept resisting and resisting. And then we took this trip down to a place called Marco Island, Florida, with a missions group that we're involved with. And late one night, I went out on the beach and just kind of wrestled with the Lord on this issue. And and basically, here's the wrestling increase you're giving. No. Why? Because I want this house. Increase your giving. No. Why? Because I want this house. I want to save up more money so I can buy this house. OK, the spirit versus the flash, right? Law versus grace. I mean, this whole thing I do the things I don't want to do because it's a sin in me. As Paul says. And and so. So then God changed his request rather than saying increase your giving. Do you know what he didn't said? [00:39:28] You said give me give me the house. Why do you think he would say, give me the health? [00:39:37] He wanted you to trust him with it instead of you trying to figure it out on your own. [00:39:42] Yeah, almost. The house. Was keeping me from obeying him. It was the obstacle. Look with me real quickly, Matthew. Six twenty one. [00:39:56] Paul? [00:40:00] All right. Matthew Sick and there's 21. [00:40:05] Wherever your treasure. There the desires of your heart will also be. [00:40:11] That's right. For where your treasure is there, will your heart also be? My heart was not with the Lord. [00:40:22] Because my heart was with the house. You make. Does that make sense? [00:40:27] The house was my treasure and that's where my heart was. So he said, give me the house. And do you know what I said? [00:40:36] Yeah, I said no. [00:40:40] And then he said, give me the house and that's for a few more times. I finally said, OK, I'll give you the house. And so in this figurative illustration, I grabbed the house from my left side and I shifted it over and lifted it up to the Lord to my right side. And I gave him the house. And when I gave him the house. [00:41:06] What followed with it? He know. [00:41:12] That came later before it followed with It was my heart. Because where your treasure is, there also is your heart. So when I gave him my treasure, my heart went with it. By giving him my treasure, I gave him therefore my heart. [00:41:29] You know what the law said in. Tell me. Now increase your giving. And you know what I said? [00:41:41] I hope that is that okay? That's right. I said, okay, how much? [00:41:47] You said because you say what happens a lot of times in our world of giving, especially in these offerings. OK. Because these are kind of their freewill offerings is we have obstacles that hold us back because they're our treasures. It may be school for the kids. It may be this vacation we're saving up for. It may be a new car. It may be moving to that new house. [00:42:12] It may be buying new clothes. It may be anything. But when it becomes an obstacle to answering that nudge on your heart that the Lord is directing you to do, to test his words, to live by faith, then that obstacle becomes your sin. [00:42:31] And it's impossible to please God with that sin, because now your heart is no longer with the father but with his creation. And he says, don't worship my creation, worship me. So when you identify whatever it is that's holding you back and you give that to the Lord, that treasure, your heart goes with it. And when the Lord has your heart, then you're willing to do anything he asks of you. Are these is this connecting a lot of dots? [00:43:04] So then I said, OK, how much? He said 60 percent. I said, OK, we'll give 60 percent. And so for a long period of time, not not today, but for many years thereafter, we gave 60 percent of our income. 60 percent of everything we had. We gave back to the Lord and the Lord continued to sustain us. [00:43:24] And and you cannot out give guys ability to take care of you. So does this mean that you ought to be giving 60 percent? No. The Lord chooses what he wants everyone to do. The key is to not resist what he's asking of you. He will let you know as you want to test his word. He will let you know what he wants you to do. The key is don't resist it. Because he has his best and highest will and desire for you. So just kind of wrapping up a lot of this stuff right now. I know that the Lord because I just know how the Lord works. The Lord is probably talking to you, to whoever is listening to this, that you've got to increase your giving because you've been holding back, because you've been giving by sight and not by faith. And in giving by faith, living by faith starts with giving him your treasure. Okay. Figure out what it is that's holding you back. And relinquish it to him so that your heart is with him. [00:44:40] And then you can easily act on whatever he's calling you to do, so on. [00:44:47] Maybe just put in maybe just some categories, some people, you know, maybe you need to do a three month test, go way out. I'm doing a three month test right now. That scares me. You know, a three month test back then 15 to 45 percent and giving. I didn't have a whole lot to lose. I'm doing a test right now for 90 days testing God's word. And it's kind of scary because just because of the magnitude of what I'm testing. So maybe do a three month test, just give got a chance to prove his promise is true in a short term test so you can see how he works. Okay. Or maybe others. Lord is just directing you to give increased your giving permanently. Okay. [00:45:38] You're giving it X amount and you really fill in those. You need to be giving more and ask the Lord how much. And there's some of you that are listening to this that probably, hey, you know, all this is old news. I've been through this. I'm content. I don't feel any nudging by the Lord. And that's great. So I'm just kind of wrapping up what, you know, this whole concept of radical faith. It's acting on those promises of God, acting on the things he's promised us, acting on the things that he's directing us. It's living with a question that he would ask. Do you trust me? And your answer says, yes. And I'll prove my trust or my faith in you by doing the work. The actions taken, the direction that you've called me to do. And if you don't do that, remember of without faith, it is impossible to please him. So before we wrap up, Penny, since you're the only one I can get feedback from or questions, any questions or points of clarity or any comments. [00:46:46] Before we wrap up this call, actually, does that last little bear that you were just talking about this of speaking to our audience and people that are listening? And I was thinking, you know, there's a lot of people that that might actually be giving more than their 10 percent like you did for so long, Beatty. And there may be thinking why or to give more than ten. And the thought that popped in my head was sometimes it doesn't always have to be financial. I know we're talking about finances right now. So absolutely. But maybe you're in one of those positions where you already give above plan and there's something else that you could still give that you're not sure what it is. And it could be things like your time sacrificing some of your schedule and things like that. I was just trying to categorize for myself personally places where my treasure could be, where my heart could be. And I know that scandal is a big one for us. We're just in a busy season of life. And so that was something that kind of stood out to me. [00:47:44] You know, I think that's great because I'll just share personally kind of what's going on with me. And I share part of this. And a radical faith session before with Caroline, not with you. But there are two things that hurt me as you were talking on that. And I just want to share these because these may prompt some people to say, hey, I can step out that way also. The first thing is my quiet time. You know, the Lord says to give him the best of all, we have the first of everything. And so years back, I said, Lord, I want to have I want to honor you. And I want to trust you before I rely on me. And I want to honor you with the best of what I have, so not only financial giving, but I started thing about my time, my most productive time as a business owner is the first part of my day. That's before the chaos starts hitting. That's when I'm brightest and clearest and unable to really zone in and focus. So I said, Laura, I wouldn't give you the first part of my day. Not the leftovers. I'm not going to get up super early for I can barely stay awake. I want to give you that time of the day. That is crazy. To give up because it's the best time to be productive in the work you've called me to do, so my quiet time is in the mornings. You know, it's typically somewhere between seven and eleven. [00:49:19] Okay. Plus or minus on those. But isn't the best part of my working day because I give that up and offer it to him as as my sacrifice for the best of what I have. And then the Lord has been directing me to what I call build his temple, use my teaching ability and my understanding of his scriptures and the things he's led me through to teach others how this whole radical faith teaching series started. And I have kept putting it off because business is so crazy hectic. It's always a struggle. Either it's feast or famine, but it's never stable. Okay. And and so there's been a lot of times where this is one of the things that's important but not urgent. And the Lord finally showed me it's important to me, Beatty, and therefore it should be urgent to you. So as part of my commitment to him is to take significant time out of my working day over and above what I do on my offering, my my quiet time offering and focus on. Doing these type of this type of work, which has nothing directly to do with business, but it's the best of what I have to offer him. And that's the offering sort. So what you're talking about is not just money. It goes beyond money. But I think most people need to start with their finances at the least, because that's where most people stand. Yes, but it's not just finances. It's much more than that. [00:51:05] Yeah, every area of our lives, the best with my spouse, the best with my kids. [00:51:10] Or again. [00:51:13] All right, well, we'll wrap up. Hope you guys are enjoying this. We got some other great things coming. All right. Y'all have a great day. See you later. P010
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Please ignore any speech-to-text errors) [00:00:00] Hi, Beatty. I'm so looking forward to carrying on our conversation today. For those of you who were not with us last week, we will be talking more about my medical plan. We're going to be naming Beatty Carmichael next. I guess I was calling you Beatty master Barber. The creator of Dominator is one of the marketing experts in the real estate field. And Beatty, I'm just really looking forward to hearing this discussion. No, I'm fine. [00:00:35] Yes. And again, just as a quick disclaimer, if you're coming to this call to learn about real estate marketing, this is one of our radical faith calls. We're not going to talk anything about real estate. We're all gone. We're going to be talking about Christian principles and living your life for Christ. So if you don't want to listen to this one, go on and turn it off and go to the next podcast. When it comes out. So. Yes. So last time we talk about ties today, I want to talk about offerings because ties and offerings go together because they're both our treasure that we usually hold on to because it's our money. But before we do, I wanted to clarify or actually correct one thing from the last session, if I may, Penny more in the last session we talked about no longer under law, but under grace and I talked about it no longer under the Mosaic Law. Well, after the call, the law kind of convicted me, said you better research that, because that may not be exactly accurate. So I went back to Romans 6 and Romans 6 and 7 and 8 and 9 and realized, no, it's not. The mosaic clocks that were no longer under it is the law that then Moses wrote down. But it's not. All of the light of the Mosaic Law are the do's and don'ts of all the little action items that you do. But I want to clarify what scripture says is the difference between underline under grace. So real quickly, I'm just going to go through a bunch. This is in Romans 6, 7, 8 and 9. I just want to pull out some some things if you go through it. [00:02:23] Paul is making a constant comparison between law and grace, but he starts to use different terms. I think as I run through these, you'll start to see the difference. It's not that galore. We're no longer supposed to do what the law says. That's not what. No longer under law, but under grace means we still do it. It's just that we do it from for a different reason. So Romans six 13 is where it says we're no longer under law, but under grace then enrollments six, 17 and 18. It says that we went from slaves of sin to slaves of righteousness. So now we start to see that under law, you're a slave to sin, under grace, you're a slave to righteousness. Then we move to Romans seven. Twenty nine. And and Paul says that I serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh, I serve the law of sin. So you're still talking about under a law? Under grace. Under grace. I serve the law with my mind. Under law, I serve the law of sin with my flesh. Then we move into Romans a wine. And it says, The law of the spirit of life has set you free from the law of sin and death. Still going back to no longer under law, sin and death, but under grace, which is spirit of life. Romans age six to set the mind on the flesh his death. But to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace. So we've gone from law slave to sin, which is flesh, which is that grace is slave to righteousness, which is mine. And the spirit which is life is. Are you following me on this, Penny? [00:04:12] Okay. [00:04:14] And the end of the final thing is Romans nine thirty and thirty to the Gentiles have attained righteousness by faith. But Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not obtained it because they pursued it as if it were based on work. And so here is basically what it means and not no longer under law, but under grace. It's two sides of the same coin. So we have a coin. In that coin is God's spiritual law. This is what we were talking about last time. We were going to talk about this time. Last time, the spiritual always focused on tithing. This time we're going to focus on offering. But on the law side of the coin, you have to do the works. Works could never get you there because it says in Romans 7 the law is spiritual, but the flesh cannot comprehend the law cannot do the law. So it is always the law of failure and therefore sin and death. But on the other side of the coin is still the spiritual law. But on the other side, it's grace, which is by faith. I've been saved by grace through faith, say by faith. Through grace. I think it's grace through faith. I'm not no longer myself. But the work of Christ that has worked within me. Okay. So it's we come at it from a different perspective. I'm a slave to righteousness because I'm now righteous as opposed to I'm a slave to sin because I'm central. That's no longer under law, but under grace. So that's the clarification. All right. So let's jump in to financial stewardship really quick through this. I want to look at a couple of things. So if you've got your Bible handy. I'm going to have you look it up. So we're going to start in Second Corinthians Nine so you can just kind of turn there. We're going to start with first six in just a moment, but I want to lay the groundwork for what we're doing. OK. [00:06:13] So when the Lord has us, he has our money. If he doesn't have us, he doesn't have our money. As I mentioned on the last session, you can look at someone's checkbook and their calendar and say pretty much exactly what they really believe in. OK. How do they spend their time and spend their money? So when we talk about ties, we talked about it being a spiritual law of tithing and it's holy to the Lord. But tithing is 10 percent. OK. It's the first tenth is what God says it is. So the next thing we want to talk about is this thing called offering, because offering now takes us above the time in real simple terms to kind of put some terminology when we earn money. A tenth of it automatically belongs to God and the 90 percent of it belongs to us to handle it in a way that God wants us to. Now we know that God owns it all, but from a spiritual law standpoint, the first tenth is holy and set apart to God. The rest of it is ours to do with as we choose within levels of righteousness and how it would please him. Follow me so far. OK. So now we want to look at is what is this thing called offerings and how is is expressed. And so in Second Corinthians 9, Paul is talking to the Corinthians on financial giving, but he starts to use some really interesting terms. So read Second Corinthians 9 6. [00:07:57] 0 farmer or a small crop, but the one who won a general crop. [00:08:07] Ok. So right now, Paul is using an agrarian term to express financial truths, because this agrarian term actually is a spiritual law. It's a law that seed always reproduces after its own kind. The seed of man produces man. The seed of a fruit tree produces another tree of that same fruit. The seed of sin reproduces sin. The seed of righteousness produces righteousness, the seed of God. It says that Jesus was formed that from the seed of God, essentially. And that he had no sin in him because his seed was righteous. And so we have this concept that a spiritual law that seed reproduces after its own kind. And now Paul is talking in financial terms as a seed. Okay. So then let's read the next next first verse 7. [00:09:14] All right. We must decide in your own heart how much to go and don't get reluctantly or in response to peer pressure. God was the person who gets cheerfully right. [00:09:28] So we have a couple of things here that you must do. My translation says, Lady, each one do justice. He is purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. So it just takes fewer words to say the same thing. So the first step is it's a heart thing. It's not a mind thing. It's a thing of the heart. Okay. If you only do what's required, it's under compulsion. What your. Your version says peer pressure. [00:10:02] I think you can go beyond peer peer pressure and say, well, the Lord requires it. So let me give it right. And that's not what the Lord is looking for. Let me have you. I want to show you something real interesting. Do you remember Cain and Abel? [00:10:18] They are all OK and they both offer sacrifice or in offering up to the Lord, God accepts one and rejects the other. [00:10:26] Remember that war? Do you remember why? [00:10:34] I think it was the heart, the heart behind it. One of them gave cheerfully and knew that what he had been given was the laws in the first place. So he was happy to return it to the Lord or to offer it to the Lord as a sacrifice, cause he knew where it came from. And then the other one. I feel like it was a jealousy thing in his heart. That was a heart issue. [00:11:00] The jihadist who must turn their traditions genesis for verses 3, 4 and 5. For Genesis 4 versus 3, 4 and 5. [00:11:12] Would you marry that? Yes. All right. [00:11:15] When it was time for the harvest, Cain presented some of his crops as a gift to the Lord. Abel also brought a gift. The best portions of the firstborn lands from his flock. The Lord accepted Abel and his gift. But he did not accept Cain in his gift. This made team very angry, and he looked dejected. [00:11:38] All right. So tell me. Look at the look at what he just said. What is the difference between the two offerings that Cain and Abel made? What is the scripture? Tell us about how it describes those offerings. [00:11:53] Cool presented some of his crop. He took a portion of what he had or horrible as a gift to the Lord. This all part of it doesn't it doesn't specify which part, says some partners. All Moore brought the very best course. The first part. [00:12:16] Yeah. So. So that this is the difference. Cain brought his gift under compulsion. I got to bring this offering to the Lord. Let me just swipe some of my fruit and I'll come bring it to you. [00:12:31] Abel says, I won't give the Lord the very best of the very best. So he's not only the first. It says that he gives of the first born of his flock, but he gives the fat portions of the firstborn. So the fat portions are the best of the best of that animal. And so he gives the best of the animal of the best of all of the animals. Do you see the difference? Yeah. And so one was giving under compulsion. The other was giving cheerfully out of a heart of love. That's what God looks for. He honors the heart, not the action. Simply to give and to give more doesn't do it. And this goes back to it's a spiritual thing. It's not the action that we go through. It's the heart in which we go through. In fact, James talked about this. He said. You say you have faith. I have work. And I'll show you my faith by my works. In other words, the actions emanate from the heart. And that's what that's what Paul is talking here. In Second Corinthians 9 7, God loves a cheerful giver, not one who gives under a compulsion. [00:13:48] Ok, so let's go back to Second Corinthians 9, and that's why. [00:13:54] So let's go now to the next verse. Verse 8. OK, so real quickly, Sade reproduces after its kind. God wants us to give from the heart out of a cheerful heart, not any compulsion. And now we're in verse saying, let's see what it says there. [00:14:13] All right. And God will generously provide all war. Well, will all come every single point we love to share with others. [00:14:24] God will generously supply all you need. Does that sound like it's a maybe or it's a fact? [00:14:34] Welcome back. [00:14:36] Well, now for those more literal translation is out there. You'll read an ESB or an ISP and it says, well, hold on, it says God is able to make all grace. How are you getting this? God will do it. OK, we'll generously give. So. So let me talk on this. This is really cool. So my version, NAACP says and God is able to make old grace a bounty. So, Penny, when you and I use the word able, like I say, hey, Penny, are you able to grab that chicken out of the oven for me? [00:15:21] Are you OK? [00:15:23] What does that mean that you will or does that simply mean that you physically are able to if you choose to? [00:15:35] If I ask them, how are you able, what are thinking about how I grew up in school? [00:15:41] Me that means I'm physically able to make them do it. [00:15:46] You can do it. Exactly. So that's not how this word is used, because the actual Greek word that says that's been translated into the English table actually means is powerful, mighty and will very emphatic. Just like your translation says he will generously give. Okay. So the key point here, one of the key points. Is that God says that he will generously give back to you. Rick, you read your your version again. I love the way it reads. [00:16:25] God will generously provide all your stuff for you. [00:16:29] Oh, God will generously provide all you need. My version and God is able. Will is powerful, mighty, and will make all grace a bounty. So they're saying the same thing will generously provide all you need. [00:16:47] Ok, now continue. [00:16:51] Then you already have everything you and you left over. [00:16:56] Always does that sometimes. Part of the time or all the time. All the time. [00:17:02] Always have everything you need. Does that mean there going to you know, you're going to run out of money and can't pay your bills? [00:17:11] No, that's everything. [00:17:13] Everything you need. All right. And then what's the last part of that verse? [00:17:16] And plenty left over to share with others. [00:17:20] Ok, so now for the really deep questions. You ready? [00:17:28] Ok, I hear that hesitancy. [00:17:31] Ok, so the last time we talked about the tide being 10 percent, because that's technically what the tide is. [00:17:38] That's what God says. The first 10 is mine. So an offering is everything above the tide. Are you following me? [00:17:50] Ok, now we're supposed to give the tides cheerfully and not earn a compulsion. But regardless of how we give it, it's supposed to be given. [00:17:58] Ok, so but the offering is purely what's called a freewill offering. It's from the heart. So if I give 12 percent of my income, technically what that says is I'm giving tithe plus 2 percent offering. Follow me so far. OK. Does God God's word ever lie? [00:18:24] Now, is it completely true? [00:18:27] 100 percent. [00:18:29] Ok. So based on this passage, Second Corinthians 9 8. [00:18:35] If I cheerfully give 12 percent of my gross income. Does this mean that guy? Can and will meet all of my needs and everything at all times. [00:18:53] Absolutely. [00:18:55] All right. If I give 14 percent of my income. Does this mean that God will generously meet all my needs in everything at all times? [00:19:09] Yes. [00:19:11] If I give 20 percent of my income. Will he still meet all of my needs and everything at all times? [00:19:20] Yes. [00:19:22] So here's the big question. At what point is God unable to do that, to meet all my needs? At what point of my giving is God unable? [00:19:35] I think about the fact that his nature and his character is not. It's not possible for his nature and his character not to meet a need. Does that make sense? No. I came out right, but I just I'm thinking about his nature and character. It's actually it would go in complete opposition of who he is as a father to not me to meet. [00:20:01] I might qualify that statement because there are some technicalities there. There are people who have need of healing that don't get healed. Would you agree? When there are people in financial struggles that aren't getting out of financial struggles. Would you agree? Well, OK, so that statement is true within two caveats. Number one, that we're living and acting by faith and that there is a legal opportunity for the law to act in that direction. Say when we sin, we give the enemy a legal right to attack us. And when we have unrepentant sin, that legal right remains. God may want to relieve us of the attacks, but legally, until that sin is repented, he is not able to release that legal. That legal right from the enemy. I don't know if that makes sense. Am I right? I don't want to get too far in that direction, but. [00:21:07] Okay. Okay. [00:21:09] So. So there is God at the heart of God. And then there is the spiritual laws that God is put in place. And he wants us to follow his spiritual laws. [00:21:25] And when we followed them by faith, forgive those who have trespass against you. And and we have repented of our sins. We've denied ourselves. [00:21:37] When we do all of these things, the more we operate in unison with the father, the more the father can bless us fully as his son. [00:21:50] But the less we operate in unison with the father, the less the Lord can bless us as his son. [00:22:00] Did I lose you or is. [00:22:02] No, I'm just thinking, yeah, and I totally agree with that. Okay. So, yeah. [00:22:07] So I just want to qualify your statement because it's not quite so black and white. But generally speaking, it is, yes. So. If so, back to this topic. If there is no point in giving that we can give guys ability to meet all of our needs and take care of us and provide an abundance. Then here's a simple statement that we can pull from this Scripture. You cannot give God's ability to provide for you as he has promised. [00:22:45] Would you agree with that statement or or. [00:22:49] Ok, so now let's look at another passage. We can go back to Malachi 3, verse 10. So last time we talked about verses 8 and 9. Which says because you haven't been bringing in your ties into the storehouse, as is my spiritual law, you are Kirst with a curse. And he's talking to the Levitin, the priest of which we are royal priesthood. [00:23:17] So he's talking to us. But then he says something really interesting right after that. And so now we're going to go to Malachi 3 10 and read that verse. [00:23:29] Ok. Bring all your tie into the storehouse. So there will be enough food in my temple. If you do that as the Lord in heaven. Amen. I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing. So great you won't have room enough to take it and test me in there. [00:23:52] Try it. [00:23:53] Perfect. Did you hear that last part? Test me. Where have we put something else? We've heard in the Bible about testing the Lord. Anything come to mind? [00:24:03] Oh, for sure. Old Testament. [00:24:07] Do not test the Lord, not just the Lord, but yet hear the Lord's suggestion. [00:24:14] How do we reconcile those two statements? Jesus even told us. Satan says no, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. And yet here the Lord says test him. What is the difference? This is important to understand the difference. [00:24:34] That's a good question. Yeah. [00:24:38] All right, so let me let me make it real easy. All right. When your child disobeys you, are they testing you? [00:24:47] Yeah. Okay. That's. [00:24:51] The type of tests that God says, do not put me to the test, do not test me like a disobedient child. But the Lord also has put certain promises in place and he wants us to test those promises. In other words, to prove those promises, true. Here's a picture, an illustration. I build a chair out of wood and I want to make sure that it's going to hold you up. I want to make sure it's strong. So I have to test the chair. I'm gonna get on it. Stand, jump, jump up and down. I'm gonna find the biggest, fattest, heaviest person I can find. Or two or three of them say, y'all sit in the chair all at the same time, jump up and down on the chair, and the more they can stress the chair and the chair doesn't break and the chair has passed the test. Does that make sense? So what the Lord is saying in Malachi 310 when he says test me now and this he is saying, this is my promise if you'll bring the whole time. And we know that he's actually talking about ties and offerings because the verse right before is talking about ties and offerings. So to bring the whole tied into his storehouse. He will open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows. That's my translation that it has. And he says, test me now in this. And prove it true. So here is the cool part. If we go back to Second Corinthians 9. [00:26:29] God says there is no limit to how much you can give cheerfully, and I not only cannot but will not generously provide even more for you so that in everything and at all times you will have an abundance. [00:26:50] But then he says here in Malachi, test my promises and let me prove them true to you. You see the connections here. So now what do you think the implication is now that we see what God's word says? What do you think is the implication? [00:27:13] Overflowing, blessing, abundance, always having what we need. [00:27:18] All right. What's the implication for? [00:27:23] Us personally. [00:27:30] Well, if we're testing a promise that the Lord has given us, and he tells us that the command test, when I read that it's a command to me, he does put me to the test. Yes. Then I have to have faith and believe that when I do put him to the test, that he is going to fulfill the promise that he just gave me. [00:27:51] Yes. The implication is, number one, we have to test him. And we need to test it by faith and trust him and see what happens. So let me share a story. I want to share several testimonies on this because it's cool. So. We go back to 1988 for some of you listening to this. You go, oh, my gosh, are you really that old? Yes, I am. And others, you're going. I remember that, you know, 1988 wasn't all that. I don't want to ask you if that's old for you or not. [00:28:25] Good. [00:28:27] So at this time, I was out of college, I had a class, a job. And and I started to prior to that, I I realized that the, quote unquote, required giving the spiritual law, you know, God's ties. What was his was 10 percent. So I gave 15 percent because I wanted to be sure I was giving cheerfully. So I gave over and above what was required. And that's where I found myself in 1988. And I read a book called Trust God for Your Finances. And in this book basically hones in on these two passages in Second Corinthians 9 and Malachi 3. And I was convicted in my heart that I needed to test God's word because that's what his words said. Now, is that what his words said? But his words said, there is no way you can give my ability to take care of you. So. This was my prayer and this is no embellishment. This is exactly as I remember it. The heart and even the words make it the words wrong. But the heart is there. All right, God. So pure, that big of a God. Prove it to me. If you if you if you can take care of me. Improve it. I'm going to triple my giving from 15 percent to forty five. Oh, I forgot to tell you last part of the story. Every month. I only had twenty five dollars left over after paying all my bills I had. I mean, I was month to month on my cash. And so I said, if you can if I cannot, I'll give you. Prove it to me. Show me you're that big. [00:30:16] I'm going to triple my giving for 90 days and I'm not going to look back until 90 days. [00:30:22] So I went from 15 percent giving to 45 percent giving for 90 days. [00:30:30] And guess what happened? You always had enough. [00:30:35] Yeah. Nothing changed. [00:30:39] At the end of each month, I had twenty five dollars left over, and then at the end of 90 days I looked back and I thought, wow, I save twenty five dollars a month. Just like before. But I had triple my giving and the Lord providential words and reducing my expenses that allow that giving to go through. But he didn't increase my income. He didn't give me more money after his all said and done. He simply made it all work out. Moving forward, I can never see how you can make it work out. Looking backwards when God acts providential, you can always see what how God made it work out. But we always act before we can see that's what faces and so Faith is acting on God's word in such a way is that you're completely out of control. That failure is certain unless God intervenes according to his word. And that's what he did. And so that gave me this great confidence. I can trust the Lord. So I increased my giving to 20 percent as a way of life. And then fast forward. I'm going to give you a whole little set of testimonies are all focused on trusting the Lord because you'll see this pattern. Nineteen ninety seven. January 1997. [00:32:02] I have a home with a mortgage payment. I have a car with a mortgage payment. If you ever had one of those. [00:32:10] My wife was a stay at home mom. We had a small Beatty and another one that was coming that year. [00:32:17] Our number two, we had five thousand dollars in savings and I was unemployed. And I gave the five thousand dollars in savings in the month of January to a missionary. So now we had nothing. And I did 13 different things to make money that year. My adjusted gross income, which is what you actually is, is what you end up keeping out of after any business expenses was eleven thousand eight hundred and eighty two dollars for the year. [00:32:58] We had no savings and we continue to give 20 percent from every dollar we earned before we lived on anything. So let me ask you a question. You're a mom to live in. This is nineteen ninety seven. So 20 some odd years ago. Eleven thousand eight hundred eighty two dollars to pay a mortgage payment to pay a car payment to pay off food, all expenses, diapers and everything else. By the way, my wife had to have a root canal that year and it was eleven hundred dollars in cash that we had to pay. So you had to factor that in those eleven thousand eight hundred eighty two dollars, cover all those expenses now. [00:33:48] And that was the year I got married. No. Okay. [00:33:53] All right. So let me tell you even more. We never missed a payment on anything that year. We were never so much as even late on a payment. I don't think we even had a late charge on any payment. How can you do that? [00:34:15] Looking back, I can see what guy did. [00:34:17] But moving forward, we live by faith based entirely on his word that says you can out, out, give God's ability to take care of you when you give cheerfully. He will always provide for you. [00:34:31] Does that make sense? [00:34:34] All right. And then I want you to look up a verse, Hebrews ten thirty eight. [00:34:45] Say ten or thirty eight. And my righteous ones will live by faith, but I will take no pleasure and anyone who turns away. [00:34:58] Yeah, my version, but my righteous one shall live by faith. And if he shrinks back, that means turns away. My soul has no pleasure in him. The only way you can please the Lord is to live by faith, which is acting on what he says is true. Anytime you live by sight because you don't believe what he says is true, he takes no pleasure in you. So what we did that year, not two not boasting on me, but just showing how true God's word is. We live by faith. We didn't know how he was going to provide. But we knew he would. And therefore, we lived as if he would. And then he always did. So something else happened that year. In October, I one of the 13 things I did was starting a little business that I didn't think was going to go anywhere, and it ended up being the business that we still have today. But it goes even further. So that was October 1997 when I started that little business. Two years later. And I think it was October and maybe in September of nineteen ninety nine. In two years we bought a new home and the second most influential suburban city in Birmingham called this debut. And one of the nicest sections of that segment of that area. And we paid it off in five and a half months. [00:36:43] Wow. [00:36:46] That's the increase. Of what God says will come to pass. Whatever you say, so that all seed reproduces after its kind. You cannot give my ability to take care of you. You cannot. Out, give me to meet all your needs at all times and poor. If you go back to Malachi and test me now and this, if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows. [00:37:18] Ok. [00:37:20] And so I got to continue this story because it doesn't always end as nice as you think it might. So we buy our new home. We paid it off in five and half months. I then increased our giving from 20 percent to 40 percent and then I wanted a different house. OK. There is a home that is coming on the market over in Mountain Brook, which is the most influential of financial influentials area of Birmingham. And it was in the nicest section of Mountain Brook. [00:37:56] And I wanted that house. And and I started to feel this nudge. By the Lord to increase my giving even more. More than 40 percent. And I'm going, no. And that nudge was persistent. Have you ever had one does know just by the law that just continues to persist? [00:38:17] Yeah. Yeah. [00:38:19] All right. Advice. Handle it now rather than later. OK. It's a lie. He's not gonna give up on you. You're eventually gonna have to do it. So I kept resisting and resisting. And then we took this trip down to a place called Marco Island, Florida, with a missions group that we're involved with. And late one night, I went out on the beach and just kind of wrestled with the Lord on this issue. And and basically, here's the wrestling increase you're giving. No. Why? Because I want this house. Increase your giving. No. Why? Because I want this house. I want to save up more money so I can buy this house. OK, the spirit versus the flash, right? Law versus grace. I mean, this whole thing I do the things I don't want to do because it's a sin in me. As Paul says. And and so. So then God changed his request rather than saying increase your giving. Do you know what he didn't said? [00:39:28] You said give me give me the house. Why do you think he would say, give me the health? [00:39:37] He wanted you to trust him with it instead of you trying to figure it out on your own. [00:39:42] Yeah, almost. The house. Was keeping me from obeying him. It was the obstacle. Look with me real quickly, Matthew. Six twenty one. [00:39:56] Paul? [00:40:00] All right. Matthew Sick and there's 21. [00:40:05] Wherever your treasure. There the desires of your heart will also be. [00:40:11] That's right. For where your treasure is there, will your heart also be? My heart was not with the Lord. [00:40:22] Because my heart was with the house. You make. Does that make sense? [00:40:27] The house was my treasure and that's where my heart was. So he said, give me the house. And do you know what I said? [00:40:36] Yeah, I said no. [00:40:40] And then he said, give me the house and that's for a few more times. I finally said, OK, I'll give you the house. And so in this figurative illustration, I grabbed the house from my left side and I shifted it over and lifted it up to the Lord to my right side. And I gave him the house. And when I gave him the house. [00:41:06] What followed with it? He know. [00:41:12] That came later before it followed with It was my heart. Because where your treasure is, there also is your heart. So when I gave him my treasure, my heart went with it. By giving him my treasure, I gave him therefore my heart. [00:41:29] You know what the law said in. Tell me. Now increase your giving. And you know what I said? [00:41:41] I hope that is that okay? That's right. I said, okay, how much? [00:41:47] You said because you say what happens a lot of times in our world of giving, especially in these offerings. OK. Because these are kind of their freewill offerings is we have obstacles that hold us back because they're our treasures. It may be school for the kids. It may be this vacation we're saving up for. It may be a new car. It may be moving to that new house. [00:42:12] It may be buying new clothes. It may be anything. But when it becomes an obstacle to answering that nudge on your heart that the Lord is directing you to do, to test his words, to live by faith, then that obstacle becomes your sin. [00:42:31] And it's impossible to please God with that sin, because now your heart is no longer with the father but with his creation. And he says, don't worship my creation, worship me. So when you identify whatever it is that's holding you back and you give that to the Lord, that treasure, your heart goes with it. And when the Lord has your heart, then you're willing to do anything he asks of you. Are these is this connecting a lot of dots? [00:43:04] So then I said, OK, how much? He said 60 percent. I said, OK, we'll give 60 percent. And so for a long period of time, not not today, but for many years thereafter, we gave 60 percent of our income. 60 percent of everything we had. We gave back to the Lord and the Lord continued to sustain us. [00:43:24] And and you cannot out give guys ability to take care of you. So does this mean that you ought to be giving 60 percent? No. The Lord chooses what he wants everyone to do. The key is to not resist what he's asking of you. He will let you know as you want to test his word. He will let you know what he wants you to do. The key is don't resist it. Because he has his best and highest will and desire for you. So just kind of wrapping up a lot of this stuff right now. I know that the Lord because I just know how the Lord works. The Lord is probably talking to you, to whoever is listening to this, that you've got to increase your giving because you've been holding back, because you've been giving by sight and not by faith. And in giving by faith, living by faith starts with giving him your treasure. Okay. Figure out what it is that's holding you back. And relinquish it to him so that your heart is with him. [00:44:40] And then you can easily act on whatever he's calling you to do, so on. [00:44:47] Maybe just put in maybe just some categories, some people, you know, maybe you need to do a three month test, go way out. I'm doing a three month test right now. That scares me. You know, a three month test back then 15 to 45 percent and giving. I didn't have a whole lot to lose. I'm doing a test right now for 90 days testing God's word. And it's kind of scary because just because of the magnitude of what I'm testing. So maybe do a three month test, just give got a chance to prove his promise is true in a short term test so you can see how he works. Okay. Or maybe others. Lord is just directing you to give increased your giving permanently. Okay. [00:45:38] You're giving it X amount and you really fill in those. You need to be giving more and ask the Lord how much. And there's some of you that are listening to this that probably, hey, you know, all this is old news. I've been through this. I'm content. I don't feel any nudging by the Lord. And that's great. So I'm just kind of wrapping up what, you know, this whole concept of radical faith. It's acting on those promises of God, acting on the things he's promised us, acting on the things that he's directing us. It's living with a question that he would ask. Do you trust me? And your answer says, yes. And I'll prove my trust or my faith in you by doing the work. The actions taken, the direction that you've called me to do. And if you don't do that, remember of without faith, it is impossible to please him. So before we wrap up, Penny, since you're the only one I can get feedback from or questions, any questions or points of clarity or any comments. [00:46:46] Before we wrap up this call, actually, does that last little bear that you were just talking about this of speaking to our audience and people that are listening? And I was thinking, you know, there's a lot of people that that might actually be giving more than their 10 percent like you did for so long, Beatty. And there may be thinking why or to give more than ten. And the thought that popped in my head was sometimes it doesn't always have to be financial. I know we're talking about finances right now. So absolutely. But maybe you're in one of those positions where you already give above plan and there's something else that you could still give that you're not sure what it is. And it could be things like your time sacrificing some of your schedule and things like that. I was just trying to categorize for myself personally places where my treasure could be, where my heart could be. And I know that scandal is a big one for us. We're just in a busy season of life. And so that was something that kind of stood out to me. [00:47:44] You know, I think that's great because I'll just share personally kind of what's going on with me. And I share part of this. And a radical faith session before with Caroline, not with you. But there are two things that hurt me as you were talking on that. And I just want to share these because these may prompt some people to say, hey, I can step out that way also. The first thing is my quiet time. You know, the Lord says to give him the best of all, we have the first of everything. And so years back, I said, Lord, I want to have I want to honor you. And I want to trust you before I rely on me. And I want to honor you with the best of what I have, so not only financial giving, but I started thing about my time, my most productive time as a business owner is the first part of my day. That's before the chaos starts hitting. That's when I'm brightest and clearest and unable to really zone in and focus. So I said, Laura, I wouldn't give you the first part of my day. Not the leftovers. I'm not going to get up super early for I can barely stay awake. I want to give you that time of the day. That is crazy. To give up because it's the best time to be productive in the work you've called me to do, so my quiet time is in the mornings. You know, it's typically somewhere between seven and eleven. [00:49:19] Okay. Plus or minus on those. But isn't the best part of my working day because I give that up and offer it to him as as my sacrifice for the best of what I have. And then the Lord has been directing me to what I call build his temple, use my teaching ability and my understanding of his scriptures and the things he's led me through to teach others how this whole radical faith teaching series started. And I have kept putting it off because business is so crazy hectic. It's always a struggle. Either it's feast or famine, but it's never stable. Okay. And and so there's been a lot of times where this is one of the things that's important but not urgent. And the Lord finally showed me it's important to me, Beatty, and therefore it should be urgent to you. So as part of my commitment to him is to take significant time out of my working day over and above what I do on my offering, my my quiet time offering and focus on. Doing these type of this type of work, which has nothing directly to do with business, but it's the best of what I have to offer him. And that's the offering sort. So what you're talking about is not just money. It goes beyond money. But I think most people need to start with their finances at the least, because that's where most people stand. Yes, but it's not just finances. It's much more than that. [00:51:05] Yeah, every area of our lives, the best with my spouse, the best with my kids. [00:51:10] Or again. [00:51:13] All right, well, we'll wrap up. Hope you guys are enjoying this. We got some other great things coming. All right. Y'all have a great day. See you later. P042 [/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
Transcription (was completed by automated process. Please ignore any speech-to-text errors) [00:00:00] Well, hi, everybody. This is an example. And I'm really excited to be on the phone with Beatty Carmichael today for our next session, I guess I was calling you Beatty. Is this a massive grabber and the creator of Agent Dominator, one of the top marketing expert in the real estate field. I'm super excited today, Beatty, because I believe we're going to be discussing the topic of financial stewardship. [00:00:26] Yes. So this is gonna be part of our radical faith series, which means as if you're a real estate agent listening to this, we're not going to talk anything about real estate. We're gonna talk about stepping out by faith on the lord, on his word. So if that offends you, you don't like that. Just go turn off. Otherwise, you will get a lot out of today's call. I'm real excited about today. This is actually the session, Penny, and the next one. So today we're going to talk about tides and the next one we'll talk about offerings, because how people treat their money is a huge indicator of how much trust they place in God and in his word. [00:01:06] So it's going to be a real, real fun time today. Paulson. [00:01:11] All right. So I guess I called the meeting, so I'll get it started. Does that work? [00:01:15] Oh, great. [00:01:17] Okay. And so let me just do a quick review on faith and kind of where we've come from. Our come to this point so that we can then usher in what we're gonna talk about today. So Hebrews Eleven One says that faith is the assurance of things that are hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. Now, just a brief reminder, the things that are hoped for. That's a biblical hope for not a natural hope for. Naturally, we say I hope it doesn't rain, but it may rain or not in the biblical sense. What you hope for is when God has given you a promise and you hope for the fulfillment of the promise as a confident assurance. So that's why faith is the confident assurance of those things hoped for. But the most important part about this first. For what we're going to talk about moving forward is it's the conviction of things not seen. If we look over at Romans 10, 17, then it tells us where this faith comes from. How do we have this confident assurance? ROMANS 10 17 says faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ or the rama of Christ, the Greek word ream of which means in our very loose definition in the series. It's kind of it's God's message specifically for you. OK. Then we look at Hebrew, ze love and sex. [00:02:38] And this tells us that without faith as it is, it is impossible to please him. So what we start to see is that faith, you can have this confident assurance because the Lord Jesus tells you you can't. The Lord Jesus gives you a truth or a promise. We don't see it, but we act by it. Because if we don't act by it, if we without faith, is it impossible to please the Lord? Ultimately, we're going to kind of build into on a later session that faith is really seeing things from God's perspective. So then we have no passage we talked about in the series. James 217. And it says that even so, faith, if it has no works, is dead, been by itself. So what we find is kind of this this conundrum that a lot of people struggle with. I thought faith is believing, but you say it has to have works. James says, I'll show I'll show you my faith by my works. And so what this shows us is that when we see from God's perspective, we do the things that God does. If we say we see from his perspective and we don't do the things he does, then we really don't see from his perspective. We think we do. But really, we're seeing from our perspective, because this is kind of makes sense spending. [00:04:02] Ok, so then we find that faith can not exist by itself. This is the key. Faith is always accompanied by works. And so one of the things we're going to talk about is how we handle our money, because that's part of our works. And it exhibits what our faith really is. And just a little simple definition that we've developed along the way is faith is acting under clearly defined will of God as revealed to his word. That's in the form of a promise or a direction. And one other part of that faith, that faith is usually stepping out in such a way that failure is certain unless God intervenes according to his word. If failure is not certain, if there is no personal risk, it's not faith. Does that make sense into the room to do that? [00:04:59] Wah, wah, wah, wah. Okay. Challenge. [00:05:05] Yeah, it is. It's a huge challenge, but it is exciting. You know, I want to do a whole whole session on on healings, okay? Because that's kind of stepping out in faith and you're nervous and you hope guy's gonna others first thing go down about to ask him to. Okay. But, you know, that's just a little painful thing. [00:05:28] Let's shift into financial stewardship. And one last conclusion. I want an interest for this quick review. One last conclusion is faith is actually nothing but a choice if we really look at it in terms of what it is. It's a choice to act on what God's word says and therefore it's an act of the will. Okay. Now, I don't want to. I'm not making a one to one connection. Faith is not. You can't will yourself to have faith. But ultimately, our works are done, are exhibited by the choice we make based on the faith we have. Okay. We can choose to act on what God has told us or we can choose not to act. And the choice is usually based on where we look. If we keep our eyes focused on the Lord, we choose to act in that direction. If we take our eyes off the Lord and put him on the natural circumstances, then it changes our actions. And just like Peter walking on the water in one way, you get a miracle, in the other way you get consequence. So with that said, the Bible talks a lot about money and it talks about ties and offerings. And and there's kind of a misnomer that comes out a lot of times. You've heard, I'm sure, Penny, that we're we live under grace and not under law. [00:06:58] Right. Okay. [00:07:00] The question is. Is tithing part of the law? What do you think? [00:07:08] I do believe it was part of the original law. Yes. [00:07:12] Ok. All right. So now we have where the conundrum is, should we ties? Do we have two ties or is that part of the law that we're no longer under? OK. Do you remember when the law came? [00:07:28] Oh, man, I wonder why the first or Bamberg, huh? [00:07:33] And let's talk about the person through whom it came. Do you remember the person through whom the law was given? [00:07:42] Oh, I know. [00:07:44] Yeah. So Moses was the one who received the law. OK. Now, when we use the word law, there's actually several laws are going on. [00:07:54] Romans Seven says that God's laws are spiritual and therefore flesh cannot fulfill them. And so we have Paul talking about spiritual laws that still apply today. Those are different from the law that we're no longer under. The law that we're no longer under is what is commonly termed as the Mosaic Law, because they came from Moses and the put the Mosaic Law was designed to do as we find out in Romans. Is this designed to expose us to sin? So it it does two things it exposes us to sin. It tells us from physical actions what we must do to be fully righteous and therefore we can never fully, fully be righteous and fulfill all the elements of the law. And therefore, that shows us that we need a savior. Does that kind of make sense? Those little connections. [00:08:53] And so this is different than the law in Romans 7, where Paul talks about the spiritual that God's laws are spiritual. And then right after seven in eight, he says. Therefore, now we're no longer, you know, under condemnation. And he says to live by the spirit, not by the flesh of mine. On the spirit is life and peace of mind on the flesh of sin and death. So he's making a separation not on the Mosaic Law, but on God's spiritual laws that continue to operate and continue to need to be followed spiritually. So with that said, when we talk about tithing, I think I'm going to show you that tithing is not part of the Mosaic Law. But it is part of God's spiritual laws that we still operate under. So the question really comes up is this if Christ is your all. If you say that your surrender to the Lord, you're following him, the question is, does he really have your all? I remember someone once said, you can tell what a man believes. By looking at his checkbook and looking at his calendar, where he spends his time and where he spends his money, we'll show you what he ultimately believes in. And so does he ultimately have all that you got? And here's the big thing I find. If the Lord doesn't have your money, he doesn't have your heart. Do you remember? I forget exactly where I think it's in, Matthew. But Jesus says where your treasure is there. Will your heart be also. [00:10:27] Okay. So we have to look and say, where's our heart? And we can look at our heart by looking at our treasure. How do we handle our money? Do we handle it the way Jesus would have handled it? Or do we handle it the way that. The natural man would handle it. So let's look at a couple of things. Do you have your Bible handy? [00:10:49] I do. Great. Let's go to Genesis 14. Genesis 14. We're going to read three or four verses versus 17 through 20, let me give you the background on this. This is about Abraham. [00:11:07] Abraham has just gone out and conquered a bunch of kings who stole, who came through and stole Abraham's wives and the wives of his family and his servants and all of his belongings and those of the town in which he was living. So Abraham takes his his male servants. They go and conquer all these kings and bring it back here. So. So let's read this right now. So Genesis 14 versus 17 through 20. Can you read that for us? [00:11:39] I think after Abraham returned from his victory over Cal Doran and all his allies, the king bottom went out to meet him in the valley. And there. That is the King Valley. And now isn't that the king of Salem and the prince and gardener's pie brought Auburn and bread and wine. Now President Blessed Abraham with this blessing, blessed the Abraham. My God, most high creator of heaven and earth, and blessed the gardener's tie. Who has defeated your enemies for a year when Abraham gave no president. Appoint them all the good that he had recovered. [00:12:20] Wow. So let's put this in chronological perspective. Did Abraham come before Moses or after Moses? [00:12:32] Therefore, I believe. [00:12:34] And do you have an idea? Any idea about how long before or time frame? [00:12:40] No, honestly, I would be guessing. [00:12:43] All right. Four hundred and thirty years, roughly. Remember, it was Abraham's grandson. Jacob, who became Israel that then moved to Egypt during the famine. And then they lived there 400 years before God brought them out through Moses and the Exodus. Okay. So what we have is. Abraham this is before he became Abraham. Abraham. Four hundred and thirty years before the Mosaic Law. Gives a tenth of all that he has to the priest of God most high. In other words, if we were to use today's terms, he gives a tenth to the Lord. [00:13:33] All right, so let me see if this makes sense. Malcolm is a deck king of Salem. He's a priest of God most high. They come and have a worship ceremony with food and wine and a broom takes a tenth of all that the Lord has given him and gives it to milk Hassidic. So do you see this ties concert going on right now? OK. [00:13:57] So this ties. Is long before the Mosaic Law. Let's look at another passage, Genesis 28, verse 22. And as you turn there and and almost read it. So this now is talking about Jacob. OK, so you have just to put this in perspective, you have Abraham who becomes Abraham, his son. The promise is Isaac and Isaac, son of the promise is Jacob. Okay, so this is now Abrams grandson and Jacob. God changes Jacob's name to Israel. Israel has 12 sons and this is now the 12 tribes of Israel. OK, so this is kind of chronology of what's going on. So read Genesis 28, verse 22. [00:14:53] Jacob thinking on this memorial pillar former will become a prophet worshipping God. And I will present a bomb or oracle. [00:15:04] Wow. Here we have a tenth again. Did God ever tell them? Here's my law you had to give a tenth or do you think God may have somehow implanted it in his soul or somehow communicate? I mean, DDC. They're both giving a tenth. The question is why? Okay, so now let's turn to Leviticus. Leviticus is more of the Mosaic Law. [00:15:34] So now what we have is we have a we have a convergence of laws, a convergence of spiritual laws that have not been fulfilled in Christ. And we have that converging with the Mosaic Law that has been fulfilled in Christ. And it's hard to separate unless you start to look at it in layers and kind of understand it. So, for example, let me see, the Ten Commandments is not a law given by Moses. [00:16:05] Given that given by God to Moses, by God through Moses. [00:16:09] Okay, perfect. So is that part of the Mosaic Law? [00:16:16] Ok, so you shall only have one got no other gods before me. We no longer have to follow that because we're no longer under law, but under grace, right? [00:16:27] Correct. Are you sure you're not at all three do not commit adultery. We no longer have to follow that because we're no longer under law, but under grace. [00:16:36] Right. Is that what we're saying? Do not murder you. Not still. Do not lie. Honor your mother and father. Keep the Sabbath. Holy. Honor the Lord. Your God. Serve him only. Have these been done away with that? We're no longer under because we're under grace. Or are these still valid laws that are spiritual laws that still operate today? [00:16:59] Well, I absolutely think they are valid spiritual laws and we still operate in a different way. [00:17:06] Ok, so. They're still valid today, is doing a sacrifice. Every Passover or having a feast of booze during that timeframe. Are those part of the Mosaic Law that Moses gave us? [00:17:27] Well, are we still to do those two day now? [00:17:32] Ok, what's the difference then? OK. You say this is rumbling. The difference is the Mosaic Law, our actions we were to do that pointed us to God, but they were not. The spiritual laws that are still active today of which do not commit adultery, I would say is still a spiritual law that God still says that's still valid today. In other words, it's not the law we've been released from or that's been fulfilled from. It's still part of the law. Do not fornicate. Do not commit adultery. Paul's been talking about that all through his epistles. [00:18:08] And yet Paul's not under law, but under grace. So we can start to see that not everything that are the laws given by Moses are the law that we're no longer under. And that's what we're going to see here in Leviticus. So let's read Leviticus 27 30. [00:18:28] They were thoroughly. One of the parties on the land, whether grain from the field or fruit from the tree, belongs to the Lord and nothing fell apart. Holy. [00:18:43] Perfect. Okay. My translation says, does all the time of the land. Your says one tenth of the land. OK, so here we have now the definition of what a tie is. So that one tent is. So we have Abraham and Jacob. Four hundred plus years before the law was given the Mosaic Law giving a tenth. Now we have Moses defining what this is. The same way he defined the other spiritual law as you shall only have one God. You shall keep the Sabbath. Holy shall honor your mother and father. You shall not murder shall not commit. Adultery is not still all these things. Okay, so we have now this definition of a law, the love, the tenth the type. And we find three things about the tide. Number one is it's a tenth part. This is why Abraham gave a tenth to male CASA deck. And while Jacob says to the Lord, I will give a tenth to you because ties as a tenth part, that's 10. That's the actual definition. Hebrew word translate tight. The second thing we find out about this. [00:19:59] Is if the Lord's. That's what they said. That's all the tie to the land of the sea, to the land or the fruit of the tree is the Lords. So we find that a ties belongs to the Lord. [00:20:17] And the other thing we find out, it is his sacred instead of apart, in other word, it is wholly. [00:20:26] When God calls something holy, does that carry of special significance with it? Or is that just a. Just a simple designation? [00:20:37] I think it has. I think those are pretty weighty significance. If the Lord himself is calling something holy. [00:20:44] That's right. It is a very weighty, special significance. And when? When the Lord through Moses says the tide is mine, it's holy to me. There is a huge weight of significance on this that we got to understand because most people live in financial bondage because they are violating a spiritual law, the law that Paul talks about in Romans 7, that God's laws are spiritual, not fleshly. All the Mosaic Law was fleshly, but the spiritual laws are still going and this is one of them. So we find that the ties is a tenth part. It belongs to God and it is holy. Just as God is holding. What does that mean? Okay, so now let's talk about tides versus offerings, because on this next session, we'll actually talk about offerings and that's when it gets really exciting. But this is just laying the groundwork. So tide versus offering a tide is what you give to the Lord. By his command. [00:21:57] Okay, not by Mosaic Law, but by spiritual law. It is what you give to the Lord. By his command. And it is a tenth percent. If you say I'm tithing five percent, you're not. Because the definition of a tide is a tenth part. Okay. So it's a tent that you give back to the Lord by his command. An offering is what you give to the Lord. Over and above what already is designated as holy to the Lord. Okay, so while we can we say, you know, God owns it all. [00:22:34] Which is true. All that I have is the Lord's, which is true. But there is a difference between that versus. The first tenet belongs to me, says the Lord Almighty. There's something about him claiming that first tenth is his versus the general understanding that all belongs to him. Are you following this so far? And so that which he claims is his is more significant his than that which just generally belongs to him. So when we give an offering is when we give from that part that's been entrusted to us. [00:23:13] But as. Over and above that part, debt already is claimed by the Lord. So that's the difference between the tide and an offering. And that's where we'll talk next time. So then the question comes up. It's OK if I'm to give a shit of all that I have, do I give net or gross? What do you think? [00:23:38] We have always personally given on the ground because we feel like it. Like you just said, Beatty, it's all the Lord's anyway. We actually have a saying in our family that, you know, some people will get hung up on. Giving a tenth because they're like, oh, gosh, that's 10 percent. That's a lot. We've always looked at it as we get to keep 90 and he's only asking for 10 percent. I mean, you know, it's kind of those percentages that help keep things in perspective, but we've always tied on the growth. [00:24:11] Good. And I have to. But let's now back it up scripturally. Okay. Okay. Spaniards don't count. Let's see what God's word says. Right. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Let's turn to Proverbs 3. [00:24:26] And we're going to read versus nine and ten Proverbs 3 versus 9 and 10. [00:24:32] Okay. Honor the Lord with your well and with the best part of everything that you produce. Then he will fill your barns with grain and your that will overflow with good wine. [00:24:47] And my translation says, Honor the Lord from your wealth in front. The first of all, your produce. The first is the best. Okay. But the first is the best of all your produce. So here's a simple question. [00:25:03] Let's say you get a paycheck is net all or partial once you are sole? That's right. So. [00:25:13] So now we have the biblical mandate that we're to give from all that the Lord has given us. So that means that when we tithe, we ties off of gross and not off of net. Okay. Makes sense. [00:25:28] All right. So. So now let's ask another question. Let's say you own a business, because now it gets kind of complicated. You got all kinds of sources of revenues, all kinds of expenses, all kinds of very thing. How do you manage this when you have a business? I struggle with this for years because I've been in business for myself for many years. And here's what I've concluded. Now, this is my opinion. OK, as opposed to God's word. My opinion is. God blesses us with what's leftover. That makes sense. [00:26:04] Okay, so after I get all the revenues in, I pay all my expenses of cost of goods, sold my rent and taxes, business taxes and not personal taxes. [00:26:15] I pay all my employees. Okay. I pay all my lease payments, whatever's left leftover. That now hits my you know, it hits my benefit. [00:26:28] That is mine and that is from is the portion from which I pay and do my giving in my tithing. So that's just an easy way. Okay. [00:26:42] And so does this apply to personal expenses? No, because personal expenses are not part of what it took to generate the business revenue. So. So that's a simple designation. So like if you're a realtor, you're listening to this. Okay. You have your MLS fees. You have your broker fees. Okay. You have expenses you spend in marketing and helping fix up clients homes and stuff if you do that. All of those are business expenses in my perspective. They help you generate what the Lord blesses you with. What's leftover and what's what's leftover is what you end up taking off. So that's kind of a real simple opinion of that. So now here comes a good questions. Do you tie during bad times? Have you have you and Brian ever had bad times financially? [00:27:37] Absolutely. All right. [00:27:41] So the question is, when you can't pay all your bills, do you still tight? [00:27:48] Well, this OK, so we're going to I'm going to repeat what you just said. This is personal opinion. I can't necessarily say that I have found this to be backed up in scripture anywhere. But Brian and I personally, when we know. Okay, Lord, we can't afford to pay this and this and this and still tied. Something's gotta give. Clearly, we don't want to default on our mortgage and things like that that need to be paid. So in those moments when we know we cannot give a tenth, we give what we can give because we know that the Lord. And that's just our personal opinion. We know that the Lord is still going to honor that, even though it's not 10 percent, because he's looking at our heart. He obviously doesn't want us to lose our house either. [00:28:37] So. All right. [00:28:39] So now I'm going to challenge your perspective. I don't want to ask you that same question again in about 10 minutes. I'll walk you through a few things and then I'd like an honest answer. If you still believe that or if you believe now something different. [00:28:57] Ok. All right. Good. So this is gonna be fine. [00:29:02] All right. So I can't pay all my bills. [00:29:05] I can't pay my mortgage and do the tie and all that stuff. How do I handle the tide? Let's go back to. The first. Of the issues turn back, if you would. Leviticus, 27 30. Okay. [00:29:21] Ok. [00:29:23] And read that one more time. [00:29:28] One tenth of the produce of the land, whether grain from the field or fruit from the tree, belongs to the Lord and must be set apart to him as holy. [00:29:40] What does it say? Must be set apart is not optional. If you're in tough times. [00:29:46] Must is a pretty direct word, I wouldn't say that's an optional. [00:29:51] All right. It must be set apart as holy. It's Holy See, it's strictly optional, you can use it for personal needs if you have a need for it. [00:30:00] No holy is the Lord. [00:30:03] Ok. So we have one scripture that says. It must be set aside because it is holy to the Lord, because it belongs to the Lord already. My starting to persuade, you know. [00:30:17] Ok, so here's the question. Should you take that which is sacred and holy and must be satisfied to God to pay your bills and give it to man? [00:30:30] According to that picture. No. [00:30:32] Ok, so now let's look at another answer coming at the same question. What part of what you earn should you give? [00:30:43] Ok, so let's go back to Proverbs 3 9 and tell me what Proverbs 3 9 says. [00:30:54] Okay. Three. By noon. Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the very best part of everything we produce. [00:31:03] All right. So let me ask you, is the very best the first of all, you have or what's left over after you've given man what he wants? [00:31:13] The very best and the first. Yeah. OK. Off the top. The glass. [00:31:19] Ok, not the net. What you just said earlier that you gave off a gross, but then you said you actually gave off of that if things got tough. [00:31:27] That's right. [00:31:29] All right. So should you give benefits to leftover or from the first before anything else is given? [00:31:38] Before the first, absolutely, yeah. [00:31:42] So this is kind of where I was going, and I'm not badgering you. I'm not trying to spank you on this boat. But this is this. This is where a lot of people are. And this is why I said you can look at someone's checkbook and see the priority in the faith they place in the Lord and his promises. Do they act by faith or act by sight? Let me ask you a question. If you give based on what's in your checkbook, but based on other expenses that you have. [00:32:13] Is that giving by faith or giving by sight? [00:32:18] If I'm looking at what's in the textbook, I'm giving up on that, that's giving off a fight. [00:32:24] Okay. So if you make your decision based off of go to pay all these bills and I still want to tithe and so you choose tithing or not based on your bills that state or face. [00:32:38] That's by say. [00:32:40] Yeah. All right. And if we go back up to I won't turn there. But Hebrews eleven six, it says without faith it is impossible to please him. You see, so this this this problem that we're running into when we say we, I don't have enough money, so I'm not going to take on this. [00:32:58] This time that I have no faith. [00:33:02] It means that ultimately that you're not trusting the Lord. Okay. Yeah. Okay. [00:33:09] And it also means that you're not pleasing the Lord because you're not trusting him. It also means you're not pleasing him because you're taking holy offering and giving it to Martin. It's all these. We have these spiritual laws that are all playing a part here. OK. Not the Mosaic Law, but the spiritual laws that came long before the Mosaic Law and we don't really understand them. And because of that, we don't really understand the consequences that it brings us. We think what we go through in life financially is just the way it is. But yet we don't realize a lot of times we bring it on ourselves. Peter, walking on the border, I'll keep using this over and over again until I'm blue in the face because it's a perfect example. Same situation, two completely different outcomes simultaneously, based entirely on whether he acted by faith or acted by sight. So let's look at a third answer. OK, so the first answer do you tie during bad times? The first answer is it's wholly. It must be set apart. Second answer is what part of what you earn? Do you tithe from this third answer is whose is it? Okay, so we go back to Leviticus 27 30 again. [00:34:31] It says that all the tie to the land is the Lord. It belongs to the Lord. Right. So let me ask you a question. I'm going to loan you my car. OK, it's your car. You're using it, but it's mine. Who owns that car? Either. OK, I say I need it back on Monday. And Monday comes around and you have a trip that you want to take. And you now make a choice, do I return the card, Ebadi? That was my agreement. Or do I take the car on a weeklong trip? If you take the car. Did you just steal it from me? Well, OK, so now ownership plays into how do we handle this type? So if you have something of the Lords and you don't return it to him. Isn't that still stealing? OK, so now let's bring this into a natural illustration. So you have a bunch of bills coming due and you're struggling because you don't have enough money to pay all the bills. So you go down to the local convenience store and you rob it and you get four or five hundred dollars out of the cash register and now you have money to pay your bills. Does that honor the Lord? [00:36:07] No. Okay. [00:36:09] Well, the Lord bless you and say, well, I understand your heart in the matter that you really want to honor me, but you just tight financially, so I overlook you're stealing from an okay. [00:36:22] Which they think is worth stealing from man or stealing from God. [00:36:28] Oh, well, if you still for man, I think you're probably stealing from God as well. [00:36:34] Ok. But in this light, in this context, what do you think is a worst action to to sin against Manderson, against God? I do. [00:36:47] Yeah. Okay. So now let's look at Malachi 3. This is the last book in the Bible. He's actually an Italian prophet called Malarkey. That's a joke. [00:37:01] Malachi. Malachi 3. [00:37:06] We're going to start. We're going to be versus eight or nine. But let me give you the background. Malachi is written to the Levi's and the priest. Do you know whether it's the role of the Levi? It's in the priest's. [00:37:20] I don't recall, excellent. [00:37:22] Ok. So out of the 12 tribes, one tribe are the live vertical tribe. Believe it's their whole role is to serve the Lord. They are the staff of the church. They are the pastors. They are the associate pastors. They're the the people who are employed by the church. Their whole function, their whole livelihood is serving the Lord. Everyone else, they out there, they're out there. And they have business. They have farms. They earn money. And they bring all their ties and their offerings into the Lord Storehouse, which we would call today into the church. OK. They give to the church. They give to ministry and they leave lights. Are the people like the missionaries, the parishes and those people that go out and then use that? Use those funds. And that's how they're supported. You follow me so far. [00:38:15] Ok. So the leave lights were also under the spiritual law of tithing. And they were supposed to give a tenth of all that they received into the storehouse as well during this period of time. They aren't doing it. So now pick up Malachi 3 versus 8 and 9. [00:38:40] Just eight and nine. Yes. OK. [00:38:43] Should people cheat God yet you have cheated me. But you ask, what do you mean? When did we ever cheat you? You have cheated me of the tides and offerings due to me. You are under a curse, for your whole nation has been cheating on me. [00:39:02] While you are under a blessing, is that what you said? It does to say, I understand your heart and I know you're trying to do good, but you just don't have enough. And so I'll continue to bless you as that's what he says. No. [00:39:18] So what do you think it means with the curse? Is that good or bad? Not bad. [00:39:24] So does that mean if we put it in financial terms? Does that mean financial blessings in abundance or probably financial lack of funding to lack? [00:39:37] So when we're in lack and we use gods ties to pay, man. We don't get ahead. [00:39:47] Because God said, I curse you. [00:39:51] Because you have taken my ties, are you following what Malachi says? Yeah. Yeah. [00:39:57] Okay. We're going to talk about the next pass. Next part of that, probably next time. So here we have. The third answer. Whose is it and what's the consequence? If we use it wrongly. [00:40:15] Do you remember? Let's go back. I want to talk really quickly. Holy. Remember when the Lord directed Moses to build the ark, the Ark of the Covenant? Was it holy or was it just normal? [00:40:33] Holy. [00:40:34] It was holy. Holy. Right. And placement of the ark is in the holy of holies. And how many people got to go in there? [00:40:45] The only one. Only one. The priest, right? [00:40:48] That's right. Yeah. OK. [00:40:50] So now you remember when David is bringing the ark back and it's on an ox cart and a two tons of the priests are walking beside it and a cart stumbles put at risk the ark falling off the cart. So one of those priests I was walking beside stuck his hand out to protect the ark, to keep it from falling on the ground. [00:41:13] And then what happened to him? Put it God to. He was killed, right? He was killed instantly. Fly. It's a big question. Why did God kill him? [00:41:24] That is a good question. You know the answer. I really don't. Because I've struggled with that because it was like he said, he's reaching out for help. [00:41:35] Yeah, I said he had a good heart. Danny surely God will show grace. But here's what happened. As soon as he struck that guy, dead guy's next word was to David. You treated my holy ark as profane. I told you always, you only carry with poles on the shoulders of the priest and you put it on a cart and you had a man touched my ark never to happen because it is holy. This is what God thinks about when he says holy. It is serious business, as you said earlier. It's very weighty. And so unbeknownst to Dave and unbeknownst to the man who had a good heart, he violated a spiritual law on something God considers holy. That's what's going on here in Malachi. The Levi's were violating the spiritual of what God says is holy. The spiritual law that far predates the Mosaic Law. And because they violate it, they're being coerced. They don't even realize that so much of the current challenges that they're going through right now is because of one thing, they're not tithing. And I want to give you a real interesting story. So my pastor who started our church. He's now pastor emeritus. But when he was pastoring, he had a business man come up to him and say, here's my pastor's name is Frank Parker. And the businessman said, Frank, I need prayer. Would you pray for me? He said, What's up? Said, almost about to lose my business. I'm almost about to go into bankruptcy. He said, All these things are happening. I'm losing accounts, I'm losing money. Nothing's you know, I need prayer. You know, the first thing that Frank asked him. [00:43:36] What is it? Are you tithing? [00:43:41] And he says, no, I can't afford a child. Frank said, you can't afford not to tide. And he starts to point out this stuff. And he prays for him and said, Lord, help. Call this guy's bill, this name Bill. Just to put some names to, you know, Lord, as a you bless Bill's business, that you would encourage him to honor you with his ties first and that he would just take care of, you know, something like that. But he instructed Bill that the tide is the first of all, you have not what's leftover. That is holy. It must be set apart for the Lord. And without setting apart for Lord, a lot of his financial problems could be caused by God cursing his business because it's a violation of God's holy spiritual law. So then Frank sees him about a year later. [00:44:37] I think I have the time frame right and says, Bill, how's business? Oh, it is booming. We are doing more business than we've ever done. We're just making more money and all this stuff. And Frank says, that's fantastic. How, you know. And he says, pray for me some more. I say, I will. Frank said, I will. How's your tithing? You know what Bill said? [00:45:04] He said he's doing it. [00:45:06] He said tithing. Do you know how much money that would be, how much money we're making? I can't afford a tie. There'd be too much. So here's Frank's prayer. Lord, please bring his business back down to the level where he can afford to ties. And those are no, no, no, no, I'll tell Ty. I'll drive. Okay. But it kind of gets the point back. A crisis. Sometimes we think we can't afford to ties because we don't have enough. But we don't realize what we're actually doing. Sometimes we have so much we think we can't afford to take because it'd be so much and we don't realize what we're doing. The curse that God will bring upon a nation is the same type of curse God brings upon it. But an individual just the same way that the blessing he'll bring upon a nation is similar to the blessing he'll bring upon an individual. When we follow the Lord and step out by faith and follow his word and honor him, first of all that he gives us. [00:46:03] He blesses us, whether it's an individual, a family or a nation, would you agree with that? [00:46:09] Well, we do. [00:46:11] Ok, so that same thing happens when we withhold those things that belong to him. [00:46:18] When we act by sight and not by faith. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. So when we start to pull back from our tithing because we can't afford to. That doesn't please the Lord. It's violating his word and there will be consequences. Those consequences may be financial. They may be in other areas, but there will be a withholding of blessings and therefore the introduction of curses because he will discipline his people to correct them to go the right way. Would you agree with that? [00:46:58] Well, I do. [00:47:00] Ok, so now let me ask you the question again. I tell you I was going to ask is, did you try during bad times? I know you gave me your opinion originally. Has your opinion changed or how? [00:47:10] Oh, well, I absolutely will. [00:47:14] Ok. So. So here's this kind of wrapping up. You know, this whole thing of financial stewardship, it's really a it's not so much about money. It's about faith. It's about how we see God, how we believe his word and how we choose to obey him, because tithing is a choice. You can either. Obey, which is acting by faith or disobey, which is acting by sight. And this is kind of where I'm saying that living by faith more than anything else is simply a choice, is choosing which one we believe and therefore of which one we act on. Any thoughts on this? Any insights that hit you? Before we wrap up the call. [00:48:05] Just change of change of perspective and just sort of seeing it all come together from beginning to end. And the promise of blessing. That's the biggest thing, is focusing on the promise of blessing if you're doing it the way the Lord designed. And not living in fear of there not being enough. Because if God says there would be. Then I have to try that faith part. [00:48:35] Well, the next session, we're going to talk about offerings and I'm share some really cool stories on that, just as testimony to how good the Lord is and how much he can bless when you honor him faithfully by his word. So on. So we'll get there on the next session. [00:48:56] Sounds great. I look forward to it. [00:48:58] All right, well, we'll wrap up this call and look forward to the next one. [00:49:05] I did, too. Thanks so much, Beatty. [00:49:07] All right.
[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent="no" equal_height_columns="no" menu_anchor="" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" class="" id="" background_color="" background_image="" background_position="center center" background_repeat="no-repeat" fade="no" background_parallax="none" parallax_speed="0.3" video_mp4="" video_webm="" video_ogv="" video_url="" video_aspect_ratio="16:9" video_loop="yes" video_mute="yes" overlay_color="" video_preview_image="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" padding_top="" padding_bottom="" padding_left="" padding_right=""][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type="1_1" layout="1_1" background_position="left top" background_color="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" border_position="all" spacing="yes" background_image="" background_repeat="no-repeat" padding_top="" padding_right="" padding_bottom="" padding_left="" margin_top="0px" margin_bottom="0px" class="" id="" animation_type="" animation_speed="0.3" animation_direction="left" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" center_content="no" last="no" min_height="" hover_type="none" link=""][fusion_text] Watch the live interview below [/fusion_text][fusion_youtube id="https://youtu.be/Fvxz06OPnCI" alignment="center" width="" height="" autoplay="false" api_params="&rel=0" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" class="" /][fusion_text] Transcription (was completed by automated process. Please ignore any speech-to-text errors) [00:00:00] So the agreed subject was the best practices to consistently get more listings. [00:00:09] To I would know I'd say that I was sure I list those views. Want to do that? So how are we going to start the conversation? Where do you want to go with this? [00:00:19] Probably. Let's start at the kind of the beginning of if you're gonna be starting to drive and sellers and get more listings. Where do you start? And the first place is obviously a personal list. So maybe we can start on the personal lists and a few things you do on that. [00:00:35] Yeah, that sounds great. Off you go. [00:00:37] Okay, great. So first off, a personal list is that list of people that you know and in what I find with most agents is they try to pre qualify list. Don't do that. Okay. What you're looking for is very simply make a list of everyone who knows you that if they were to see you on the straight, they go. Hi, Jill or hi, baby. Okay. And and that becomes your personal list. And here's why it's so important. Those people who know you already, they already know and like you are eight to 10 times more likely to do business with you than someone who hasn't met you yet. So if you're trying to drive in more business from sellers or buyers, that's the place to start first. And so make a list. One of the things that, you know, if you're just getting started. If you think about the old time Yellow Pages, you know, you have like accounting, actuarial baker, chiropractor just goes through those type of topical indexes and think of who do I know that's a accountant. Who do I know? That's a baker who I know that's a chiropractor. And build your list. And then and that's going to be the first start in getting that direction. [00:01:48] And it's so important then it can start. So many agents that are reasonably successful, that haven't really concentrated on building this fundamental list. And it's so important, isn't it? [00:02:02] It is. I you know, I was talking just a short while ago, one of our clients is a 30 plus year agent, does 18 million a year in volume, and he's in this coaching program. OK. And so the coach got all their coaching clients together, which are all very similar to this person. [00:02:20] And they went around the group and asked in 2018, where did most of your business come from? You want to take a guess as to where the majority of their business came from? They list their personal list. Exactly. And so that's how it top producers are getting there and sustaining their business. Then whether you're a top producer or whether you're just getting started. That's the number one place that you'll get the most business from if you simply work it. Right. [00:02:48] And and in some ways, it's a little easier, isn't it? You got your small phone, you got five spook people. [00:02:55] The phone you find spook, various computer, you know, people that you do the ability for you to generate this. [00:03:05] This is in some ways a little easier, isn't it? [00:03:08] It is. So, you know, you got most people already have their Facebook with all their friends. OK, so all you have to do is real simple. Now, having a list, I was talking to one client and was asking me, how many people do you have on your list? 400 people. Great. How many of those do you have mailing address? As with. Well, none of them. They're all on Facebook. OK. So you've got to have more than just a Facebook contact with them. And so as you're building your list, just go through and either text them or message and through Facebook and say, hey, John, what's your mailing address? OK. Or if you're missing an email address, what's your e-mail address? And just go through and systematically start to build it. Go. What you want is you want their name, a phone number, a mailing address and an email address, because if you're going to touch your list properly, you're going to touch it with some phone calls periodically and just be personal. You're going to send them something in the mail. You probably should put them on some sort of an email system. So you just need multiple ways just to kind of touch them so that you can now we're able to communicate with them. [00:04:18] Yeah. You just touched touched upon what? I was going to ask you the follow up question. You know, after you got your list, what do you do with it? [00:04:25] But you've already touched that. But what often? Another good question is if you go to your phone about how you might follow through the follow through you've just described, really, I'm happy because I think a lot of a lot of our agents get into training mythologies with all the good woo. But after a few weeks, the new happy, happy you down. They don't follow through. So you if you got any tips and insights about how you make, you know, this kind of. Wages of regular follow through on your personal list. Really effective. [00:05:04] Yeah, I do, because I've actually just come through that personally with something we've done in our business. So. Excuse me. We put together an hour in basically a list of clients that we want to be following up with. And how do you do it? So what I had to do for me and this is the simple way that I would suggest it is hopefully you have a to do list that you make every morning or the night before. So, you know, the target of what you have to do for that day and what stays a permanent item on my to do list that I keep putting at the top is to touch. Okay. So as long as you keep it in front of you, then you're going to be more likely to do it. The other thing is when you're touching, a lot of times agents ask me, well, what do you do when you touch? Well, the first thing you do is you just stay a friend. OK. If you know their birth date or an anniversary date or if you know their children's birth date or anything like that, then that gives you a reason to just pick up the phone and call. You may miss them, but leave a voicemail message right here or write a handwritten note. Hey, you know, understand is your birthday. Happy birthday to you. Sorry I missed you, but I was just thinking about you. When you do a personal touch, it goes a long ways. So when you do this reminder for you, then also when your calendar on anything that special with any of these contacts put a reminder in your calendar, always prompts you on that day. These contacts have birthdays or anniversaries or maybe someone that bought a home from you or sell their home. And it's kind of a transaction anniversary. Make the list so that it prompts you. And then the most important thing is you got to be diligent to do it that day, because if you kick it down the road a day, you'll kick it down the next day. And before long, you're not touching anyone. [00:06:54] Robert, I got a question. Just nodding. Disagree. No question. [00:06:59] Because to do both with these go. What? [00:07:04] So let me let me share one other thing on that, too, if I may. So not all touches are the same. And and so you when you're marketing to your personal list are really two things that you're doing. Number one is your staying personal with him as a friend. OK. Because people do business with people they like. But the other thing that's really important is you have to let them know not only that you're a real estate agent, but that you're an agent who is selling homes. And so here's that kind of the scenario I like to suggest. Most people out there know many real estate agents. OK, so you're competing against other real estate agents that your friends know. So if you were to put two agents, if I'm thinking about selling my house or buying and and I have two agents that I know, if I know one is cost time and only know that the other one is an agent, but I don't know how active they are. Which of those agents am I going to most likely choose? [00:08:07] Well, you are beautiful fool. You're gonna choose the one that shows that they are very active in the market. [00:08:13] Yeah. Exactly. So how do you show that you're active in the market? It's real simple. You always show off your sales to your list. So the first thing on your list with that mailing address, you you ought to be sending them. Just sell postcards every time you make a sale. OK, unless you're making more than 15 or 20 sales a year. And then you maybe cap it at a certain level. If you don't have many sales right now because you're kind of a newer agent, then every time you make a sale, you show it off. Every time you get a listing, you send out a new listing. OK, you send out at OPEN HOUSE, you said send out a under contract and then you send out a just sold so you can get multiple touches showing off your successes from just a few sales. But what that does psychologically in your France mind says this person's really active and it keeps you top of mind as that agent who's actually out there doing stuff with me. [00:09:17] Roper being touching the subject ourselves about screens to preload. [00:09:22] Cool. And we're going to be talking about it in February. But it's all kind of linked, isn't it? But you two, you know, impulsive episodes. [00:09:34] We've been talking about doing videos about the local market, specializing in a particular type of customer or particular geo area in your local region. And then what you're talking about is rEU folks who met with success, messages of success. But also, would you agree with me that you should be also fulfilling that we've. Content that proves your competence and your interest in that market. [00:10:04] Yes, very much so. Because I just finished doing a video with one of our clients on something very similar. And so as you're doing these videos that shows that you're an expert in the market. The other thing I would encourage that you do is that you share some of your expertise on how to either buy a house at the lowest rate so you get the greatest value or if you're selling a house, things you can do to increase the sales price and the value. Because then as people watch your video, they're not just seeing your expertise on the market in general, but they're seeing your expertise in the transaction, things that you do that you recommend your clients to do, that will get them the best value when they're buying a home. [00:10:47] Ok. Like one of my when we bought the home that I'm in now. You know, it's on a private drive. There's a couple other homes. And the private drive has kind of been in bad condition. So we're able to negotiate down the sales price even further by taking that into account. And and when do you net it all out? It really helped us financially to then have money to do other things that we needed to. So talk about your expertise in the negotiation to get that sales price down and some things you can do. But also on the flip side, for those people who maybe may have a home and would think about selling, give them some tips that you'd find are most effective in getting the most money for that home when they'd actually do put it on the market. Now they're seeing you as an expert in the market place, but they're also saying you are an expert in being able to help the transaction in their favor. [00:11:41] Yeah. I also think don't know how busy you you're going to get in the habit of doing a video walk through of a new house that you're trying to sell for a client and also do a after so well through after you sold the house and talk about the actual process of selling the house. [00:12:02] People just love seeing houses and the stories around the buying and selling of houses. I love it. [00:12:10] They do. And if you if you have a chance when you're doing those walkthrough videos, let me encourage you to maybe do a walkthrough video before it goes on the market. Quality and the what I'll call kind of the current lived in St.. And you might even do this with your client. You walk through a video. I recommend you make these updates here and here and maybe paint this room. And then after you sold the house or when it's on the market, you do a second walkthrough and now you have a comparison. Now, what happens is people get to see your expertise and taken a home that looks lived in and making it look brand new. So or if you don't have that luxury, but you do walk through after the fact, then point out those things that you guided the homeowner on that. The homeowner then took your advice, because now what this is telling the viewer is you're the expert. They took your advice. And because of that, they sell their home for top dollar. And that's what they're looking for ultimately with a realtor. Can you get the most money from my home? And that's how you can use those walkthrough videos to do that. [00:13:18] Oh, that's great stuff. We're going to go far. Fire, smoke when we come back. We're going to be discussing more. This great content rebuilding, too. Come on. Cool. [00:13:26] And I'm sure it's going to be a fantastic sum. Give you some great ideas this, don't you, two? Over 19. Really great. Back in a few moments. Thanks. [00:13:35] You're listening to the Get Sellers calling you podcast to increase sales from past clients and sphere of influence or from a geographic farm. Learn about Agent Dominator. [00:13:44] We guarantee your sales in writing or give your money back. To learn more. Visit our Web site. Get sellers calling you dot com and like Agent Dominator from the. And now back to the podcast. [00:13:56] We're coming back. I'm feeling a little bit bored, cheaper than the past couple of weeks. As you know, listeners, I've been struggling with a bad cough and slow, but I feel worldwide cheerful. So why don't I rub Robert? [00:14:08] Yeah, your straighten your stuff today. [00:14:10] I'm not quite ready the way you. Joy. Oh, there. [00:14:14] Oh, I just need to drop a rub you slightly. So, you know, we talked a bit about videos. We've talked about this initial list that people know you in the community and you keep that list tight to you. Darker side. We've talked about the power of video, how we're gonna move the conversation. What's the next topic that you would like to introduce to listeners and viewers? [00:14:40] I'd like to talk about where I think real low hanging fruit that a lot of real trash totally miss it. They do it all the time, but they don't know how to turn it into generating more listings as well. And that's the Open House. So are y'all had any conversations on open houses before? [00:14:58] Constantly. It's been a constant discussion fire I've had with agents that are not bikinis. Let's say they're in their second full year. [00:15:11] They're looking to really move their business on to the next level. The people, the top producers that I've seen their offices and they get very dismissive of open houses because they get a. [00:15:29] They all introduced two very negative attitudes by their fellow agents. The more experienced agents about the open houses are just time wasters. And I totally disagree with their attitude completely. What do you. I presume that you do agree with you because it was why you brought it up. [00:15:49] Actually, I agree with those other agents. Open houses are absolute time wasters unless you do it right. Okay. So you got to look at why are you doing the open house? So here's what happens. Those more tenured agents, top for hire producers. They don't want to go sit in a house for two or three hours on a Saturday or Sunday and waste their time and fiddle on their phone trying to sell the house because you don't sell houses that much. That way, people find the house on the Internet and then they strategically come. But the great thing and this is what most agents lose sight of with the open house. The open house is a way to generate new seller leads. OK. And if you do it right. But it is going to take a little bit of effort. But here's it before I go there. Let me just ask a question to you guys. If he could spend four hours to pick up a new listing, is it worth it? Oh, yes, yes. Yeah, absolutely. So spend four hours, you spend two hours before the open house door, knocking the neighborhood as many houses as you can. [00:16:58] You have a flyer about the open house. It's going to have your information on it, even if this is an open house. That's someone else's listing. But you're doing the open house on. OK, and you go and introduce yourself. Hey, I'm Betty Carmichael was such and such realty company. And I don't know if you know it or not, but we had this house that we're doing an open house right around the corner for me. And I'd love to invite you, especially if you guys are thinking about selling. It's important to see what houses in the neighborhood are going for, how they're fixed up. And I'll give you a lot of ideas, maybe some things you can do with your house as well. If you know someone that is thinking about living in a neighborhood, you know, a lot of times about a third of the buyers are invited by friends that want their friends in the neighborhood. Please call some of your friends. But here's a flyer and hope, hopefully. I'll see you. Okay. [00:17:45] So can I just tell you something? I just think it's fantastic that this struck me there. But some celebrate in what you've just said, but only you can use Facebook to also promote the open house. I know five, six days before the house, you. [00:18:06] You. It should be a year event. You're in fear. So when you're a real estate agent, you're you're the you're in the entertainment business, the local time business and the way. So you want a good open house. You know, you want some nipples. You want no alcohol, but, you know, noise, coughing. You won't. You know, you won't. You go. You wants to be a friendly vibe and you want to get people's details when they come to the open house seat. Needs to be a you vent. Would you agree with that? [00:18:43] Yeah. It needs to be an event. I look at it as a as more than just an event. It is a prospecting tool defined by a to find sellers initially. OK, so you want to promote it everywhere you can because when you're promoting it on Facebook, what happens is you're showing everyone on Facebook that you're an active agent. That's important when you promoted to all your friends. You're letting them know I am selling homes. I go out and I do open houses. That's gonna help sell your home because that's what the homeowner thinks. OK, but the real key is when you go meet the neighbors, because if you think about circle farming concept with around every home that goes on the market and sells within a few months within 50 homes, there's usually another home that goes on the market. But you don't know who they are. But if you go and knock on the doors, OK, you leave a flyer for those that aren't there, you leave a flyer for those that are there. Then what you're doing is you're basically saying, this is what I was talking about. [00:19:44] If you're thinking about selling, you need to see what your competition is doing. You need to see what people are looking at, what prices are in this neighborhood and how people are fixing up their home. So I'm giving that homeowner reasons to come look at the house because in their mind, they're thinking about going on the market in a few months. So now when I get a neighbor to come through the house, in almost all cases, that person is thinking about selling. And now I'm able to build a relationship, get their information. And now I can follow up and here's and hear back my first comment. Once someone has met you and they know you and they put a name and a face and a personality and they like you, they are eight to 10 times more likely to do business with you than someone who's never met you. So simply by doing two hours of door knocking and then bringing whoever that is into the open house. Now you've got an opportunity to build that relationship and then pick up that listing. [00:20:39] I'm amazed at the amount of open houses that go to that. The agent has been gotten behind them. [00:20:44] They haven't even got reports bio about themselves, about how many houses they sold the year before. [00:20:51] What type of clients they like to work with. They have nothing. They don't even make sure the handouts. [00:20:57] Do you know why? Go ahead. But I'm going to jump in and get after you. That would be right. [00:21:04] Ok, great little book called Rhinoceros Success, OK? And it talks about cows and rhinos and cows. Follow the crowd. They don't have any idea why they're doing it. Rhinos followed their own horse. They're beat to their own drum. And what happens with most realtors is they simply do what they see everyone else doing. And they never think about it that says, why do you do it that way? And how can I work smarter and not harder? And that's why they do it. My sister in law hope she's not watching this video. You know, she is a new agent and she's doing everything that other people tell her to do following the crowd. But she's not doing anything that really makes it more effective, more efficient and driving more business because agents aren't marketers. That's a big reason. [00:22:00] Yeah. There is. So there's a few things that I'm going to I'm going to add to that. Number one, as with I've been I've been in sales 30 years. [00:22:09] And here's one thing that's that's true of anything, real estate in any any sales office sales environment. Most of the time, the person that you can't talk to, the person that you don't see, the person that they that would be most impactful top producers like every time. [00:22:27] I've always been the top producer was somewhere close to it. In every office, I don't I don't have any interest in training new guys unless I'm going to be paid for it. And the company never wants to pay for it. [00:22:39] So. So I'm never around. I've never actually physically there to do it, nor do I sit next to them. And half the time I'm out the door selling my own business and doing my own thing. And the same thing is ten times as true in real estate, because a lot of top notch real estate professionals, they don't go to the office. They don't sit on the sales floor. They're not at the open houses. [00:23:01] You can't see what they're doing to address what Beatty said about cows in terms of open houses, because we keep talking about him and there's a lot of conversation. So I totally agree with what would be said about knocking on the door. And what I also suggest is that you make a micro business plan when it comes to the way that you approach an open house. And what I mean by that is take a spreadsheet. Take a list and then simply go down and say, these are the things that I am going to do for every open house that I ever approach. And one of those things, by the way, I do love every idea that Beatty had. But another idea is, did you open house sign up sheets if worked? Right. An open house can be can add 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, medium to low, warm contacts to your list, which is something that Beatty keeps talking about over and over again. So you want to walk in mentally prepared. It's worth it to create a strategy, to create a good value exchange for somebody signing your open house list. And what could that be? Their. [00:24:10] I could be pinned. [00:24:11] It could be. It could be any number of small giveaways, something that you spent 10 of 10, 10 cents to a dollar on in order to get them to sign something or give you their information, it could be exclusive information about the house. It could simply be an attitude of assumption, which is what I'd like to tell my clients to use, which is simply, you walk through the door. [00:24:31] You walk up to them instantly. Hand them the sheet and hand them the pen nine times out of ten. Most people will understand what you're doing and understand that you've taken your time to set the environment up for them and they won't question the fact that they actually have to write down their name, email address and telephone number. Thus you get every single name and number of the person that walks into the door in the open house. So I agree with what both of you said, that open houses are valuable. I think they're wildly valuable. And I think somebody with it, with somebody with a little bit of an initiative can't just won't just get one or two leads. They'll get a whole bunch of them that they can then add into their their share and so be the owner. [00:25:14] I was going to sign something, say something a little bit controversial. Obviously, it's a commission only business. Getting those commission checks is really important, especially if you're not getting them. But I don't think it's about sales. I think it's about having conversations. I think it's something you're not having enough conversations. And it's about genuine writing one to one conversations and showing your competence. What do you think? [00:25:47] I think you're right. I think it's a I'm not sure you can put it in a very narrow bucket on anything. But the most important part is they've got to feel like they like you trust that they trust you and you care for them. And it's interesting. People will go toward someone that they feel cares for them more than they feel. Someone has definitely the expertise, but they may treat them as if they don't care. So that relationship, that one on one conversation you're talking about is super important. And that's the thing that most agents, I think, miss with their personal list. They look at their list as a prospect list, and so they treat it mentally as business. And once you start to treat it only as business and you lose that personal touch, that one on one this, then you lose the greatest asset you have. People do business with people they like and people they trust and people that they feel like and trust them back. [00:26:53] Yeah, often keep some kind of English cultural because I kind of struggle with that no spit. [00:27:00] Are people that I kind of see is the people that trust you, that know they might not be kind of your friend, but they know that you're there for the long term, but you're serious about your business and you're not going to con them and you're going to try your best. Well, that particular client endured in your butt, too. And you really serious about what you're doing. Are we talking the same thing? What do you think is cultural as well? [00:27:32] I think it's I think we're actually talking on different things, but they're all headed to, you know, sort like the old adage, all roads lead to Rome. Okay. In order to make that cell maybe like this fight so we can say in order to make that sale, which is this transaction, we have all these tentacles that keep coming in. And it's not one or the other. It's a whole multitude. So the comment that you're making one of my clients, one of the things that we're promoting for one of his marketing is the headline says, I gave up fifteen thousand dollars commission on this sale because of my integrity. OK. Or some something like that. And then the story starts to go in that he's selling this home and there are two buyers that offer contracts. His buyer and another buyer. And he could have persuaded the seller to choose his buyer, which would have given him fifteen thousand dollars more in commission. But because of his integrity, when he went to present the offers, he's actually got his office manager. The broker to come over and sit down and watch the presentation of both contracts to ensure that he was not biased one against the other. So that the seller could make a pure decision. And because of that, he lost the deal because the other offer was actually a better one. So when people know that they that you trust them, that people trust you, they like you, those are the personal conversations. But then they also know your professional integrity, your ethic, they know your professional expertise, they know your drive. So all of these are the different technicals that start to build this picture of who you are in that person's mind. And I think it's the totality of all of that that starts to give them the confidence that they would be a fool to choose anyone else besides you because of all of this, that they know an experience about you. Does that make sense? [00:29:28] Oh, totally. No question. The real estate agent business is a tough business. It's commission only tough. There's a lot of negativity in offices. And in general, there seems to be, especially when you're trying to break through to get to that level of sustainability and we'll get to the next level. And then you got the top, are you, Johnson? This is just a generality. They can be a bit aloof, a bit arrogant. Not have that. What we've just discussed. So, first of all, how do you keep yourself in the right mindset? And secondly, you have to try if you do get some real success, not become one of these arrogant, aloof, are you jeans? [00:30:21] That's a great question. It goes a deep answer. I think the way you keep yourself in the right mindset, as you always keep your eyes on the goal. So I've actually been in business for 20 years. I've had some big highs. I've had some big lows. One low was actually almost turned it into bankruptcy. But the thing that hit me is I actually had a friend asked me, you know, how do you keep going? How do you keep your attitude always focused? And you'd never give up even in the tough times. [00:30:52] And I think the way that you do that is you always have a goal that you're reaching for that so important that you actually believe you can get that you'd be a fool to give up on. And that keeps you going during the tough times. Also, in terms of the attitude of being stuck up or are that persona that sometimes we see with those higher producing agents on the top are agent in my office? [00:31:19] Yeah. No top producer? No done deal with your too low quota of clothing for me to actually work with. [00:31:30] But you know, when you get that, well, you're going to start losing out. The Bible says pride comes before the fall. OK. So it's you know, it's easy to say. And especially if you're a driver, then, you know, being number one is real important to you and kind of comes out in your attitude. But you always have to remember that being number one is based on helping lots of little. Succeed in their transactions and and so I've got a real story because my wife's cousin by marriage is one the top 15 or 20 agents in America by herself. No team in Alabama. She did like 85 or 90 million dollars in volume last year. OK. And so at one time we're going to sell our house. And I was telling her, you know, I don't know if you deal with houses like ours and it's only like three, four hundred thousand dollars. And she goes, well, you know, I deal. I sell any house. And, you know, for her, it's all about is another transaction. It's not I only sell houses at a certain level. In fact, she and another agent were competing years back on a house that I think was only one hundred thousand dollar house. But there's just that competition that any sale is a good sell. [00:32:46] I like that. I liked that a lot. That's a great story. Good. [00:32:51] Last question for Beatty. [00:32:54] Do I? Yes. Did you read a bit and saw him do? I know. I know. I have. I know I have. So I go. I keep. You know, if I had any one question, I don't think it would be related directly to the topic. I think that I think that my question, my curiosity. I've come to appreciate your personality as we have. This is our third show together. And I've noticed that you whether it's true or not, you come across as as a dedicated kind of hard working guy. And I'm curious to know, because I've owned seven businesses. This is my seventh that I'm on. And I bootstrapped all of them. And one or two of them ended in complete and utter disaster. One of those two businesses was actually the hardest personal hit I ever took was I had partners. The business is making a lot of revenue. I really thought it was going quite well. And in the ninth hour, one of the partners pulled out suddenly and it was unfortunately it was the financial partner. And even though the rest of the business was actually doing quite well, it was like somebody pulled the carpet out from underneath us and it was real personal, personally challenging time for me. And I decided at that moment not to do entrepreneurship again because it was or anytime soon because it was real tough blow to my purse, my ego, my heart. I'm curious to know you said you almost went out of bankruptcy in some point in your career. That must have been a scary trying time for you. [00:34:30] How did you deal with it, if you don't mind me asking? No. Yeah. Thank you for asking. I will be delighted to share. But I have to share who I am really, and not try to put on a facade or be politically correct. Don't go for it. I served the Lord Jesus Christ, and everything I do is guided and directed by him. And the way I made it through is he'd give me some promises earlier on that I would never suffer famine among the nations again. That that the where I'm going is where he is called me to him and he showed me where it's going to be. And so when you know, the end of the story, you know, when you know the end of the book, then you can handle all the little ups and downs in between because you know how it's going to end out. And so that was my rock. You know, my rock, my salvation. I go work. You can lose. Use all those terms from the Psalms. And when you realize that whatever is going on financially, we looked at our lives and everything was blessed. The only thing that wasn't blessed in the physical was seeing what's going on with the business. But it also China. The Chinese have a proverb that out. You know that the cloud I forget the exact proverb, but basically the word for crisis is the same word for opportunity is. How do you respond to it? And it was from that time that we almost went out of business that launched us into this business, which has been one of our greatest businesses. So that's how I did it. That's that's a beautiful story. [00:36:08] Thank you. Thank you very much for sharing. If I go ahead. Me and say I move further. [00:36:14] I actually believe you. Thank you so much for sharing. Because I know a lot people talk about success, but they don't. My successes. Most people get to successfully a very hard road, a very, very hard road. My successes are built through to seven, eight, nine years of hard slog with a lot of dark. Periods in that slow count. [00:36:44] Thirteen failed businesses like Lincoln or seven failed businesses like. Why didn't it at all? Not all of them fail, but seven past businesses like me. But I agree with that. A thousand percent, but not a lot. Wisdom comes hard won. [00:36:57] I think you if you're listening to this listeners and viewers, is if you're in the real estate industry, realize that you've got to have a plan. If the plan is working, change it or seek advice from advisers that really have the best for you. But, you know, you're going to have a plan. And as long as you're making those steps in the right direction, keep to the plan. Would you agree with that? [00:37:25] I do. And I want to make a comment back to Robert, because I was looking at my less. I actually keep a list of all the businesses I started. So the first one that really took off was business number eleven. It's still going. And the one I'm in now and business number eleven is actually the backbone behind this business. And this business is number 16. Some guys, they've all been bootstrapped, never borrowed money to get anything going, you know, and it's just been a fun pursuit. It's been, you know, the pursuit of your goal and your dream is is more important than the accomplishment of what you have, because what you have is temporary, but it's where you're going now. What's the next step? And that's what keeps driving me. [00:38:12] That's good. Thank you so much. [00:38:15] Thank you. So I want to end the show. Hopefully you will join this later on during the year. [00:38:21] He's always go open the invite to come on the show, hopefully come. We always enjoy the views with him. And we'll be back next week, folks. See you soon. P037 [/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
Transcription (was completed by automated process. Please ignore any speech-to-text errors) [00:00:00] This is Beatty Carmichael and I wanted to just give you a quick introduction to this audio before you hear it so it starts to make sense. I try to reach out to our clients and just touch base with them make sure that they do the best practices to get results because best practices generate best results with our service. And so this is one of these what I call a client engagement call and the focus is how to do best practices in the personal touch as you do with your personal contacts. But I want to expand your thinking that it's not just your personal contacts if any contact that you're marketing to. What are the best practices to be able to reach out and touch them so that you can nurture the relationship. And that's what this call is about. And I hope you enjoy it. All right. Well very good. So what I want to do on this college is I just want to cover best practices to make sure yeah. Because if you do best practices you'll get best results. And if you don't do best practices you won't get results. [00:01:02] It makes it right. Right now. Yes. So I'm familiar with the Popeye. What is it usually. I guess if you could. Elaborate a little bit I usually like popping by. Or is it kind of their home in the evening and just dropping off like a bottle of wine or what is the best practice for CROSSFIRE. [00:01:27] The key with a pot buy is you're looking them face to face in the eye really kind of depends on what type of prospect they are what type of relationship they are. That would determine if it's a personal friend and they love wine might drop by an evening. Hey I was just at the grocery store I was thinking about you guys picked up some bottle of wine for you guys. Hope you enjoy it and they go Oh thank you that's so great Ryan. But if it's the teller at the bank that you built a relationship with but it's not that personal relationship I'd pop by at the bank rather than home home is going to be OK. [00:02:04] Got it. [00:02:05] Yeah of course I may say. I was just down the street I thought about you and the donut shop was there so I picked up some doughnuts for you guys and you just bring some doughnuts in and say no now these are your Suzy and you tell all the cash registers their cashiers at the bank. These are Suzy. If you want it you gotta ask her Is it only for her and her friends. Did I make a big deal and she laughed and laughed. And now she really feels special. Okay. That's the pot. [00:02:39] By God it does help. Yes absolutely. [00:02:44] Okay. Then let me also let me give you kind of a real short list of best practices. Yeah that'll be great. Okay. And they're all personal touches. Okay great. So number one make sure you have a list of all the people we're targeting so that you can strategically talk to everyone Don't just wing it. Make sure that Okay I need to be talking to Bill and Tom and Sue and I'm going to make a go this week that I'm going to talk with them so strategically you're going through the entire list every time you do a personal communication you speak with them. You see them at a party. You do a pop by. Anytime you're looking them eyeball to eyeball at the end of that day. Write a note on a thank you note or just a note card that you have. That's branded to you as a real estate agent. Okay so it's a personal note but it's on professional stationery and the personal notice is going to be hey I really enjoyed seeing you. That was a beautiful dress. I hope you guys enjoy the doughnuts and I hope you get a pay raise for giving them out or you know just do something fun and you drop it in the mail. [00:04:07] And now it's another personal touch solidifying. You're a really neat guy and they appreciate you but now it's solidifying that you're real estate agents coming from your real estate. No card and you might even know one guy has some sort of a little sticker that he always sticks in his communication that says something like You know I love referrals please send me Please refer me. Anything like that. That just kind of prompts him to refer what you're doing is you're letting your professionally printed information say I'm an agent and I like referrals but the actual note is all personal. So you're not saying hey don't doughnuts please refer me and you don't want to do that that's self-serving but you just want to keep that relationship nurtured so anytime there is an eyeball to eyeball. Or better yet. Anytime there's a voice to voice that ball or phone. Always a quick handwritten note as a follow up. Drop it in the mail. And now you've gotten more than double whammy on that touch because they appreciate it. [00:05:19] Right. And then you're Popeye's identify those people on your list that are strategic and strategic for the most part is likely going to be those people who are connectors. [00:05:34] They deal with a lot of other people and can connect you with people like the cashier at the bank. Deals lots of people all day long and they're always the same people especially if it's a local branch then they are in tune. People come in and make deposits withdraw money. They're talking with investing Oh hey Julie how are you doing again. We're doing great. How's life. Oh you know it's getting busy we're thinking about selling their home this summer. So trying to figure that stuff out. So now you're a little cash register gal picks up the phone and says Ryan this is thinking about selling you need to call her and identify those who are the connectors on the connectors you want to then go out and stay do is do more pot buys. Really engage more and do what you can to really nurture that relationship because they're worth their weight in gold. They can one connector can send you several deals a year. I know one of my clients one of their connectors. You know it's like four or five or six or 10 deals a year. So make sure you nurture them. They're really good really important outside of that then just the handwritten note is not. Hey enjoy visiting with you. But just as another touch sometime just say Hey I was thinking about you I loved our time out on the golf course a few months back. Let's do it again just a little note. That is another personal touch that may not be tied directly to a foisted voice type of touch. [00:07:12] Got it. Got it. And then I have a quick question that I was a little confused about to back up on the set eyeball to eyeball. We're going to write a thank you note that's branded to me as a realtor. [00:07:27] Hi. [00:07:28] My question is I am I am not going to put anything about I love referrals. These are for me. [00:07:34] You're saying that self-serving not in your handwritten note but you want something that is preprinted. It could be a sticker that you stick on it. It could be a business card that says I love referrals. It could be anything but just not handwritten in other words when they get a handwritten note do you want to go. He thought enough about me. He wrote me a note. You don't want them to go Oh man look at this note he's just asking for business. It's okay to let your preprinted material ask for business just don't let your personal handwritten note directly ask for business. That's what I'm saying. [00:08:17] I hear not not in that touch. [00:08:20] Now obviously know some other day you may call him up and say hey you know anyone thinking about selling. I mean if you're if you're going to ask for business make it a business related call but don't accept personal touch for your nurturing and relationship with business because then it comes across as insincere. So make sure you nurture the relationship the most and only periodically if you do it all as your business. Most of the time. Okay so now if we look at what we do with Agent dominator here here's how people make decisions. Here's how a homeowner chooses an agent. They know and like you they know why did choose you and you happen to be top of mind at the time that they're thinking about choosing an agent. So those are the three legs to a stool if you take one of those legs off the stool doesn't work. So all of this nurturing is your part. They know you and like you. And then once they know you and like you and they know that the relationship is sincere then that's where then agent dominator picks up the other two legs of the stool. With our custom content we educate them why they should choose you. And we keep you top of mind so that they think of you all the time so when they're thinking of choosing someone you happen to be there. So it's all mixed in one big one big pool. Does that make sense right. [00:09:46] Yes absolutely. [00:09:49] It's great. And the last thing I was talking about is strategic. Let me give you some ideas on being strategic. Make a list carry a list with a list that is printed on paper that you can check off. I spoke to them. I did a pop by Mark the date so keep keep your records accurate basically that way as you go through that list. You know your first goal. So if you look at our guarantee you got to personally touch your list twice a year. First time right within your first couple of months second time in the first couple of months of the second half of the year. So that means you have to know who you need to be contacting and when you when you touch them and what you did because we asked you. Email us the list of people you spoke to or contacted the date that you contacted and what type of contact it was. So we can verify that you did it. So to be strategic you have your list. Maybe it's only 15 or 20 that you can carry on at a time and you've updated your entire list and whenever you have a free moment you're at a stoplight you're in a traffic jam. Pull up your list and say Who have I not personally touched that I need to be personally touching and that way you can strategically touch everyone. Make sure you highlight those people who are your connectors and your high value prospects and make sure you're touching them even more frequently. And that's strategically how you get it all done. [00:11:23] Yeah what I have is a Google document that I have my I have on my computer and on my phone at all times. I don't. [00:11:34] That way. I have a piece of paper. It's the chances of it. [00:11:41] I love that Google sheepdog. That's perfect because it's always updated. And then you can simply copy and paste that to an Excel spreadsheet and email that to us. Okay here's what I've done and here's my validation on it exactly. I've always got it in front of you and you can sort it sort by date last contacted and anyone that hasn't come up. Those are the people you need to be contacting. I'd love Google Docs content. [00:12:09] Yeah yeah yeah. That's just the way I was like How am I gonna do this. And you will see I was like Well I'm always on my phone with me so I'll always be able to you know if I get a hold of somebody I just put in the Google she made a call this day or if I send a note I have another column for notes date notes sent and I just when I send a note I put the date in there. So. That way yeah that way. It's all. Documented. [00:12:43] I think that's brilliant I think that's a super way to do it. Now do you have any questions for me on anything. [00:12:49] My only question for you is I've been working on also I know another aspect of the deal is also the app which I think is great. [00:13:01] The most important use of the app is going to be with your active clients because you're active clients become past clients and your recent past clients are the ones most likely to refer business to you. Okay so let me rephrase that. Of all people are most likely other than your Connectors you're right. So make sure you do that personal visit get to your connectors on the app and then that way they can just be that little cashier at the bank. Oh well you need to call Ryan and be let me tell you this information because he is a great guy and if you're looking for an agent they call him. So now she is texting everything right then. So you use it with your connectors. That's great. But that's how you do it. P033
Transcription (was completed by automated process. Please ignore any speech-to-text errors) [00:00:00] Hey this is Beatty Carmichael and I wanted just to do a quick introduction to this audio so it makes more sense. We provide services to help people as you know generate sales and referrals from both their personal contacts and also a neighborhood type of environment. Let's call it geographic farming and in both scenarios there are different types of best practices that will drive increased results because ultimately the only thing we can do is keep you always there in front of those folks with a with content that that encourages them to choose you. But ultimately in the game of real estate it's about relationships. And so if you can establish a relationship you're going get far less results than if you can. And so this particular call is what I call a client engagement call. I try to reach out to all of our clients at least once in the early stages with their tenure with us and just make sure that they're focused on best practices. [00:01:04] That's what this call is all about best practices in making a geographic farming type of arrangement work best. So I hope you enjoy it and hope you get a lot out of it. Thanks. So right now what I want to do on this call is I want to cover best practices. The best practices that drive results. Some of these best practices or depending on kind of what service you're worth it. We have several services but most you know somewhere in the mix this is also where the guarantee lies. I won't be really covering the guarantee stuff just make sure you if you want to make sure that you qualify for the guarantee if needed. [00:01:52] Just make sure you re not interested. Go on the I know your routine and like well you really got to be negligent to make that work. [00:02:02] Yeah you really do. But you'd be surprised how many agents are negligent because they go at that. I'll forget and that it is a kind of partnership. But let me cover at a high level. Some things and then I want to come down to activity level and then just kind of make sure that you're pointing the right direction and what we see and believe are the best things to do so at a high level. Homeowners choose an agent for three reasons. They know you and like you they know why they should choose you. And you happen to be top of mind at the moment that they're thinking about choosing an agent. So no one they know and like you is really kind of your responsibility we can't do anything to foster that because that's the whole idea of a relationship. The Numbers 2 and 3 they knowing why they should choose you and they are your top of mind. So at the moment they're actually thinking about choosing someone you come to mind. That's what our program really works on. It's more like a stool with three legs if you take one of those legs out there still is not real effective. So that engagement on your end is going to be really kind of a key factor in the big scheme of things to drive most results. I want to share some examples of what other people have done for that personal engagement factor because it can takes off. [00:03:42] It can take all types of forms and shapes. There is no one size fits all. So one of our clients His name is Nelson and he's targeting a community of about fifteen hundred homes. He was just one of many agents there when he started with us. He was you no nobody in terms of listing No no know what rank was he in terms of agents within the community. And he started with us. And at the same time he also started to promote the community Facebook page that was there out of fifteen hundred homes. There was only 200 people on the Facebook community page. So he's a door knocker. And he made a habit of trying to doorknock at least three times a year obviously as he got busy. He wasn't able to keep that pace up. But one of the first things he did in doorknocking once he started with us is he started to promote the Facebook community page. Hey we got the Facebook community page for horse thief Canyon you know log in and become a member stay in touch with all the news out of whatever it is. So getting out there and doorknocking and just putting door hangers on everyone's home. He got the membership up to about 800 on the first go round is now over a thousand. [00:05:02] And between that and what we did in the mailbox in 18 months he was at 22 percent market share of all of the listings and 18 months later he was about 50 percent market share. Now what he also did is the administrator of the Facebook community page was kind of tired of managing it and so he asked if Nelson would take over it and Nelson said sure. So what Nelson did is every time a new person came on Facebook community page or joined then he would do a private message with them and just welcomed them to the community page let them know hey I'm a realtor here I live in the area. This is a great page and if you have any real estate needs a site you know he would then also add them as a friend to his personal Facebook page then he use that as a communication platform to say top of mind all the time. Anytime he listed a home in that community he would always put out a just listed are actually he would put out a just list coming soon just listed open house under contract sold. So he got five touches for every house and people disagree seen him all the time always with activity always in horse thief Canyon and between what we did for him and what he was doing there. [00:06:33] It just ballooned his business. So that's one way of a personal interaction a second wave of personal interaction not one of our clients but a great story nonetheless. Marley. More like excuse me. Marla is over in Washington state and she's in an area called gadget and she's a mom with three kids. She's just started a real estate business about a year. About the time that all this started and she's living in a community of three to four five hundred homes that most people just were not really friendly and no one really knew their neighbors. They didn't get out they didn't socialize. Everyone just kind of stayed to themselves. And she wanted to know more people. So she said I want to have a get together and bring people to the house. It probably helped my real estate business but I really just want to know people as a mom with kids. So she started saying. Who do I invite. And she realized it's always awkward to go to a party when you don't know people and you don't have anything in common and therefore you don't have anything to talk about. She said Why don't I invite people who have a home business because they always have something to talk about and they want to share it with others. So she invited people you know more advertiser marketed to the neighborhood invite people over if you have a home business especially come over you'll be able to share it with everyone in the group. [00:08:02] And let's just get to know each other 20 or 30 people showed up on their first one. It was so successful she started doing it every month. She called it this gadget social and in somewhere between a year and a year and a half she's at like 35 or 40 percent market share of all the homes going on the market. And when I started talking to her about that it hit me what the beauty of it was she's got network marketers that she's attracting and they're the ones who are always talking and networking with other people. So. So that's one way to engage. Another way you can engage is you can do community drives. OK. So like a food drive for the hungry clothing drive for the homeless pet food drive for the abandoned pets and the local humane society you know to anything that taps into the different heartstrings of all the various people. And you would have those drives you would promote it you become now the kind of a community caretaker you get people to bring everything to one location on a certain day you know bring your clothes on this date to this location and then you're there. And so now when they bring it you're able to meet them face to face. [00:09:23] They've been seeing your stuff they like you they trust you. It builds that trust. And so now you're engaging with the community. Another aspect that you can engage with is like a community social Saturday especially at the community where your targeting has either a green space or if it's all together and served all spread out. If it's a if it's a tight community you know like they're all in and scratch it sound for example and then you would invite them to you know free ice cream at the local park bring your kids come out and visit with your neighbors. You know maybe you will have some like music and bring food and grill out if you want but we're going to have a social there. And so that brings people together all the people in the neighborhood you're organizing it. And at the ice cream truck that you rent and pay for you know you're there and you're meeting the people as they come by or whatever the event may be you're there and you're meeting the people and now they're putting a face and a name. They've been senior postcards. Now they get a chance to meet you sir. Now in all these cases whenever they get the postcard they go oh yeah I met that guy. I like him. Does that make sense. And does any of this resonate. [00:10:47] Absolutely. [00:10:49] Good. So these are gonna be the most important things we believe that you can really do. Because here's what we have found. First off let me ask you Have you done any marketing to the farm that you're doing with us right now. [00:11:08] The specific number addresses I sent to you I have not. I isolated this. OK. Go ahead. I did get those from a predictive analytics and there's. This systemically supposed to be more. More likely to go on. Yeah yeah yeah. [00:11:30] So the predictive analytics are all good. The ones that we've looked at and kind of measured and I can't say we've been an expert at it but just in casual anecdotal. Let's see how good the list is. This list is a year old. Now let's see how many of those people actually went on the market compared to the turnover rate of that area and they seemed to kind of be around double the turnover rate which is what the goal of analytics is. ISO if you haven't met him the biggest challenge that we've experienced is that they get to know you. My experience is this. And especially as you go west and your west. So this is going to play to you in most cases. Give you a little background. We would mail just direct response cards to homes in the south got great responses overall. And the further west we start to go the fewer of the responses we would get. So we started to study it and analyze it. We actually participate in a market research group with an MBA college level class and they use us as a case study and do surveys and everything else with people and what they what they conclude is what we thought but all everything mashed up is there's an element of what we call trust. And I've coined the term trusting community a trusting community is a community that trusts you individually as a realtor as someone that they can trust. [00:13:11] Okay. So the way that you build a trust is you've got to either be there all the time for a period of time so that you're very familiar and they constantly see you and recognize you and differentiate you from others not necessarily different your skill but maybe you have a unique color scheme for your marketing a unique catch phrase something that you just kind of stand out or trust is built because they personally match you. And this is why that personal meeting. Why you know so much focuses on all these things that you do to touch personally. So if you haven't met them the biggest hurdle to get good results is to get them to trust you. That's good. That's number one and that's where the emphasis on all these other things I've shared are going to be really important. Figure out one or more things that you can do and that can help guide you in terms of just brainstorming how to execute on any of these. If some of them resonate but that's going to be I think that's going to be the tipping point between you're going be really pleased with the results or not there's going to be your level of engaging them to build up their trust level. [00:14:28] I did. I did do a door knock campaign. I did a mailer and then I did a door down campaign. And then I followed it up with a letter. Then they had my picture and the first line was remember me. Yeah I love it. [00:14:43] Yes. Anything like that. You know one of the other things to do is to the best of your ability if you do engage personally you can do a social type of event of some sort. Then make sure you make a list of all the people you've actually met. You'll have their addresses already and just send a handwritten note. John and Jill. It was great meeting you at the cookout. You guys are a lot of fun. And I would love to. You know whatever it is just two three sentences drop it in the mail on your professional thank you note letter. Fold over thank you note or something but it's your real estate and letterhead so now it's coming from you professionally. But it's all personal. And now that's a one two hit and go. I really like this guy. He's classy and that makes it they'll make a big impact on that relational aspect. P034
Mail-Right: Real Estate Agents Show: About Technology & Online Marketing & Getting Seller Leads
How Real Estate Agents How to Make Money With Geographic Farming Beatty runs the popular podcast "Get Sellers Calling You!" and his company MasterGrabber and it's most popular product Agent Dominator MasterGrabber http://www.mastergrabber.com/ Beatty is recognized as one of the leading experts in professional-to-consumer marketing -- from branding to lead generation to top-of-mind. A veteran marketer, branding and direct response expert, Beatty’s professional career began in 1997 when he formed a marketing company to service the booming telecommunications industry. His clientele were independent sales professionals for whom he developed proprietary marketing technologies. These technologies helped clients generate ongoing sources of pre-qualified prospects for their services. One sales manager in Ohio exclaimed her sales team had increased their sales by ten times after only five months using Beatty's technology. https://www.facebook.com/mailrightusa/
Mail-Right: Real Estate Agents Show: About Technology & Online Marketing & Getting Seller Leads
How Real Estate Agents How to Make Money With Geographic Farming Beatty runs the popular podcast "Get Sellers Calling You!" and his company MasterGrabber and it's most popular product Agent Dominator MasterGrabber http://www.mastergrabber.com/ Beatty is recognized as one of the leading experts in professional-to-consumer marketing -- from branding to lead generation to top-of-mind. A veteran marketer, branding and direct response expert, Beatty’s professional career began in 1997 when he formed a marketing company to service the booming telecommunications industry. His clientele were independent sales professionals for whom he developed proprietary marketing technologies. These technologies helped clients generate ongoing sources of pre-qualified prospects for their services. One sales manager in Ohio exclaimed her sales team had increased their sales by ten times after only five months using Beatty's technology. https://www.facebook.com/mailrightusa/
Radical Faith – What is Faith – Part 2 Caroline: Hi everyone. I’m Caroline Springer. Welcome to this next session of Get Sellers Calling You with Beatty Carmichael. This is actually one of our Radical Faith calls and these are little bit different. A quick little intro about Beatty and I will let him explain our Radical Faith calls are. Beatty is the CEO of MasterGrabber, the creator of Agent Dominator and he’s one of the top marketing experts in the real estate field. He also is a Christian and loves the Lord and really has walked out his faith in an inspiring way in the business world. Beatty, I’m going to pass it over to you if you’d like to share just a little bit about what these Radical Faith calls are and how they are different than our typical marketing calls. Beatty: Sure, well, you know in California they have a law that’s passed that says anything that’s sold in California that has any ingredients or chemicals that could cause cancer, you have to put a warning label on it. What’s really funny is my children and I were at Bass Pro Shops or Cabela’s years back and one of my sons bought one of these really sharp military grade knifes. These were meant to hurt people and to hurt animals or cut wood or whatever, and there’s this warning label on it: Warning. This knife contains chemicals that are known to cause cancer and I’m thinking here we have a weapon and they’re putting this warning sign on it. I want to give my little warning for those out there that this may be your first time with a Radical Faith call. This has nothing to do with marketing a real estate business, this particular call. The Radical Faith call has everything to do with how do you live your life for Christ? So, if you’re not interested in my Christianity, if you’re not interested in Christianity at all, you are fairly warned and you can press delete on your podcast or you can hang up on the call. Otherwise, I’m not trying to push my belief onto you, but I’m trying to share my beliefs with those who want to hear them. That’s our little disclaimer up front. So, I’ll turn it back over to you now. Caroline: I love it. It’s a little less scary than cancer-causing…. Beatty: But this is cancer free. This will be cancer free. Caroline: This will be cancer free. This is a cancer free zone. Only things that will benefit you, benefit your health. Beatty: Can I share a quick story? I’ve got to share this story. So, I get out and I pray for people. That’s just part of what I do. I remember I was over at Walmart and I had seen this 50 something year old lady, and she caught my eye as I was talking to someone at the entrance to Walmart, but I didn’t do anything about it. About 30 minutes later, I see her again in an isle on the other side of the store and I just felt the Holy Spirit saying, I need to go pray for her. So, literally, I walked over to her and said, excuse me ma’am. The Holy Spirit just kind of highlighted you and I think there’s something I need to pray for you about. “Is there anything I can pray for you?” She looks at me with this blank stare, almost with the expression like, who are you. She then kind of broke a little bit and said, “Yes.” I said, “How can I pray for you?” She says, “I have really bad back pain. I have degenerative discs in my back and I have neuropathy in my legs.” I was asking about the neuropathy and if there was a real tight constriction on her legs. The feeling was a real tight constriction and a lot of pain up in the thigh area on both of her legs. So, I said, “Let me pray for you.” So, I prayed for her healing and I said, “Do you feel anything?” I literally prayed 10 seconds or less and she goes, “Yeah, all the pain in my back is gone.” I said, “Great, but how about your legs?” She said, “I feel release. I feel release. They don’t feel quite as tight.” I said, “Well, good.” Let’s pray again. And so we prayed again and five or ten seconds later after praying, I said, “Do you feel anything?” She said, “Yes, I feel heat in my back.” I said, “That’s great. That’s the Holy Spirit healing your back and let’s just give it time. Tell me what you feel now.” She says, “Well, that heat is now in my legs. All through my legs.” I said, “That’s great. The Holy Spirit is healing you there.” I said, “Now tell me what’s going on.” She said, “The heat is now up in my stomach area.” “Okay, let’s just keep giving it some time.” Now, all this is over maybe like two minutes, maybe three at most. Then I said, “Now tell me what you feel.” She said, “The heat is going away.” I said, “That’s perfect.” I said, “Tell me about your back.” “No pain.” I said, “Do something that you could not have done without a lot of pain.” She bends all the way over and touches her toes. Degenerative discs could never have done that. Then, I said, “What about your legs and she said, all of the pain is gone. I said, “Fantastic.” I said, “Now, is there anything going on in your stomach area?” She said, “Yes, I’ve had an ovarian cyst for about a year and I don’t feel that either.” Caroline: Wow. Beatty: Yeah and it’s really cool talking about these warning labels that can cause cancer, but the reality is Warning: This stuff with the Lord can cause the healing of cancer. It can cause healing of all kinds of things and restoring of our lives. As Jesus said that He came that we might have life and have life to the fullest. To the fullest is not to be bound by sickness and disease. Some of us are and sometimes God doesn’t heal, but I’ve seen such a consistency in that, that I’ve got to believe that the heart of the Father is truly what Jesus said. That we would have life in its fullness in all areas. So, I’m excited to share a little bit more about what we’ve started on the last Radical Faith call and continue that process in understanding this thing called faith and kind of what it all is. So, can we kind of jump on in now that we’ve spent about five minutes here. Caroline: Yes, I love it. Let’s go. Beatty: Let me give a real quick review of where we were last time. We’re going through a step-by-step process in understanding what faith really is, understanding it from a Biblical perspective. What does the scripture say that faith is and what do the scriptures show how the faith is lived out and manifests itself in everyday life? What we’ve found is that faith is, from Jesus’ perspective, one of the most important things. Not only is it one of the very few things, as a matter of fact, there’s only three things I know that Jesus ever rebuked his disciples for. One was when the disciples wanted to call fire down from Heaven and consume the people like Elijah did. One when he rebuked Peter and said, get behind me Satan. Every other rebuke that Jesus gave his disciples, which was over and over again, was oh you of little faith. Why did you doubt? So, he makes a big deal out of faith. The other thing Jesus did is He prays and says, when the Son of man comes, will He find faith on the Earth. It’s such a big deal that He’s asking will He find faith. We find that faith. We’ve talked about Hebrews 1. That faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. It is a title deed, meaning it’s the evidence of things being real that you cannot see. It’s the same evidence of things being real as when you’re on your cell phone. We have complete faith that there are radio waves out there and that we can talk on that cell phone. We have no idea how it works, but we have evidence that it’s real. Therefore, that’s what the Bible is talking about. The faith that we do not see, but we have the evidence that it is real. What we started to do is we started to talk about how faith manifests itself. We talked about Moses parting the Red Sea. God told him to basically stop whining. Tell the people to move forward. Forward was directly into the Red Sea and we find that Moses acted by God’s direction before he saw and God performed. Then we talked about Elijah and the widow during the drought during the reign of Kind Ahab and how that happened. Now I want to pick up on a couple of more stories as we continue to talk about how faith gets manifested into our lives. I want to talk about Biblical stories and some current day stories, sort of like the healing. That’s actually an expression of faith that I was sharing. If we go back to the Bible, there’s a passage. I’m not going to ask you where that passage is and put you on the spot, Caroline. But there’s a passage where Peter is walking on the water and it’s in Matthew 14 and I just want to read you part of this passage and then ask you a couple of questions. Let me set the stage. They have, just the day before, fed the 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish and that was 5,000 men, so we know there’s probably ten or fifteen thousand people by the time you add women and children. Then, Jesus goes up to the top of the mountain to pray, and as he goes up to pray, he sends the apostles and disciples back across the lake in the boat. So, they’re out there and it says that they’re straining at the oars all night because there’s a headwind against them and then Jesus, during the early dawn hours of the morning, He now walks across the lake and they see him dimly and they think He’s a ghost and everyone gets afraid. Are you familiar with this passage? Caroline: Yes, absolutely. Beatty: Okay, good. So, He says, don’t be afraid, it’s just me. What does Peter blurt out at that point, do you remember? Caroline: Lord if it’s you, tell me to come to you. Beatty: That’s right. Lord if that’s you, tell me to come walk on the water too. So, now we pick up Matthew 14 verse 22 and it says, and He, meaning Jesus, “And He said, come and Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But, when seeing the wind, he became frightened and beginning to sink, he cried out, Lord save me. Immediately, Jesus stretched out his hand and took hold of him and said, you of little faith.” Here’s one of his rebukes. You of little faith, why did you doubt? So, here’s my question to you. Who acted in this story? Caroline: Peter acted. He had the faith and the risk to step out of the boat. Beatty: There you go. Did he see before he acted? Caroline: No. Like you mean see himself successfully walking? No. That was definitely a leap of faith, if you will, just to step out onto that water. Beatty: Correct. So, why did he act? Caroline: To me, I love that Peter, to his reply to the fear of them all thinking that it’s a ghost, that he says, tell me. Like, tell me to come and your question is why? I feel like just that trust in knowing the Lord’s voice. If you tell me, I’m willing to go, I’m willing to take that step even if I can’t see. Beatty: That’s right. He acted because God told him to act. Make sense? Caroline: Absolutely, yes. Beatty: Okay, so let’s review. Peter acted before he could see, but he acted because he’s stepping out on the command or the word of the Lord, and then who performed? Caroline: Well, I guess, Peter was acting, and so it was his act, but really it was the Lord. I mean, but we, in our own flesh cannot walk on water. But with the Lord providing, I guess, he’s the one that performed in response to Peter’s faith. Beatty: And so we see this pattern. Go throughout scripture and you’ll see this all the time. Man acts before he can see, but he acts by the clearly delineated will of God, trusting that truth and God then comes in and performs. So, this is how faith is manifested all the time. Think about me healing that lady. Who acted? I did. Why did I act? Because God said, go do what I do. It says, truly, truly whoever believes in me will do the works that I do and I actually just believe Him that we’ll actually do the works that He does and so we go out. When I went out and I prayed for that lady, I couldn’t see it. I had no idea how it happens, but I expected to happen and who performed? The Holy Spirit came and performed a healing work on her body. Why? Because He loves her and He wanted to demonstrate His love to her. We see this process. Let me read a couple more stories that are more modern day. Modern day, this is back in the late 1800s, early 1900s, but there’s a guy named, George Mueller. If you’re not familiar with him, he ran an orphanage of twenty thousand children over in England back in the turn of the early 19th century and this is a story of one thing going on. I’m just going to read it to you just to make sure all the data is there. One morning, all the plates and cups and bowls on the table were empty. He was in the breakfast room and they were about to have breakfast. The plates and the cups and the bowls are empty. There is no food in the pantry and no money to buy food. The children were standing waiting for their morning meal when Mueller said, “Children, you know we must be in time for school.” Then lifting up his hands he prayed, “Dear Father, we thank you for what you are going to give us to eat.” Pretty bold, don’t you think? Nothing there. No food in the pantry and he prays and says, “Thank you for what you are going to give us to eat.” I love these stories. There is a knock at the door. The baker stood there and said, “Mr. Mueller, I couldn’t sleep last night. Somehow I felt you didn’t have bread for breakfast and I felt that the Lord wanted me to send you some. So I got up at 2:00 in the morning and baked some fresh bread and brought it.” Mr. Mueller thanked the baker and, no sooner had he left there was a second knock at the door. It was the milkman. He announced that his milk cart had broken down right in front of the orphanage and he would like to give the children his cans of fresh milk so he can empty his cart and repair it. Isn’t that cool? So here’s a question. Who acted? Caroline: George. Beatty: That’s right. He acted by praying and thanking the Lord for the food that they were about to eat. Did he see or have any knowledge of that food before he acted? Before he prayed? Caroline: No. I love that. I love that the thankfulness is the act in this too. Beatty: Yes. So why did he act? Caroline: Just trusting the Lord and His goodness and His promise to be a Father who takes care of His kids. Beatty: That’s right. He is acting on God’s promises that can never fail. And then, who performed? Caroline: The Lord, through the obedience of that baker. The Lord prompted them to provide. I think that’s the Lord acting on George’s behalf. Beatty: I think so too. Here is kind of a question we don’t fully know that answer to, but I think we can piece it together by understanding scripture. If Mueller did not pray and thank the Lord and fully expect that the Lord would provide provision for them, would God have delivered the food? Caroline: Most of me wants to say yes because God’s goodness is not contingent upon us. That’s what His grace is. But there is part of me too that has seen the Lord perform, if you will, or act in response to our faith, in response to our thankfulness. Thankfulness can open the door for something that maybe would not have happened otherwise. I don’t know if that is a direct answer because I’ve seen it both ways. I’d love to hear your examples and scripture. Beatty: I’m going to show you another example then I’m going to come back to that question. But let me ask you, based on this scriptural example. If Peter had not seen Jesus walking on the water. If Jesus has not told him to come. But if Peter just got this crazy idea to just step out of the boat and try walking on the water on his own, what do you think would have happened? Caroline: He would have drowned maybe. Beatty: Exactly. So there is something here that says, it’s not just the act of doing it but the Lord has to be involved. There has to be, what I’ll call, a level of belief. Let’s look at one more story of George Mueller. This one is cool. Let me set up the environment. In Mueller’s later life—in the 1860s and 70s—he started to speak. He lived in Bristol, England. He was invited to go speak in Quebec, Canada, I believe it was. So he gets on a steamer and comes across the Atlantic. The scheduled date is on a Saturday coming up. As they get closer to the North American continent, the steamer runs into a really thick fog. It’s so thick that they literally turn the engines off. They put them in complete idle because—and this still happens today—you can’t see through it and therefore it’s extremely dangerous to try to power through the fog in case you run into something. You are totally blind. So they can only do it when they can see. That then brings me to this story. This is a first-hand account. There is a guy named Mr. Ingles writing his interactions with the captain of that ocean liner that Mueller was on. So here’s the story. This is the captain speaking: "Mr. Inglis, the last time I crossed here, five weeks ago, one of the most extraordinary things happened which, has completely revolutionized the whole of my Christian life. Up to that time I was one of your ordinary Christians. We had a man of God on board, George Müller, of Bristol. I had been on that bridge for twenty-two hours and never left it. I was startled by someone tapping me on the shoulder. It was George Müller: "'Captain, he said, 'I have come to tell you that I must be In Quebec on Saturday afternoon.' This was Wednesday. "'It is impossible,' I said. [And watch this confidence George Mueller has.] "'Very well, if your ship can't take me, God will find some other means of locomotion to take me. I have never broken an engagement in fifty seven years.' "’I would willingly help you. How can I? I am helpless.' "'Let us go down to the chart-room and pray.' "I looked at that man of God, and I thought to myself, what lunatic asylum could that man have come from? I never heard of such a thing. "'Mr. Müller,' I said, 'do you know how dense the fog is?' "'No,' he replied, 'my eye is not on the density of the fog, but on the living God who controls every circumstance of my life.' "He got down on his knees and prayed one of the simplest prayers. I muttered to myself: 'That would suit a children's class where the children were not more than eight or nine years old.' The burden of his prayer was something like this: 'O Lord, if it is consistent with Thy will, please remove this fog in five minutes. You know the engagement you made for me in Quebec Saturday. I believe it is your will.' "When he finished. I was going to pray, but he put his hand on my shoulder and told me not to pray. "First, you do not believe He will; and second. I believe He has. And there is no need whatever for you to pray about it.' I looked at him, and George Müller said. "'Captain. I have known my Lord for forty-seven years, and there has never been a single day that I have failed to gain an audience with the King. Get up, captain, and open the door, and you will find the fog is gone.' I got up, and the fog was gone!” This is just another story of faith manifesting itself. So here is a question. Who acted in this story? Caroline: Definitely George. That kind of faith changes the world. Beatty: Right. Did he act before he saw? Caroline: No. Beatty: Why did he act? Caroline: Even at the end just there you said that he’s known the Lord for 47 years. He has seen him act before and he knows the character of the Lord. He knows that is something you can trust. That is why. That is something worthy of putting your faith in. Beatty: It is. He acted because he was confident in the truth and validity of the word and the word to him was God was going to get him there because God has done it all before. There is one other element and we’ll talk about this later but it is the level of belief. Who performed? Caroline: The Lord. It’s like that story of Jesus calming the storm. A little fog? A storm? That’s nothing. Beatty: Absolutely. Now let me put one other thing in perspective because we didn’t cover this. The captain had been on the bridge for 22 hours. These fogs last for usually ten days to two weeks before they dissipate. So this was an absolutely miracle from that perspective. So here is what we find. We also find this in scripture. Jesus says, “Pray believing that you have received and it shall be granted you.” That’s just what Mueller did. So let me go back to the question I asked you on the previous one. If Mueller did not pray for provision of the food you say, “I think God would have still provided it.” If Mueller did not pray for the lifting of the fog, would the fog have still lifted? Caroline: No, it would not have. Beatty: No, it would not, and, therefore, I believe—back to the provision of the food—had Mueller not have prayed, the food would not have arrived. I did a study on prayer throughout all the Old Testament and New Testament. God acts upon prayer, not in the absence of prayer. So let’s look at a few more things about this story on Mueller. If it be Your will. Have you heard people pray, “Well Lord if it’s Your will, please do this.” Then it doesn’t happen and someone says, “Oh, it must not be God’s will.” Have you ever heard people pray like that? Caroline: Yes, many times. Beatty: I see it a lot in healing. “Oh, thank you for your prayer but, you know, I’ve had a lot of people pray for me and God hasn’t healed me. It’s just not His will.” I say, “Well let me pray” and they get healed. This doesn’t happen all the time, but about two-thirds of the time. What is it about, “if it be Your will”? Here is what Mueller said, “If it is consistent with Your will, lift this fog in five minutes so I may make my appointment. I believe it is Your will.” So the question is, how did Mueller pray differently than most of us pray? Here is what I would to suggest. When people pray, “If it’s Your will,” for the most part, it’s a copout. “I don’t really believe you are going to do it God, but I know You are sovereign. I know You can do it. Therefore, if it is Your will, I’m going to trust You to do it.” But what they lose sight of are the other passages in the Bible. “Pray believing you have received and it will be yours.” “Say to this mountain be taken up and cast into the sea and if you believe in your heart and do not doubt, it will happen.” Command this mulberry tree to be taken up and cast into the sea and if you will do it without doubting, it will happen.” James says, “Let not a man receive anything from the Lord if he doubts.” So we have all of these passages focused on this concept of believing it to be true. I would submit to you that Mueller absolutely believed it was true. That’s why he says, “I believe it is your will.” So let me ask you one other question as we are talking about prayer. Had Mueller not prayed, but the captain did pray, would that fog have been lifted? Caroline: I would think not because he didn’t believe. It’s like what you are saying, he’s not coming before the Father with faith. He is coming begrudgingly. It’s a different heart. Beatty: Yes, with a different heart. So here we have one final element on how faith gets manifested. You have to have faith if you want God to work in your life. That faith, we are going to find in our next session, is rooted in the word of God and specifically in His promises and commands. It’s not just rooted in that, it’s rooted in those and when we believe on those. Mueller did not simply believe on his own willpower. That is not what Jesus talks about. When we believe, the only thing we can believe in is what is truth. Jesus says, “They word is truth.” The only truth that exists is His word. So the only thing we can believe in being truthful is His word. So simply trying to have the willpower of our own, “I believe, I believe”—the harder you try to believe, the less you really believe because you are trying to fool yourself. So we will talk about all of these. Is this pretty interesting? Caroline: Oh, I love this. This is definitely inspiring and kind of solidifying too, even challenging belief systems that I think are easy to float around. Even what I was saying earlier, it’s easy to think, “Well, even if I don’t pray, God is good.” But the Lord invites us to partner with him and to believe and to pray. He wants us to experience that. I think it’s a really good challenge to remember our positions as children, that He invites us to be risk takers and to have radical faith. I love this. Beatty: Cool. I know we are out of time, so let’s close out. Caroline: I love these calls, I’m sorry. Sometimes I tend to get so enthralled I’m not even looking at the clock. But yes, we are about out of time. Beatty, thank you for your time and sharing your wisdom and experience and stories and scripture. I think it’s a really great call and I hope all of our listeners really enjoyed it also and were inspired. That’s all we have for today. Thank you again Beatty for sharing. I look forward to continuing on next time. Beatty: Me too. Y’all be blessed. P002
Caroline: Hi, I’m Caroline Springer and welcome to our next session of Radical Faith. We have a Radical Faith podcast as part of our Get Sellers Calling You podcast with Beatty Carmichael. Professionally, Beatty is the CEO of MasterGrabber, the creator of Agent Dominator and a top marketing expert in the real estate field for many years. And personally, for many years, he has been a Christian and loves to talk about the Lord and that’s where the vision of this podcast came from. So I’m just going to pass it over to him to give a little disclaimer about the Radical Faith podcast and kind of what his idea is behind it. Beatty: I’m not sure I would call it a disclaimer, but maybe it is. The whole idea about Radical Faith is this has nothing to do specifically and directly with real estate business. It has everything to do with living your life as a passionate Christian. So this is all going to be about my Christian philosophy or theosophy if you call it that. So if you don’t want to hear it, you can delete this podcast out and just listen to the podcasts focused on how to build a real estate business, but we are going to talk about Christ today. That’s my disclaimer. Back to you. Caroline: We always chat a little at the beginning about the world we live in and how we have to give a disclaimer, but I think it is good. It excites me so I’m like, “All right, let’s jump in.” This is going to be about the Lord and nothing else. So I’m okay with that. Beatty: Part of that chat we were having is normal Christianity. So I definitely kind of want to bring that onto this call a little bit. The focus of these calls is what I call “normal Christianity.” If I were to ask you, Caroline, what do you think the typical Christian’s view of “normal Christianity” is? Is it healing the sick, raising the dead, casting out demons, doing miracles or is it being a good person, not saying curse words, going to church on Sunday and reading your Bible? What is normal Christianity? Caroline: Yes, I would think sadly in the “normal” or maybe average Christian’s viewpoint, for those who claim to be Christian that’s what they would claim: being a good person, attending church, like you said, not saying curse words, living a chaste life, reading your Bible, praying before meals. The more Radical type of lifestyle is something that a lot of people may think is just preserved for certain people or that’s not really a thing anymore. I think that seems too far-fetched for them to believe that it’s something we’ve been invited into now. Beatty: True. So let me ask you. Who is our model for how to live as a Christian? Caroline: Jesus. He is our model. Beatty: Did he consider what he modeled to be normal or to be radical? What do you think his perspective on it was? Caroline: That’s a good question. Beatty: Let me ask that question another way. He is modeling for us how we should live, right? Caroline: Right. Beatty: Does He expect us to live anything but what He considers normal? Caroline: No. I think He was saying He only did the things He saw His Father do and he models for us a life like that so we can follow that. So I think His expectation was for Him to be paving a way for us to walk the way He walks. So I guess that would be normal for Him and normal for us. Beatty: Okay, so then how did He walk? It says, I think in John 14:22, don’t quote me exactly, but somewhere in John 14. It says, “Truly, truly whoever believes in me will do the works that I do and greater works will he do because I go to the Father.” Jesus is living out the works that we should do. If I were to ask, “What were the works that Jesus did,” what would you tell me? Not saying curse words? Read the Bible? Or something different? Caroline: I think something more. Like you said earlier, healing the sick, raising the dead, casting out demons, parting the way, making a way for Heaven to invade Earth. That was His life. Beatty: Therein lies the topic of Radical faith. Most people think it’s radical. Jesus thinks it’s normal. Now we are not going to talk about today how to raise the dead or heal the sick. We might get into the sophics, but I think more than anything else it’s really understanding what we are called to do as a Christian. How are we called to live and those things that we consider in our 21st century nature to be radical, I think Jesus considered normal. How do we go back to what is normal and not what is myopically considered radical. That is where I want to kind of lean us into this call. Can I take the lead real quick and just kind of get this thing started? Caroline: Absolutely. Beatty: For those of you who have been listening in on our podcasts, you’ll kind of see this pattern. Caroline takes the lead in the interview process on the marketing stuff. I end up taking the lead on the radical faith stuff because she becomes my guinea pig just to use as a sounding board. On all the marketing calls, she has an outline of the direction we are going on the calls. But on the radical faith calls, she is totally blind, so she doesn’t know what I am going to bring up or what I am going to ask her. So we are going to put you on the spots a few times and see what your thoughts are. Okay? Caroline: Oh, good. Beatty: Oh, good. It’s just like normal. We are going to be normal on this call. The last call that we did on radical faith, we are been going through this series of what I call what is faith. We are trying to lay this foundation of what faith really means. On the previous call we started to talk about that faith comes hearing and hearing from the word of Christ. And then we started to look into that faith emanates from Christ. It emanates from His word. We then dissected the two most common Greek words that are translated into our English word: word. Those are… Caroline, do you remember those two Greek words by chance? Caroline: Logos and rhema. Beatty: Do you remember what the difference between logos and rhema are? Caroline: Oh goodness. Wasn’t logos more like a word and rhema was more like something you received and heard? Beatty: Exactly. So logos is simply a word that embodies an idea. In other words, Jesus goes out and preaches the Word to people. He is generally telling them truths. Rhema is when Jesus tells Peter: “Walk on the water.” Okay? Or tells Peter: “You will deny me three times before the cock crows.” Peter remember the word that Jesus told him. Or the angel that comes to Mary and says, “You are going to have a child.” And she says, “Be it done to me according to your word,” according to your rhema. Faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word or the rhema of Christ. So in our real loose definitions. This is not a scholarly definition, this is more what I would call a, “how do you live” definition. A loose definition of rhema is something that God points directly at you. A real simple kind of understanding, Caroline, have you ever (I know you have) been reading your scriptures, reading the Bible and a passage stands out like God is talking directly to you. Have you had that happened to you before? Caroline: Absolutely. I have a lot of times where I will be in kind of conversation with the Holy Spirit. Later on, I will hear or read something in the Bible and it’s like the confirmation of what the Holy Spirit was just saying. There are a lot of times when things were highlighted. I feel like the Lord does that a lot for reassurance or confirmation. Beatty: Well, He does that a lot with me too and when that happens that, in general, what we call rhema. That is when the Holy Spirit is speaking directly to you. That is where we were when we wrapped up our Radical faith call. What I want to do is pick up from there and kind of try to wrap up this section before we run out of time. One of the things that we find about faith and this what I will call Radical faith is the idea or the truth that faith cannot exist by itself, that it is always accompanied by works. There is a passage in James, James 2:17 that says: “Even so faith if it has no works is dead being by itself.” So you kind of get this picture that faith cannot exist by itself. It’s sort of like the body without oxygen. It just dies. That body and oxygen have to go together. Faith and works have to go together. It says a couple of verses later. It’s talking about Abraham and it says, “Faith was working with Abraham’s works and as a result of the works faith was perfected.” So here is the question for you, Caroline. What does it mean that faith is perfected by works because, growing up in church, you always hear that we are saved by faith, not by works. Then we read this thing in James, you say you have faith but I have works and I’ll show you my faith by my works. So what is all this mean? What is the separation between faith and works? How would you describe that? Caroline: To me, whenever I’ve had conversation with people about that with grace and works and how they all go together. To me, works comes as a natural outcome of your faith and what you believe. Your faith also partners with that to also give you the strength and belief to be the foundation of your works. So it’s not like your works are an outcome of striving but your works are an outcome of beliefs and trust and pursuing the Kingdom. It’s a completely trajectory comparatively with those that, maybe some people struggle with feeling like they have to prove and work their way to the Lord or earn their salvation, which we know, scripturally, is not true. But I think that is just the natural question to struggle with for a lot of people. I think God’s intention in James is that it doesn’t have to be something that is conflicting, it can be something that can actually partner a lot easier and your faith is going to naturally push the works and your works are naturally going to cause you to increase your faith. Beatty: So let me see if I can make a real simple illustration to kind of tie this together. I want to invite you to a party. In fact, I am going to give this party in your honor. It’s going to be over at my house. It’s going to be Thursday night at 7:00. Can you come? Caroline: Sure, yes, I’d love to. Beatty: Is that a commitment? Caroline: Yes. Beatty: So now you have just given me your rhema. “I will be there.” So now, Thursday at 7:00 comes up and you are all excited because I’ve told you that we are going to get a caterer. We are going to invite all the people from church, all the people from the neighborhood and all the people from everywhere. And it’s going to be a great big party. And we are going to have child care so you don’t have to worry about Jethro and it’s going to be a wonderful time with your favorite foods and you are all excited. “This is my party.” Now you come over to the house. You come over at 7:00. You drive up to my house and you notice something strange. There are no cars out there. “Okay, well, I’m not sure what’s going on.” You have this question mark. You come up to the house and it’s kind of dark outside. There are no lights on. There are a couple of lights in the room but it’s not like it’s lite up. You look inside; there is no one there. You right the doorbell, ding dong. No one. You ring it again, ding dong. You are just about to walk away from my door and you hear these steps, boom boom boom, and it sounds like someone is coming up some steps and you see me running around the corner. I’m in my exercise clothes and I’m all hot and sweaty. I come to the door and open it. As soon as I catch your eyes, you see my expression go, “Oh my gosh!” You know that expression I’m talking about? Caroline: Yes. I imagine that you are trying to say that you forgot. Beatty: I didn’t forget. I say, “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t think you would be here. I never made any plans for the party.” Now what happens to you at that point? Are you happy or are you sad? Caroline: I imagine you would be sad and disappointed and questioning why you didn’t think I would attend. Beatty: Yes, you would have all these questions. Did I just sin against you? Caroline: That sounds so intense. I guess for the purpose of the illustration, yes? Beatty: So here is what happens. Let’s now analyze this a little bit more. You gave me a rhema and I did not act in works upon that rhema. Do you follow me so far? Caroline: Okay. Beatty: Faith is perfected through works. Faith is what we believe in. Faith comes by hearing the rhema of Christ. So if we hear Christ’s rhema and don’t believe it then we never act on it and therefore faith is never perfected because our works did not carry it out. Make sense? Caroline: Yes, that makes sense. Beatty: So in this illustration, how can your faith be perfected by works? Because if I had faith that you would have shown up then my works would have demonstrated that faith. I would have called the caterer. I would have called all the people. We would be having a great party. We would have a special parking space right up front to protect a special parking area just for you just o you could come right to the front door. All of this. But the fact that I did none of it means that my faith was never perfected because I never believed it. It’s not that I work for my faith; it’s that my works emanate from my faith. So here are a couple of truths that we can learn about this. Number one, our works are a demonstration of our faith. We do not produce works to have faith. We generate works because it emanates from our faith. Faith comes first and faith naturally births the works in our lives because we become as we believe. As a man believes, so he is. In fact, I heard a preacher this past Sunday hit on that comment quite a few times. Do you remember anything like that? Caroline: Yes, I do. Beatty: So it all kind of ties together. And here are a couple of other things we can take out of this. So you come to the door and I go, “Oh my gosh. I didn’t believe you. I thought you were lying to me. Therefore, I didn’t make any plans at all.” Now you are feeling dejected and rejected. You are frustrated. “How dare you? I planned my whole week around this. It has taken two hours to prepare for this. I’ve been making myself look beautiful. I’ve been telling all of my friends.” Now you are really upset at my aren’t you? Caroline: Yes, it sounds like I would be. Beatty: Yes, you would be. What happens then is that you turn away. You hop back in your car and you drive home. And now I have lost the blessing of your presence and fellowship with you because I did not believe. Now, this is what the images between us and God are. When the Lord gives us rhema and I’m not talking about something huge like step off a mountain and I’m going to hold you up, okay? I’m talking about just anything where we fail to trust the Lord and we know that we don’t trust him because our actions prove that we don’t believe just like in that example. Then what happens is that all of God’s amazing blessings that he had in store for us fall through our fingertips and we don’t even receive them because they are only received by faith, not by works, but it’s our works that demonstrate our faith and therefore, that’s how our faith is perfected with works. Is all of this kind of making sense? Caroline: Absolutely. I think that was a good step-by-step explanation with that scenario about the definition and how that works. It’s a funny scenario. I think it’s a great example and explanation. Beatty: Okay, cool. So now let’s talk a little further on this, if we can. A simple takeaway. Your faith is always displayed by acting on God’s word. If you don’t act on it, you don’t really believe it. This is the essence of what I call “radical” faith. It should be normal. By the way, was there ever a time in Jesus’ life where He did not act in works based on His faith in what God had directed or told Him to do? Any time? Caroline: No. A time when He did not act based on what the Father told Him to do? No, He didn’t. Beatty: So when He raised someone from the dead, was that Him acting by faith? Caroline: Yes. Beatty: Okay. If we use this definition of faith. When He healed someone, was that acting by faith? Caroline: Yes. Beatty: And did He raise them from the dead? Did He heal them or was it the Holy Spirit doing that work? Caroline: It was Him. The Holy Spirit came later. Beatty: Matthew and Acts both say that it was the Holy Spirit working through Jesus that performed the miracles. Acts says that it was God’s power working through Jesus of Nazareth that did all of these miracles. In other words, that Jesus was modeling for us; this doesn’t take any of His Deity away, I’m just saying that the scripture says that the Holy Spirit is what raised someone from the dead. Healed somebody. We even see this in scripture that God commands, but it’s the Holy Spirit. You have God the Father as the ultimate authority and all power. He designates His authority to Jesus and then Jesus delegates authority to the Holy Spirit. In fact, Jesus says that the Holy Spirit will open your mind to all of these things and He will not speak anything to you that I have not commanded him already to speak. Are you with me or did I just lose you? Caroline: No, I’m here. Beatty: Maybe I’m going too deep in this. Let me pull back out before I get too deep. So faith is displayed by acting on God’s word. Jesus displays living by faith and, when you live by that faith, you act on His word then amazing things happen. I want to tell a personal story. We all kind of get caught into this because we get our eyes on the natural rather than our eyes on God. Jesus always kept His eyes on the Lord. He said, “Everything I do is what I see my Father doing.” He’s always looking at the Father first. Go back quite a few years, this is 2002. We are running and making a lot of money the first part of 2002. We’ve got a large corporate account that is scheduled to leave on June 1 and as soon they leave, we are going to be upside down. We are going to lose huge amounts of money, more money a month than most people will earn in a year. We hit June, we start to go upside down. The first month or two, I’m okay. By the third or fourth month, somewhere in there, I start to panic. Oh my gosh, I’m scared. Because I look in the natural. Just like Peter walking on the water, he looks at the wind and the waves and he gets scared. I’m looking in the natural; I get scared. We start to batten down all the hatches. Everyone is put on forced payroll reduction. I take the biggest cut of everyone. My number two man takes the second biggest cut and everyone else takes a bit cut as well. We are trying to weather the storm and we are losing money month after month. Now, it’s January 2003. Now, we’ve been unprofitable, losing money for about six months. Do you get the picture so far? It’s desperate, dire circumstances. Right? Caroline: Right. Beatty: So I’m out there on my day of prayer. I take a day off and say, “Lord, I am going to meet with you.” I’m out there. It’s now the end of January, just a couple of days before the end of the month and I’m on the golf course which is where I take my day of prayer. I don’t play, I just walk and pray and talk. I’m asking the Lord, “Lord, when are you going to let up? Do you know what the Lord told me? He asked me a question. “Do you really believe I can take care of you?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “If you really believe, how would you act differently than you are acting right now?” So what I said is, “Well, if I really believed it then I would put myself at full pay and I would put all my other people at full pay.” He said, “Then why don’t you do it and trust me?” Okay? This is what I’m talking about with radical faith. It makes no sense, but it is trusting the Lord. It is doing what Jesus said. Jesus trusted the Lord and He never feared. Why do we fear? Because we live in the natural. So I did. I put my eyes on Him instead of on the circumstances and I called my number two guy at the time, his name was Walter and I said, “Walter, put me and everyone else back at full pay, retroactive for the full month” because everyone had gotten a short paycheck midmonth. And so he did. Two days later, payroll hit. We lost a lot of money because that was a lot of money that we didn’t have. But here’s the cool thing. The very next month, we made a profit and this is a small business, we had a $20,000 swing on our bottom line, $20,000 more on our bottom line than we had the month before. And I looked at the P and L and I couldn’t find it even to this day, I’ve go back to that P and L multiple times and there is nothing there where we had a lot more revenue, less expenses. I don’t know how it happened, but it happened. And, for the next string of months, we were profitable. What changed? What changed in all that? Do you know? Caroline: Your faith. Beatty: Yes. I acted on my faith. Faith is perfected by works. That’s what this is meaning. So for those of you guys listening out there, what are you afraid of that you know God has said, “Trust me.” If you really believe God’s word to be true, how would you act differently than you are acting right now? And whatever that is, do it, because that is what James is talking about. Faith is perfected by works. Faith without works is dead. Therefore, you cannot believe unless you are going to show that belief through your works. Pretty fascinating isn’t it? Caroline: It is. That was a really inspiring story too. I think it also makes a better definition of that verse and that challenge explaining how faith and works go hand and hand. They are not in opposition of one another. Beatty: No, they definitely are not. We are going to go just a little bit over on this call but I have some points I want to wrap up with. So what faith really is, Caroline, it is seeing from God’s perspective. See, when Peter was walking on the water he was looking at Jesus seeing Jesus’ perspective and he was walking then he looked from His perspective into the waves and he gets scared. And in the very same situation he has two completely outcomes. One outcome by perfecting his faith through works. The other outcome by getting afraid and stop working by faith. Okay? The same thing happened with me, just reversed with the money. So when we see what God sees then we believe as God believes (if you want to use the term “God believes”). When we see as God sees then we get to believe as God believes and then when we act on that belief that is when our faith is perfected. And the challenge that we run into, and this is why it is so tough. Let me ask you a question instead of making a statement. Are we more spirit being or physical being? As a Christian? Caroline: Spirit being. Beatty: Okay. Where do we spend all of our time, focus and our sensory senses? Physical or spiritual? Caroline: I guess physical Beatty: Yes. So here is our problem. We are more spirit beings living in the spirit or should be, but where we actually live most of our time is in the physical because we have physical bodies. We have our sight, sound, hearing, everything, taste, touch is all physical. It’s easy to lose sight of spiritual truths because we get to see everything in the physical. This is where the challenge comes from. But if we can overcome and look in the spirit realm, both figuratively and literally. We look in the spirit realm figuratively and spiritually by looking at God’s truth and his truth trumps the physical. Okay? It is what it is. I want to give you some examples. I want to give you some passages and some scriptures and show you how this plays itself out in the scriptures. The first one comes from 2 Kings, Chapter 6. This is Elisha and his servant. This is actually where we get the term “chariots of fire.” There is a battle with King Aram. King Aram is the enemy king and any time he makes a move against the Israel king then Elisha is telling the Israel king what is going on. So the Israel king gets to adjust. It may have been Judah, but I think it’s Israel. And now, that is where we pick up. “This enraged the king of Aram. He summoned his officers and demanded of them, “Tell me! Which of us is on the side of the king of Israel?” “None of us, my lord the king,” said one of his officers, “but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the very words you speak in your bedroom.” “Go, find out where he is,” the king ordered, “so I can send men and capture him.” The report came back: “He is in Dothan.” Then he sent horses and chariots and a strong force there. They went by night and surrounded the city. When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. “Oh no, my lord! What shall we do?” (Just like me. On my goodness, we are losing money, what do I do?) the servant asked. And then Elisha, who sees from God’s perspectives says, “Don’t be afraid,” the prophet answered. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” And Elisha prayed, “Open his eyes, LORD, so that he may see.” Then the LORD opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. Here is the point on this, once the servant saw from God’s perspective, which is in the spiritual realm, he was no longer afraid. Does that make sense? Caroline: Yes, that does. Beatty: Let me give you another example. Say it’s the 27th of the month, and this is personal for you and Wes, it’s the 27th of the month and you guys have $2,000 of bills needing to be paid and you don’t have the money. You don’t know where it is going to come from. You’ve run out of money for the month and you still have $2,000 left to pay. And this is critical. Maybe this is your mortgage. Okay? You are at risk of losing the house if you don’t pay it. So you are going to pray and ask the Lord to help you out, is that right? Caroline: Right. Beatty: Okay. So when you pray and ask God to send it, how solid is your faith that He is going to send you that money in the next two or three days? Caroline: Pretty solid because we just seen Him be faithful time and time again. He’ll be faithful again. Beatty: Let me ask you, would you put Jethro’s life on it? Do you believe it that much? Caroline: That such an intense question. I don’t know that the Lord would ask me that. Beatty: I know He wouldn’t but the question isn’t, how much do you really believe? Do we believe in essence, trusting that He is going to do something or do we have an absolute, unequivocal, absolutely $2,000 is going to show up in the mailbox or someone is going to bring it to me within the next two or three days. Caroline: That’s a good challenge to ask yourself. Beatty: I’m leading somewhere. I’m always leading somewhere with these questions. So the question is, we pray and we ask, but do we really believe. We trust, but do we really believe that $2,000 is going to how up in the mail in the next two days? Okay. So now, let’s look at it from God’s perspective for just a moment. One month ago, your mortgage company paid your taxes your taxes and insurance out of money from escrow. And they realized that they collected $2,000 more from you over the last year than was needed. So they processed a $2,000 check. It was mailed two days ago and you are about to get it today. Okay? That is God’s perspective. You know that that check is coming. You know all these details. Now when you pray and ask God for $2,000 do you have a different level of confidence that he is going to provide it. Caroline: Absolutely. You would have the whole scope. Beatty: So what changed? Caroline: You were placing yourself in Heaven’s perspective to see where the Lord is coming through. When you have the whole scope, your prayers change. You have faith and confidence. You can see that He will be faithful and He’s coming through. Beatty: In God’s perspective, everything changes. I think we talked about this a few times back that it’s all about seeing from God’s perspective. That’s what I am talking about here. This radical faith is seeing from God’s perspective. Elisha’s faith was not scared at all because he could see from God’s perspective. Once God opened the servant’s eyes to see from his perspective as well, he was no longer afraid. When we get our eyes focused on the natural, we become afraid. When we keep our eyes focused on the Lord and his truth, which is His perspective, then if we believe it, we are no longer afraid ourselves. The only way that we can demonstrate our belief is to act on it. That’s kind of how all that works. So that’s what faith is. Next time we will start on the topic I call, “Getting out of the boat.” We are laying the foundation now and now the next set of calls we going to start to get where the rubber meets the road and it’s going to be a lot of fun. You want to close us out real quick? Caroline: Sure. Well Beatty, thank you so much for your time and sharing all the revelation and wisdom that you received from the Lord. I think this really was a great and challenging call. I’m excited to hear next time about getting out of the boat and just continuing on in our conversation. I think we are going to wrap up. I don’t think we are doing a question and answer for this call. With that being said, Beatty, if you don’t have anything else, I think we are wrapped up. That’s all we have for today. Beatty: Great. Thanks a lot. Y’all have a great day. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please tell others about. Also, be sure to get our step-by-step training on how to double sales and referrals from past clients and sphere of influence. It’s absolutely the easiest way to grow your business fast and it’s completely free. You’ll find it on our website at GetSellersCallingYou.com. Thanks for listening. P004
Caroline: Hi everyone. I’m Caroline Springer. Welcome to this next session of Get Sellers Calling You with Beatty Carmichael. This is one of our special calls, our Radical Faith calls. I’m going to pass over the call to Beatty for just a moment. If you maybe want to explain what your vision is and idea is behind the Radical Faith series. Beatty: Sure. Most of these podcast calls are all focused on how do you grow a real estate business from a marketing perspective, but really we’re not only real estate agents. For those of us who are Christians, we’re also children of God and we have a responsibility there. We do these calls called Radical Faith and I just want to be right up front real quick. If you’re not interested in Christianity, if you don’t want to hear my views or perspectives from a religious standpoint, then you can go on and delete out of this podcast because that’s all we’re going to talk about on this call is how to server the Lord and how to live by faith. So that’s my little plug before we get started. Caroline: Perfect. Well, thank you, Beatty. I like it. It’s their free pass if they don’t want to listen. Beatty: That’s right. Free pass to leave before you get offended, right? Caroline: Yes, there you go. That’s a little claim labor kind of thing. Just a quick reminder about who Beatty is. Beatty is the CEO of Master Grabber. He’s the creator of Agent Dominator and one of the top marketing experts in the real estate field. Also, like Beatty just mentioned, he is a Christian and has been for much of his life and has been a Christian businessman for much of his life as well. I know just from dialoging with him back and forth on these and then watching Beatty work as a Christian businessman, he has so many testimonies of really actively seeing the word at work in his business and in his business partnerships, it’s really inspiring and refreshing in the world that we live in because so many people want you to keep your faith out of the business world. Whatever industry that you work in and for most of our listeners, that’s the real estate industry. Today, I really don’t have a topic because Beatty wanted to surprise me with what we’re talking about. We’ll just have a free, open dialogue and then just a reminder for those of you that are on our live call, we do have the lines muted, but we will open up at the end for questions and answers. So, Beatty, I’m very interested and curious what we’re going to be talking about since I don’t have any outline or idea. Beatty: We are actually going to be doing a continuation of the last 2 Radical Faith calls. We’ve been on the focus of trying to understand what faith is. Where this goes, as a Christian, is we want to first understand one of the core concepts of Christianity, of our relationship with the Lord and that is really understanding what faith is. Until you understand what faith is, it’s impossible to live as Christ lived because everything Jesus did was by faith. The only thing he really ever rebuked his disciples for, I think that probably out of 10 different rebukes I’ve seen 8 of them if not 9 are all focused on ‘Oh, ye of little faith’. Now, there may be more than 10, there may be less than 10 but the bottom line is, except with 1 or 2 exceptions is the only thing that Jesus rebuked his disciples about is their lack of faith. The question is, what is this thing that we call faith? Why is it so important? How do we apply it in our lives? If we can really understand it, then we can really start to follow it. Does that make sense? Caroline: Absolutely. Even going through some of these podcast calls in this series have been challenging and good for me too. They’ve brought me to more of an understanding and like you said, and even shedding more light on some of those things that you were saying where Jesus rebuked them for a lack of faith. Depending on the church that you go to, sometimes that gets watered down and some of that is overlooked. I think this is a good challenge but a refreshing, good challenge because when we’re invited into it, that’s what we are created to walk in. It’s a lot easier than it may feel at times because we don’t just have our strength, we have the Lords. Yeah, that makes total sense. I’m with you. Beatty: Great. If we look at the ultimate goal of our Christian life, it’s to be transformed by the renewing of our minds and become more into the image of Christ. That’s the process of what’s typically called sanctification. The question is, how do we get there? The first step is the concept of faith and that’s why I want to dig into it a little bit more. When we start talking about faith, Jesus talks about faith and belief as 2 separate things. The Bible starts to make clarity that faith and belief are actually different. However, for simplicity sake, as we go into this right now, I’m going to combine them together. Sometimes Jesus may say, believe. Sometimes he may say, have faith, but for real basic understanding, we’re going to assume that they’re both the same and maybe on a later discussion we’ll separate them out and define what they are separately. With that, let’s talk about what faith really is. I want to go back to just a few foundational passages that start to give us a framework and some simple truths. One of the truths that apart from faith, we can receive nothing from the Lord. James I, 6 and 7, let’s test your scripture memory. Do you know what James I, 6 and 7 says? Caroline: Oh, gosh. You always put me on the spot like that. Beatty: I’ll bet you’re looking it up in your Bible right now. No, I’m teasing. Caroline: Well, I know it’s about faith and then when you’re asking the Lord and you don’t doubt. Beatty: Yes, that’s it. That’s exactly it. Caroline: Is it something along those lines? The reason is because we just talked about that recently so I promise it really was because of that. Beatty: I love it. Well, it was a special circumstance. Here’s what this says. It says, ‘but he must ask in faith without any doubting for the one who doubts ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord’. Here, we can find one of these pivotal truths that without faith, it’s impossible to receive anything from the Lord. This is also where Jesus says in Mark 11:24, which is the next foundational truth, and that is ‘when we pray by faith, we receive what we ask for’. We know it to be true because it’s a spiritual truth, but sometimes the question is if we pray and we don’t receive, it doesn’t invalidate the truth, it just means that we did not fully apply it. But here’s what Jesus says. Mark 11:24, ‘Therefore I tell you whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours’. A real simple question, is that an emphatic statement or do you think there’s a lot of wiggle room in that statement? Caroline: No. I don’t think there’s a lot of wiggle room in the Bible at all. Beatty: Yeah, right, okay. Caroline: I think that’s a truthful statement. Beatty: It’s a truthful statement because Jesus said it and therefore if we pray, say, well, I prayed in faith and I didn’t receive it, all I can tell you just because you didn’t receive it doesn’t mean that you prayed in faith. We have truth and then we have experience. We’re going to get a little bit into today, but more in subsequent sessions what happens when we think we’re acting by faith, but we’re really not and how does that impact what we get. We have this second foundational statement that when we pray by faith, we receive what we ask for. The third foundational statement that I want to kick off this call with is at the heart of all sin is unbelief or a lack of faith. As you read through Old Testament to New Testament, especially going through the Israelites coming through the desert and in the wilderness and for 40 years. What the Lord’s word keeps saying is they did not believe, they did not trust and because of that, God’s wrath burned against them. What we find is that the lack of faith or an unbelief is really the root of all sin in our life. This is where one of Jesus’ primary rebukes, ‘oh ye of little faith’. That’s the only thing he really rebuked his disciples for consistently. Why that and what is is it? That’s the preamble. Let’s start talking about this. The Bible tells us specifically, let’s test your scripture memory location on this one. There’s a verse in the Bible that says, ‘faith is’, so you remember where that might be? Caroline: That’s in Hebrews 11. Beatty: Yay. Good job. Caroline: The reason I remember that is because we did talk about that in one of our recent calls, but that is a verse that I will go to a lot at ones time in life. Beatty: Hebrews 11:1, ‘now faith is the assurance of things hoped for. The conviction of things not seen’. The Bible tells us what that is. I want to read 2 other versions of that same verse to show you how these translations start to explain it further. In The Living Bible, it says, ‘What is faith? Faith is the confident assurance that something we want is going to happen. It’s the certainty that what we hope for is waiting for us even though we cannot see it up ahead’. Now, let me define the word ‘hope’ in the Bible is not used the same way as we use it here in America. I hope it doesn’t rain. That’s the way we use it here in America. In the Bible when the word hope is used, it’s an absolute assurance of a promise. The hope of salvation. It’s not like, well, we hope I’m believing this thing right. No, the hope of salvation is the absolute assurance of it. When it says that it is the certainty that what we hope for is waiting for us even though we cannot see it up ahead, this is talking about it’s this absolutely certainty of what’s going on. The Amplified Bible gives my favorite definition this one. It says this, ‘Now, faith is the assurance or the title deed of things we hope for. Being the proof of things we do not see and the conviction of reality. And then it puts in brackets [faith is perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses]. What we have, Caroline, is we have the concept of faith which is a title deed. We talked last time about a title deed being, you know if you have title to your car that means you own it, is that right? Do you remember that? Caroline: Yes. Beatty: Okay. So you own the car, which means you have claim to it and no one can take it from you because it is yours. And that is what we are talking about with faith. It is title deed of the things that we hope for. This is now starting to move into where faith really starts to come in because faith is not in the physical world; it is not in the Earthly realm. It is of the spiritual world or the Heavenly realm. And faith is perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses. In other words, it’s perceiving as reality what in the physical realm we have nothing to tell us it’s there. This is why faith is sometimes so difficult for people. It’s because we are trying to apply our physical senses and our physical being into it. And it’s a supernatural type of element. Okay? That is why it is kind of tough at times. Let me ask you a question. Can you truly believe in and have faith in something that is not true? What do you think? Caroline: That is not true? I would think, no. Beatty: No, you can’t. There is no way to truly believe and have faith in something that is false. That would merely be a deception but you can’t have faith based on this definition. By definition, it the title deed. It is the absolute actual ownership of it, which means that it must be true. And so what I want suggests is that there is a difference between truth and what is true. Okay? Let me see if I can make sense with this. We are children of God, sons of the Kingdom. Does that make sense so far? Caroline: Yes. Beatty: Does our Father have and possess all possessions? Does he have all provisions and have enough to meet all of our needs? Caroline: Yes. Beatty: Okay. So it may be true that I am broke, but truth is my Father owns it all and can take care of all my needs. It may be true that I sick, but truth is, He can take away my sickness and disease because that is the heart of the Father. It may be true that I am broken and downhearted, but truth is, I have all joy and peace in Christ. Do you see the difference between true and truth? Caroline: Right. I think that is a great depiction of it. Beatty: So truth, is God’s word. True is what I perceive in mind’s eye, my natural eye, as what is my reality right now. What we are going to find, especially in the later things that we talk about, is that there is a difference between what is true and what truth is. And truth trumps reality because reality will change. If we go back to Jesus’ statement back in Mark, it says, “Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours.” So we have this thing that says believe which is the root word for faith. Have faith that you’ve received it and then it will be yours. But the converse is true. If you don’t have faith and you receive it, then it is not going to be yours. So we have the difference between truth and true. Truth is you believe by faith and it is yours. What’s true is that you may not believe by faith and it’s not yours. So true, or reality, is not fixed but truth is. And you can only faith in what is truth because you can only have faith in what is fixed by the Lord. I may be kind of confusing you, but are you following where I’m going on that? Caroline: I am. I think that is a great reminder. I think you are such a great teacher the way you explain the differences between things. I am completely following you. I think that was a great explanation between those and what that means for us. I am following. Beatty: So the next step is, where does this faith come from? And so, Romans tells us, in Romans 10:17: “Faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ.” So now we have the scriptural reference that faith is based off of truth, which is the word of Christ. But I want to dissect this passage in Romans a little more. Faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. I remember when this passage was explained to me. Go back quite a few years ago; this is now 1997. Okay? I’m an unemployed, stay-at-home dad. My wife is a stay-at-home mom. We have a baby in diapers. Another baby came that year. I was trying to make ends meet. I did 13 different things that year. We had a mortgage on the car and a mortgage on the house and everything else. I did 13 things to try to make money. My entire income set this year was $11,882. That was my adjusted gross income. You can tell that I didn’t do a really good job, but the Lord blessed us. I’ll share more about that later. But we came through a period of time when we had nothing. During that period of time, we continued to give 20% of whatever we earned directly into the Lord’s work before we spent any of it. So even in our lack, what happened was, we realized we could trust the Lord and he would take care of us. Kind of the net of what happened there was, we were never late on any of our payments. In fact, we never missed a payment. We never went hungry. We had plenty of everything we needed. The Lord completely took care of us. It was an amazing experience. When I started our business and the business started to grow, I was meeting with a Christian business man, a mentor of mine named Tom. We were looking at our PnL. For those of you who don’t know what a PnL is, it’s basically like a scorecard that basically tells you if your business is making money or not. Every month we are growing my $20,000 profit. $20,000, $40,000, $80,000, like that. And I’m over here tickled pink. I’m all excited. I’m meeting with my friend Tom and saying, “Tom, how can I have faith when I can see the money on the PnL?” Because, in my mind, faith was, you have no knowledge of what is going on and therefore you merely have to trust the Lord to take care of you. That was my definition of faith. Does that make sense? Does that kind of ring true that most people’s definition of faith is, “I’m just trusting the Lord because I have no knowledge of anything else”? Are you following where I’m going on that? Caroline: I am and that is exactly what I was thinking. I think that is probably true for a lot of people from what they have experienced and from what they know. I’m sure that would resonate with a lot of people. Beatty: So faith is not trusting God; I hate to say it that way. Trust comes out of faith but trust is not faith. If we come back to Romans 10:17, it says, “Faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ.” And so I asked Tom, “How can I have faith when I can see the money and it is growing every single month.” That is when he said, “Faith doesn’t come from seeing. Faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ.” Where is that? Romans 10:17. And it totally rocked my world in starting to understand what faith really meant. So I wanted to take this moment to start to dissect this and talk about this. So there are two key words in this passage. “Hearing” and “word.” “Faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of Christ.” So if you look at the Greek word—and I’m not a Greek scholar, I just happen to have a concordance that happens to have the Greek in there. The word hearing means audible. It is not reading. Faith doesn’t come by merely reading the word; it comes by hearing it. Now, there are different ways to hear it. Sometimes the Lord highlights it off of the page. Other times he impresses it in some significant way. Other times, it may be audible. I mean, I’ve heard the word of God audibly once in my life. It was really clear and it surprised the heck out of me. I looked around, “Where did that come from? No one is here.” But faith comes from hearing the word of God. It is that audible side of things. The main thing I want to focus in on is “word.” Faith comes from hearing the word of Christ. And there are actually two primary Greek words used in the New Testament that translate into the English word called “word.” Let’s test your Greek knowledge. Do you have an idea of what those words are? Caroline: That I do not know. Beatty: Okay, so the two Greek words are: logos and rhema. I knew you knew it. What happens is, sometimes we hear these things but maybe they don’t come out quit so quickly. I am not trying to embarrass you; I’m just trying to create dialogue. Caroline: I did know both of those words as soon as you said them. Beatty: Here is what they are. Here is a simple definition of logos: A statement that embodies an idea. Let me give you three verses and I’ll show you how this comes out. Mathew 5:32 states, “Jesus says, ‘But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife except for the reason of unchastity makes her commit adultery.’” That word reason, “except for the reason of unchastity” – that is logos – except for the idea of unchastity. Then you have Mark 2:2. It says, “And many were gathered together, so that there was no longer room, not even near the door and he [talking about Jesus] was speaking the word to them.” That word is logos. He was speaking a statement that embodies an idea. He was talking to them. Then we have another example that is in Luke 1:2. It says, “Just as they were handed down to us by those who, from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word.” The word is the Gospel. “Eyewitness and servants of the word” is logos—a statement that embodies an idea. So we see this word throughout scripture and it is important but it doesn’t have a whole lot of power behind it. It’s just talking about a concept of an idea. Are you following along with me? Caroline: Yes. Beatty: So then we look at the word rhema, which is the other primary Greek word. Now, if there are any Greek scholars out there, I understand there are lots of meanings and lots of ways to interpret the word. I’m just focusing on what I call the framework of what goes on here. I’m not trying to become a Greek scholar. I’m just trying to share generally. This is just generally framework of what these are. So a simple definition of rhema means: By implication of matter, especially of an operation, command or dispute. So it is a little more specific, but when I start to show you how rhema is used in scripture, or at least in sample scripture, we start to see that it is different from the word logos. This concept of faith comes from hearing the word of Christ, hearing the rhema of Christ. I think this is significant because now it starts to give us an idea of what we can actually have faith in. Okay? So let’s look a couple passages. The first one is in Mark. It’s Mark 14:72. This is at the time when Jesus has been taken before the high priest. It says, “And immediately the cock crowed a second time. And Peter remembered how Jesus had made the remark to him, ‘Before the cock crows twice, you will deny Me three times.’” “He remembered how Jesus had made the remark to him.” “Made the [rhema] to him.” So Jesus made a very specific comment, very specifically to Peter that had a very specific outcome. That’s a rhema. Okay? So we look at Luke 1:38. This is Mary talking to the angel. “And Mary said, ‘Behold the bondslave of the Lord; may it be it done to me according to your word.’ And the angel departed from her.” “Let it be done to me according to your word,” according to your rhema, according to that statement, that direction, that command, that promise, that forth telling of what is going to happen. Okay? Here is another one in Luke 5:5. “And Simon answered and said, ‘Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing, but I will do as you say and let down the nets.” “I will do as you [rhema] and let down the nets.” Do you see the difference between logos and rhema? Logos is kind of a general idea, but rhema tends to carry with it very specific instructions, very specific promises of what is about to happen. Do you see this played out in scripture? Caroline: Absolutely. I think too with rhema it almost feels like there is more of an action with it, even though it is still a word, it kind of feels like there is more of a speaking action. I don’t know if that is right, but it feels that way. Beatty: You are right; it is more of a speaking action. It is something that you can sink your teeth into. And so when we talk about faith and living our life by faith and acting by faith, it is not simply acting by ideas, it is acting on truth. And so if we go back to truth versus true, you can only have faith in truth because only truth is solid and in each of these examples of rhema, there was a truth given and that truth occurred and, therefore, when that truth was given as a rhema, then the recipient of that truth could have faith in it that it was going to happen. It’s confident assurance of something to occur that we cannot see right now. Does this kind of wrap it together a little bit? Caroline: I think it does. I think that was a great explanation too and even gave people a picture of it. That’s great explanation of that. Beatty: So if we go back to the amplified version: Faith is the title deed, okay? When Jesus told Peter before the cock crows twice you will deny me three times. That is a title deed. You can take that to the bank because Jesus made a comment that is the absolute truth and then it occurred. An angel told Mary, “You are going to have a child and you are not going to have relationships with a man to have that child. You are going to be a virgin.” She said, “Be it done according to your word.” That was her title deed because the Lord had delivered that message to her. Or when Jesus told Peter, “Drop down the nets.” “We worked late all night, but by your command we will do it.” That’s what rhema is. This is where faith comes from. It comes from this concept of rhema. What’s interesting is the Holy Spirit is just an amazing helper. So you have the Holy Spirit that is sent to us, as believers, to guide us through the scripture, to interpret the scripture, and to highlight things to us. It’s basically guiding us through the entire path in life to ensure that we hear God’s instructions to us. So basically it’s our choice if we want to follow it or not. It’s not really our choice, but He gives us some choice in the matter. And so what happens is, we can be reading God’s word and we might read something that would normally be logos, such as Jesus giving the parable of the servant with the ten minas. The master says, “Well done faithful servant. Because you were faithful with a little, take charge of ten cities.” So if you just read that you are going to say, “That’s a nice story.” But then something may be going on in your life and the Holy Spirit causes that passage to stand out and you read over it and it’s like your eyes just latch onto it. Almost like a pair of magnets and something is really unique. Have you ever had that happen as you read the scripture, something just kind of stands out and you go, “The Lord is telling me something here”? Have you ever had that happen? Caroline: Oh, absolutely. Things or highlighted or things jump out or something happens and I start thinking about it. That has happened to me. Something will happen and I’ll be reading about it and then I’m look, “Oh, that was you.” So absolutely. Beatty: Perfect. So here is what is going on. The Holy Spirit will take that passage and highlight it. And when that happens, in this kind of loose terminology of logos versus rhema that becomes your rhema. That now becomes something that you can have faith in because not it has spoken to you by the Holy Spirit. Now obviously we want to make sure that it’s the spirit that his highlighting it not just our own desires. But as you mature as a believer than you can discern the difference between when the Holy Spirit is telling you to take notice because this is for you versus when we are trying to say, “Oh, I want this for me.” Okay? But when the Holy Spirit highlights it, then what happens is he takes the general word of God, the logos, and he turns it into a rhema for you that now you have the title deed to it. And now when you pray for that, believing that you received that you received, believing by faith, then that is when you receive it. This is when you ask for something, let not a man doubt, otherwise you should expect nothing from the Lord. So when we have the title deed, then we have no way to doubt it. Is this starting to open up these concepts? Caroline: Absolutely. I was just thinking about how that is coming full circle and connecting. I think that was great explanations that makes connections between all of that. I think that for a lot of people these are concepts or thoughts that maybe they’ve heard a lot but this is bringing new or deeper truth or revelation to the depth of what we are being invited into. I’m thankful that I get to be on the receiving end of this. Beatty: I love it. Well, do me a favor because I know we are out of time for this segment. I would love for you to sum up what you got out of this, anything that stands out and we will kind of start to wrap up the call. Caroline: Okay. You put me on the spot here. I think like you said in the beginning, one of the concepts that I think that I’m continually trying to renew my mind about is about hope and assurance and like in that verse where the title deed example you were using about salvation. This is like our deed. Because I think that sometimes the world that we live in—or like you said, the American culture—we look at things through a certain lens. We look at faith; we look at hope. We look at what we can ask for through a certain lens. Maybe even what we’ve experienced or seen other Christians say is available. I think this has been really good as an invitation. “Hey this is real. This is what we have access to. It’s not like an “I have to try.” It’s not an “as hard as I can pray and ask the Lord for something.” It’s like a complete washing of your mind, of saying, “Okay, this is true. This is what we have access to. This is what is real. This is the Kingdom and the reality that I choose to be more aware of than what my surroundings are. Even like you said, if it’s something that we pray for and haven’t seen what we’ve asked the Lord for, it’s just saying, “Hey Lord, this is what your promise is.” I’m going to stand in this. I’m going to stand in this truth and in this promise and continue praying and continue believing. I feel like this is a good and an exciting challenge what we are invited to as sons and daughters, what we have access to, to not question it and not doubt and not ever stand back from what we know to be available in truth. When you are talking, my mind is going a million different places of different things and different examples and to my own relationship with the Lord. So those are the things that I was getting out of it. I don’t know if that is a perfect summation. Beatty: I think it’s a great summation. Absolutely. Caroline: Okay, good. I think there is a lot we can learn from this. I’m going to share the recording myself. Beatty: Well good. I think we are probably about out of time for this session. Is that correct. Caroline: Yes, we are. I didn’t want to interrupt you because it was so good. But yes, we are out of time and we need to wrap it up. Beatty, thank you so much for your time and for your willingness to share a revelation that you received from the Lord and what you’ve walked with in the Lord and for giving us all of this great challenge of who we are and what we are called to do and what is available. So, if you are on the live call with us, what we are going to do is wrap up and if you have any questions that you would like to ask Beatty, just hang on and we’ll go into a short Q&A session. So I think that is all for today. But thank you again, so much, Beatty, for sharing. Beatty: Well, thank you. I’ve enjoyed it. Y’all have a great day. Beatty: This has been the Get Sellers Calling you marketing podcast for real estate agents and I’m Beatty Carmichael. For simple to do, proven marketing strategies focused exclusively on finding sellers and getting more listings, visit our website at GetSellersCallingYou.com. Poo3
Radical Faith – What is Faith – Part 1 Caroline: Hi Everyone. This is Caroline Springer and welcome to the next session of Get Sellers Calling You with Beatty Carmichael. This is one of our Radical Faith calls and Beatty, would you like to share what your vision is and what that means. Beatty: Yeah, I appreciate that. I’d love to. As you know, we do these marketing calls on real estate marketing all the time, but I’m also a Christian businessman, so I’d like to periodically do some calls we call Radical Faith which is from a Christian perspective. We announce these calls up front. This is a Radical Faith call so if you don’t have any interest in Christianity, if you don’t want to hear my views on living for the Lord, then we let you know up front so you can press delete on this podcast audio and not listen to it. Now, you are forewarned. Today, what I want to talk about is kind of digging deep into what it means to live by faith and how does the Lord start to providentially or miraculously work at times in your life when you do. That’s the direction I want to take today’s call. Caroline: Oh, well great. I’m excited to explore that. I know that’s something that my husband and I have received a lot from the Lord as well, just in our marriage. So, I’m excited to hear your thoughts and experiences and just receive your wisdom. Beatty: Well, I appreciate that. Hopefully, it’s wisdom. We’ll see. Oh, no, I’m teasing on that. What is it, to share the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. There is some wisdom in here because I’m sharing the Lord. I want to kind of get started and I just kind of set the stage for those of you listening in. Normally, I provide an outline of the call to Caroline so she can follow. On today’s call, I provided nothing. So, she is absolutely clueless as to what direction this is going. None of this is premeditated or pre-rehearsed for Caroline. We’re going to put Caroline on the hot seat some of these times and see where she is. I want to start off with three boxes. I want you to visualize three boxes. One box is going to be about the size of a jewelry box, a small box maybe like what you’d put a ring in. Box number two is a little bit larger box. It’s probably like an Amazon box when you order something and here it comes, that Amazon box stuck on your front door. For the third box, I want you to think of a great big box, like a moving box, but I want you to imagine taking a knife and slicing down the edges of the box so that all of the sides of the box lay flat. In other words, there’s not structure to the box. It’s just a flat piece of paper. I’ve just got to ask you, Caroline, what do those three boxes represent? Caroline: Oh, my goodness. Let’s see where you’re going. Maybe just the amount of faith that you have in the Lord. What can you place in each of those? Beatty: Bingo! Caroline: That’s what they represent. Beatty: You’re dead on. I’m impressed. This is how most of us as Christians live our lives. We place God in a box. The size of the box is the size of our faith if we just want to use that as a very simple term. What that means is if I’m the jewelry box size person, I’m going to trust the Lord when I have to travel from one city to another. I’m going to trust that the Lord is going to take care of me. But, when times get tough, I start to get afraid because, oh my gosh, we’ve got all these bills and we’re not making any sales right now. It’s a down time in the real estate market and you start to get afraid because your God isn’t big enough to take care of your needs. Then you have the Amazon box size person. That person isn’t going to be as rattled as the jewelry box person. You go through down turns economically and you hold strong by faith. Then, something else happens. Maybe you have no money coming in and you got maybe six months of savings left and that’s it and you feel in your spirit the Lord telling you to give all of your savings away to this ministry. Now, you start to panic. You’re happy, you’re okay trusting the Lord, but you know you got that safety net or that savings account. So, now, you start to question. Well, did I really hear the Lord? Is that really what he wants me to do? I’m not sure I can do that. That’s the Amazon box size thinking person. Then you look at the moving box where you slice the edges out and you lay it flat and there are no limits to your God in that case. That’s the type of person that when you get that command, you know, give all your money away. You’ll go, okay, and you have no fear. The question is which of those three boxes represents your God and your faith. What I want to do is I want to walk us through what faith really is at a very simplistic approach and walk us through kind of how do you go from being that jewelry box person to that moving box without any sides. How do you take that leap of faith, if we want to use that terminology and actually start to trust the Lord? First, I’ve got a question and since Caroline, you’re my guinea pig on this one, let’s see where you are. Is faith active or passive? Caroline: Active, absolutely. I mean, I think the world might even try to argue that it’s passive but faith is an invitation to trust. Faith is an action of letting go of our natural human concern and choosing to trust the Lord. Beatty: That’s exactly right. I think what James says, so, you say you have faith, but I will show you my faith by my works. In other words, I’m going to act it out and show it to you. So, you’re right. Faith displays itself through our actions. I want to challenge you guys on the call to experience the Lord in a new way, to seek him in a new way and to see him really work in an amazing way in your life that maybe you haven’t seen before. I will probably tell a lot of stories as we go along. What we’re going to do is actually a whole series that we will end up completing over time, step-by-step, taking it one step at a time. I want to talk first, real quickly, about why we should live by faith. What does the Bible say? Here are four statements that I’d like to suggest about faith because these are maybe some misnomers. You can live a nice, clean, moral life without any faith. Living by faith is not living a clean life. It’s not living a moral life because Jesus even rebuked the Pharisees of the day who lived a clean, moral life and he rebuked them for their lack of faith. Faith has nothing to do with living a moral life. It is part of it, but it has nothing to do with it. James says, that apart from faith, we can receive nothing from God. This is James 1: 6-7 and it says, “But we must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord.” Here’s a question, why should we not to expect to receive anything from the Lord if we doubt? Has it something to do with faith? Question for you, Caroline. Jesus primarily rebuked his disciples and his apostles for one thing, do you remember what that one thing is? Caroline: Their lack of faith. Beatty: Yeah, their lack of faith. It wasn’t their short comings. It wasn’t their mistakes. It wasn’t all these other things with the exception of one exception that I know of. Every rebuke Jesus gave his disciples and his apostles was, oh, ye of little faith. If it’s so big primarily that Jesus ever rebuked his disciples about, then we ought to take notice and kind of understand what this is. The last statement I want to make is faith is essentially the act of believing God’s words. Praying in faith is the act of submitting that faith of action before the Lord. It’s when we act by faith and we pray by faith, that’s when we start to receive God’s promises, God’s provisions, in a mighty way. As James says, without faith we shouldn’t expect to receive anything. I wanted to turn real quick. I know you’re probably driving down the road so you can turn in your Bible, but let me give you the reference. It’s Mark 11:22 and this is Jesus talking, and he says, “Therefore I say to you, all things which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them and they shall be granted you.” Here’s my question. Why is that? Why are we to believe that we’ve received them, which is past tense, believe that we’ve already received, and then he says, “then they shall be granted you” future tense? So, we’re to believe in the past tense that we’ve already got what we’ve asked for and then in the future tense it’s actually going to come to us. Have you ever pondered that, Caroline? Caroline: I actually haven’t from that past versus future tense. I’m familiar with that verse and I like to look at it as an invitation for our mind to be renewed and for us to think like the Kingdom, or the way that the Kingdom thinks, because the way that Jesus invites us. He says, the only way we can enter the Kingdom is if we have faith like a child. So, just in that kind of mindset, I look at my son and he doesn’t ever question whether he’s going to be fed or things like that. It’s just that he knows. It’s just in the fiber of his being. In the command in Mark, I think with what you’re saying about the past versus future, I think just having that foundational trust of never questioning or doubting. Just knowing. Believe that it’s already happened. I don’t have to think about it. That’s the invitation. I love what you’re pulling out of that, the past versus present or future. That’s my interpretation of just having such a trust; you don’t even think about it. It’s just going to happen. Beatty: It’s actually more than that. Let’s talk about it for a moment and this one session may turn into two sessions as typically happens with me. Let’s lay a foundation. Who modeled the perfect Christian life for us? Caroline: Jesus, absolutely. Beatty: Did Jesus do anything that was not already done in Heaven? In other words, when Jesus says, I only do the thing I what? Can you complete that sentence? Caroline: I’ve seen my Father do. Beatty: That’s right. I’ve only do the things I’ve seen my Father do. Were those things done in the past or in the future that his Father did? Caroline: I guess in the past if he’s saying he’s seen his Father do them. Beatty: Okay, so watch this. Jesus only did what He saw his Father do which means His Father did them first and we know it happened in the Heavenly realm and so now, Jesus does them second in the Earthly realm. Jesus knew they had already been done and then he did them. If we convert this into prayer, we believe that we’ve already received them, past tense, Heavenly realm, and then they shall be granted us, future tense, Earthly realm that Jesus did. Does that make sense? Caroline: Absolutely. I love that. Pulling out that explanation, I think that’s huge. Thank you. Beatty: We see this again twice in Matthew. Jesus said, whatever you bind on Earth will be bound in Heaven, but the better translation, the more accurate, whatever you bind on Earth shall have been bound in Heaven. Whatever you lose on Earth shall have been lost in Heaven. In other words, what we do on Earth is a mirror of what’s already been done in Heaven. So, when we pray, believing that we’ve received, what we’re doing is that we’re praying, in Jesus’ name, by His authority, which means that it has to be by His will and we’re praying that we receive what’s already ours. Pray that we’ve received it and it shall be granted you. Anyway, we’re digressing again, but does that make sense? We’ll probably get into that a little bit later in another one of these calls. Caroline: No, that does. I like it. I love the tangent stuff. Beatty: So, we’re going to probably hit a lot of tangents as we go through this because it’s just so much fun. Now we’ve got these, what I call the four simple statements of faith. It’s not about living a moral life, but it is about acting on God’s word and praying in faith on God’s word, praying that He’s going to do it because we pray by His authority. The simple prayer that Jesus taught us in terms of the process of how we pray. Pray like this: Father, that your will be done on Earth as it is or as it is already done in Heaven. So, we see all this understanding that it’s already done in the Heavenly realm. What we’re praying and what we’re doing is manifesting it in the Earthly realm. That’s why you see all this stuff that Jesus says, believe that you’ve already received it and it shall be yours. Then, the question comes up, why do we live by faith? Well, Romans 1 tell us that the righteous man shall live by faith. It’s not that he shall be by faith which is passive. It’s that he shall live by faith, so we have an active statement. Luke 18 says, this is Jesus talking, and he says, “However, when the Son of man comes, will He find faith on the Earth?” Why do you think Jesus said, will He find faith on the Earth rather than will He find people loving the Lord on the Earth? Will He find goodness and love overcoming evil? Why do you think, Caroline, that He said, when the Son of man comes, will He find faith on the Earth? That’s all He’s looking for. Caroline: I think, like you said at the very beginning of the call, you can live a good and moral life outside of faith. You can live a, quote, good and moral life even apart from Jesus. So, the invitation for faith is not just to live a good life, it’s to live the life He envisioned for us. It’s to live the life of faith and the life of trust and receiving our position as sons and daughters. I think it’s an invitation beyond that, like those examples you were just saying. Beatty: Yeah, it’s a big invitation far beyond that. That’s what we’re hopefully going to uncover as we go forth. Luke 22, Jesus shows another thing. What I want you to understand is this is super important to the Lord. When I return, am I going to find faith on Earth? Luke 22 says, “But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail.” It’s so important that He’s looking for it when He returns. So important that He prays that it will not fail. There is something so significant here that this is the one thing that Jesus is focused on. Yet, most of us never think of it in those terms, as being that one thing that Jesus is really focused on. This is why I think we need to focus on it ourselves because it’s just such a big deal. Jesus keeps making it a big deal all throughout scriptures and yet, so frequently, we kind of gloss over it and I think we gloss over it because we don’t really understand it. Now, I want to. So let’s test your scripture memory, Caroline. What does the Bible say that faith is? Do you remember? Caroline: Oh, gosh. Faith is, oh, something about not being seen or unseen. Why is this so much better, the scripture is just escaping me? Beatty: Oh, I’m catching you off guard. I apologize. I don’t want to embarrass you. I’ve got it obviously because I’ve got my Bible in front of me and my notes that I’m working off of. This is Hebrews 11:1. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for. The conviction of things not seen, but I want to read it in a slightly different translation. This comes from The Amplified Bible, and I want you to try to grasp what this really is all about. It says faith is the assurance or the title deed of things we hope for. Now, by the way, hope, in the Bible is different than the word hope in the secular realm. When you and I say hope in our vernacular, we’re saying like, oh, I hope it doesn’t rain today. Meaning, I really desire that it not rain today. That’s not the way the Bible uses the word hope. In the Bible, when the word hope is used, it is an absolute certainty of what is coming in the future. So, we can’t say that this is something we hope for, meaning that we desire but we’re not really sure about it. In Bible terms, hope is an absolutely certainty. That’s what this is saying. Faith is the title deed or the absolute certainty of things we hope for. Title deed. Let’s talk about that real quick. I’ve got the title deed to my automobile. What does that mean? Caroline: It’s your proof of ownership. Beatty: That’s it. It’s my proof of ownership. Faith is the title deed of those things that have been promised. It is the proof of ownership. It means it is yours. That’s what this is talking about. Faith is the title deed, the proof of ownership of things that are yours. It’s the proof of things we do not see and the conviction of the reality. Faith is perceiving as real fact of what is not revealed to the senses. This concept of faith is perceiving of real fact what is not perceived by the senses. Do you have faith, Caroline, that radio waves exist? Caroline: Yes. Beatty: If we were to use that terminology, faith in this, do you have faith, are you acting by faith right now on this phone call? Caroline: Yes, I would assume so just because I know that when I dial in that those waves are going to transmit. Beatty: You’re on your cell phone, right? Caroline: Yes. Beatty: You’re acting by faith because your cell phone is using radio waves you cannot see but you know for an absolute certainty that they exist. And this is faith in the Bible. We cannot see it, but we know for an absolute certainty that they exist. The reason we can’t see it is because it’s the promise of God. It’s the truth of God. It’s the things that are already done in the Heavenly realm and we’re praying for them to be done in the Earthly realm. I digress a little bit from my notes, so let me go back. The question, then, is, how does this manifest itself in the scriptures? I can tell, right now, we will not make it through on today’s call keeping it at 30 minutes. How much time do we have? What’s our clock right now? Caroline: It is 12:25 right now, so we’ve got about five minutes. Beatty: Did we start right at 12 our time or do you recall how much time we have on this podcast? Caroline: We started maybe five after. Beatty: Okay, so we’ve got probably 8 or 10 minutes, so let’s see where we can go. Let’s look at faith in the Bible and kind of understand what faith is doing within Biblical times and we can start to understand, maybe, as we move in this direction, how it starts to impact in our lives. I want to talk first about Moses parting the Red Sea; this is in Exodus Chapter 13. I’m going to just kind of skip around a little bit, but just read this one second. It says, “And the Lord said to Moses, why are you crying out to me?” So here’s the background. God has just led Moses and the children of Israel to a dead end, right against the Red Sea. Then, here comes the Egyptians with Pharaoh and all the people get afraid and they start to cry out to God. This, I would say, is either the jewelry box God or possibly, for some of them, the Amazon box God, but not at all the moving box with the sides cut out. And so they’re crying because all they see in the natural is oh, my gosh, total destruction. Moses comes to the Lord and we ascertain from this that Moses is also concerned. He’s not concerned to the same degree as the rest of the people, but he’s pleading with the Lord. Here’s the Lord’s response. “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the sons of Israel to go forward.” Which direction is forward, Caroline? Caroline: That seems kind of like a trick question. I mean, forward? Beatty: Straight into the Red Sea, right? Caroline: Right. Beatty: So, God is telling them, “Hey, stop crying out to me, move forward, and straight into the Red Sea.” Now that makes no sense. This is where faith comes in, okay. And then God says, “As for you, lift up your staff and stretch out your hands over the sea and divide it and the sons of Israel shall go through the midst of the sea on dry land. Then, Moses stretched out his hands over the sea and the Lord swept back the sea by a strong east wind all night and turned the sea into dry land so the waters were divided.” So, here’s a question. Who acted in this story? Caroline: Moses did. Beatty: Yep. Moses acted and did he see before he acted? Caroline: No, he let his faith be his eyes. Beatty: Yeah and right. Moses acted before he could see, but why did he act? Caroline: Because of his faith and his trust in the word that the Lord had given him. Beatty: That’s right. He acted by faith in the Lord’s truth or in the Lord’s command and then who performed? Caroline: Oh, you mean like for the outcome? Beatty: Uh huh. Caroline: The Lord. Beatty: Okay, so now we see this pattern throughout. Man acts before he can see, but he acts on the clearly defined will of God and then God performs. That’s the pattern of God moving in one’s life providentially and miraculously. Let’s look at another story. This is Elijah and the widow. So, the backstory on this is this is during the reign of King Ahab. King Ahab is a wicked king. Elijah has gone to him and said, “You’re so wicked and until you change, I’m going to call for a drought on the land.” So, he calls for a drought on the land. There’s no rain. Everything’s drying up and then God takes care of Elijah with some ravens who bring him food and he’s by a brook and the brook dries up and now we pick up in I Kings 7. This is God now speaking to Elijah. “Arise. Go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon. This is outside of the Israeli territory, and stay there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you.” Now, let me ask you a quick question. I love this part of the story. Now, you’re familiar with this story that we’re going into, is that right Caroline? Caroline: Yes, I am. Beatty: Okay, so he said, behold I have commanded a widow there to take care of you. Do you think that widow knew anything of that command? Caroline: No, I would assume not. Beatty: Okay, so here we have the spiritual world intersecting with the Earthly world. God has commanded, past tense, and she knows nothing about it. This is where when we pray and act, we pray believing that we’ve already received it, because it’s already been done, and then it starts to happen. So, God has commanded a widow, but the widow knows nothing about the command. So that command had to have occurred in the spiritual realm, in the Heavenly realm, where she does not have the sensory to recognize it. Elijah arose and went to Zarephath and when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks and he called to her and he said, please get me a little water in a jar that I may drink. As she was going to get it, he called to her and said, please bring me a piece of bread in your hand. But she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have no bread. I only have a handful of flour in a bowl and a little oil in a jar and behold, I am gathering a few sticks that I may go and prepare for me and my son that we may eat it and die.” Then Elijah said to her, now here is the word of the Lord, Elijah said to her, “Do not fear, go do as you have said, but make me a little bread cake from it first and bring it out to me and afterward you may make one for yourself and for your son. For thus says the Lord God of Israel. The bowl of flour shall not be exhausted and the jar of oil shall not be empty until the day that the Lord sends rain on the face of the Earth. So she went and did according to the word of Elijah and she and he and her household ate for many days. The bowl of flour was not exhausted nor did the jar of oil become empty according to the word of the Lord which he spoke through Elijah.” Okay, so now we have this story, we have this backdrop. Question. Who acted in this story? Caroline: The widow acted. Beatty: Right. We actually have two people that acted. We have the widow who acted and then we also have Elijah who acted. Did they see before they acted? Caroline: No. They allowed their faith to be their eyes. Beatty: That’s right. So, Elijah went to Zarephath without knowing anything other than by God’s command. The widow trusted the word of the Lord and did what was said. So, why did they act? They acted without seeing, so why did they act? Caroline: Again, just letting their faith, putting their trust in the word of God and putting their trust in that and letting that be their eyes and be what overtook some of their fleshly concern and not seeing it. So, putting their faith and their trust in that and not physical trust. Beatty: They acted because of the word of the Lord and they trusted that Word and then who performed? Caroline: The Lord. Beatty: There you go. So, we’ve got the same pattern. Man acts before he can see but he acts because of the clearly defined will, or word, or command of the Lord, whatever you want to use it and then it’s the Lord who produces the results. Here’s something interesting that we also get out of this. Notice that the widow was to honor the Lord first. Elijah is the Lord’s representative and Elijah said, make me a bread cake from it first and then go back and make one for you and your son. So, we have this other truth that is weaved into this story and that truth is that the Lord wants us to always honor him first with all that we have. This is where we have the tithe, the first fruits, all these truisms of the Lord and how he sets us up because the Lord wants us to, not only honor Him, but trust Him first. What do you think would’ve happened if the widow made a bread cake for her and her son and then used whatever was left over for the Lord. What do you think would’ve happened then? Caroline: Well, I mean, I’d like to think that the Lord, I guess we don’t really know. I guess they wouldn’t have seen the abundance that they saw. Beatty: Okay, so let me ask it this way. Was it an act of faith to give the little bit of food she had first to the Lord or would it have been an act of faith to feed herself first and then give away anything left over to the Lord? Caroline: Right. I mean it would’ve been an act of faith to give to the Lord first. Beatty: Yep, yep. My guess is if she violated God’s word and tried to take care of her needs first, what that shows is a lack of faith in the Lord and I’m not sure the Lord would’ve produced. So, I know we’re about over time, but let me make one final comment on this. We’ll cover this in a later session, but how many of you on the call give financially to the Lord through tithes and offering but you give only what is left over because if that’s what happening, I’m willing to bet you never have much left over and you’re always paycheck to paycheck and sometimes less than that because you don’t trust the Lord. We’re going to talk about that on another topic. But we see that pattern happening here. We’ll have to continue another time. I think we’ve got to wrap up this call now, don’t we? Caroline: Okay, well, I was loving it. I think you have such an ability to bring out the patterns and showing the Bible is really our guide for how the Lord operates. It’s not something that we’re just reading old stories, it is things we can apply and can experience in our life with the Lord today. I love hearing your analytical showing like here’s how, here’s what the Lord is trying to communicate through these patterns. I love it, but yes, we are about out of time and need to wrap up. Beatty, thank you so much in opening yourself up and being willing to share your wisdom and just what you’ve perceived and learned from the Lord. I think it was a really great call. So, what we’re going to do is to wrap up and then for those of you that are on the live call, if you have any questions you’d like ask Beatty, if you will just hang on until we’ve wrapped up, we’ll go into a short question and answer period. I think that’s all I have unless there’s anything else you’d like to share, Beatty? Beatty: No, I guess that’s all for me as well. Caroline: Okay, well, thank you and thank you Beatty for sharing. Beatty: Okay, well, y’all have a great day. Thank you, Caroline. P001
[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent="no" equal_height_columns="no" menu_anchor="" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" class="" id="" background_color="" background_image="" background_position="center center" background_repeat="no-repeat" fade="no" background_parallax="none" parallax_speed="0.3" video_mp4="" video_webm="" video_ogv="" video_url="" video_aspect_ratio="16:9" video_loop="yes" video_mute="yes" overlay_color="" video_preview_image="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" padding_top="" padding_bottom="" padding_left="" padding_right=""][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type="1_1" layout="1_1" background_position="left top" background_color="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" border_position="all" spacing="yes" background_image="" background_repeat="no-repeat" padding_top="" padding_right="" padding_bottom="" padding_left="" margin_top="0px" margin_bottom="0px" class="" id="" animation_type="" animation_speed="0.3" animation_direction="left" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" center_content="no" last="no" min_height="" hover_type="none" link=""][fusion_text] Watch the live interview below [/fusion_text][fusion_youtube id="https://youtu.be/ETQuFR4pf5M" alignment="center" width="" height="" autoplay="false" api_params="&rel=0" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" class="" /][fusion_text] P026 Transcription (was completed by automated process. Please ignore any speech-to-text errors) [00:00:00] Hi, I’m Beatty Carmichael and welcome to another session of get sellers calling you a real estate podcast and I'm excited today because I get to interview just an amazing friend of mine a friend who's been with friends since 2012. Actually one of our very first clients and that's Stuart Sutton out of Austin Texas area so student Harry Stuart. How are you doing. I'm doing great. Thanks for having me today. Well I'm excited to have you because I used to pick your brains many years ago if you recall we did mastermind conference calls and I learned more about marketing for real estate agents than I ever could have. And you just been a wealth of knowledge there. [00:00:49] Well that's very nice of you I learned a tremendous amount from me too. [00:00:52] But we have definitely enjoyed working together. I just kind of set the stage. I know you don't brag about yourself so let me brag about you so people understand who it is I'm interviewing. You've been in business for a few years. Is that correct. Just started. Just started. How many years ago. Already for about thirty four years ago. And you are a Diamond Club member and a is at masters. Why were those two levels. [00:01:24] Well with Remax I'm going to get RE MAX for I just hit seven years. OK. I do have the lifetime achievement award with the chairman's job is an annual award which means you have to make over 500 thousand in the Diamond Club is the club you have to make over million a year. So yes I mean in each of those. [00:01:46] Very good. And and when you and I met we the thing that impressed me so much. [00:01:52] One of many is at the time you were doing between 80 and 100 transactions a year all personal production. And you were asked you know how many hours a week do you work. And you said between 35 and 40 hours. Do you remember that day. Yes sir. And it blew me away that you could have that type of volume on those few hours. And is that part that I really want to talk about on this call and just to understand what you do now. I know things have changed a little bit. So kind of give me an idea of where things are now if you don't mind. [00:02:30] Well we're just plugging away. I've narrowed down the number of transactions I do in my goal when I when I came with Remax was very straightforward and that was I want to do fewer transactions but I don't want any less income. So I had had a big team and we've done hundreds of deals and and all that. And I just was changing the way that I approach the business. So I now manage each of my clients myself by each of my team members manages each of their clients themselves. We do have staff that helps us but I have narrowed down from doing as you said 80 to 100 at that time and actually the year before I met you I've done 111 sales. Just personally now when you add my team in the volume is pretty impressive. But as a team we don't nobody knows what we do in the way of volume because each of my agents keeps their own. I let them keep their production for themselves. And unless you know who all my team members are a contract that nobody really knows what our volume is except from our Remax broker when we do that it's just it's real simple. I've been there done that with the big team in big volume and I want my agents to really get all the accolades that they worked so hard to get. So it's not just the you know I'm selfless I'd love to have you know all that production under my name but it's time for them to to you know they're just so proud when they go over a certain landmark and have a certain level of production I've got six agents that work for me and for make very good incomes very good incomes. [00:04:03] We know that integrity I have to. [00:04:06] So for the folks listening when we first got started we do a unique thing with with our services over at Master grammar and in identifying people who respond to a postcard. And I remember one of your friends that you helped you with marketing and then a coach. I think for many years he came out with something that you thought he kind of was trying to knock us off and you got so upset with him. I mean you were telling me you weren't talking to him on that and I had to hold you back but your integrity of the fact that someone would possibly take something you had shared and then turn around and use it you know and try to duplicate something I don't know if you recall that but. But when you were talking about your agents and letting them keep their own production and so it shows off for their record and share years I just think that you know that's what makes you so special in my eyes. Is it just that level of integrity. Well thank you that's not for me to say. So let's hope this is real quick. So you've got a you've got a thriving business and you've got a well honed machine. In terms of how you do it. Tell me where you generate money because I know you're talking about different different income streams. So can you kind of give me a breakdown right. [00:05:31] In Europe we've really gotten it down to a general. We've got it down to a science. But the processes that we take are consistent. It's not exciting but consistency means a lot. And I'm really trying to get that through to each of my agents and we have I say we. Want when I say we I'm talking about me and my staff and in my mind it's really kind of try to model what I do. But I have four areas of income. It all comes from marketing. I've got a farm area. I have a niche which is an expanded farm area meaning a specialization in a type of property. And I've got my past clients and customers. And then I've got my online market. So those are my excuse me those are my four sources of income. My agents really try to model that in in in growing their businesses. They're doing a great job I said for the six had really high incomes well a fifth one just hit a milestone. He did more business in the last two months and most able to do in two years so. Wow. Got it for him. [00:06:38] So if you were to take those four income streams and kind of rank them how would you write them from top to best production down lowest production. [00:06:48] So the top two without question has clients and customers and that should be everybody's first source but my niche is extremely lucrative so there are years when I'll make more money from my niche than I do from my past clients and customers. In an area of specialization. One of my agents for example specializes in townhomes. Another one specializes in homes with views. [00:07:11] I specialize in homes on an acre or more and so the members of that particular population see me as someone who has an expertise that they need. We don't just want them to think well you know it'd be nice if we had that. We want to create a need. So because of my expertise in that arena sellers call me and quite often I'm the only one I talk to. [00:07:38] Very interesting so talk to me in terms of what you do in marketing. If you were to do do something different for your personal list and your your one acre plus. [00:07:47] And if so what would you do. [00:07:49] Yes well so I'm going to I don't know going to break down the niche in the farm because really they're very similar but the niche is just more lucrative unless you have a farm that has twenty five hundred five thousand houses and you can just keep growing it. But my niche you can just keep growing. So I've got an agent in another part of town that I'm not going to grab down there but he takes care of all the one acre plus clients in that part of town. So there are really three areas of marketing in a niche or a farm number one is the general population of that niche right. In other words the areas that you want to work the locations et cetera. The second is what I call a targeted and guess who needs to sell their home on acreage probably more than anybody else. When that time comes. Seniors. So I target people who have an exemption of 65 or more a tax exemption. And we market to them when they need to sell their home on it. Could you give us a call. The third is expires. Anyone whose home has expired in the last several years but they've never listed again. We market two very strongly and that's a very powerful database. So those are the three. Now if you're talking about a farm you have three different ones. You've got the general farm then you've got the expired. Same thing. And I'm going to tell you how powerful this is maybe in stopped me if you want me to quit rambling you want to ask a question but let me tell you a powerful. I've got a farm with eight hundred and ninety three people and I have 74 people who have expired in the last three years and never we listed out as more people from this group of 74 than the rest of the eight ninety three. Really. Yes because differently to them than we do the rest of the farm. [00:09:42] So like how do you market differently because most of the times when you're marketing to expire says you're on the phone and calling them as soon as they expire and you try to drop by and you're doing something different. [00:09:56] You don't need to do that with these because here's the thing. If I'm marketing to the farm all eight hundred and ninety three people almost people who expire are getting that mailing. Right. But then I'm marketing to the 74. In addition in sending marketing pieces that are poignant to somebody who's had their home inspired. That makes sense. [00:10:20] It does. But let's elaborate a little bit more because I think this goes into. [00:10:24] You were talking about when connect two very divergent dots years back you were doing a lot of postcard mailings and then you understood and learned marketing. And it turned your business around here you're talking about doing something different for those in. But I have an idea that the concept between both of these is a same concept. [00:10:47] Can you take it give an example to the general farm area. I may send a marketing piece that compels a response to go to a landing page to learn about something like my new level of service to an expired. They're going to receive a postcard specifically about a home that says this home was listed with another agent for six months and then Stuart listed it and sold it in eight days. So the very best marketing I can do for expired is to show them success with somebody that was in their exact situation. [00:11:22] That makes sense so you're making it very specific to them. [00:11:28] So you're marketing to the entire farm and then these that are experts you're sending additional marketing pieces. But I guess most of these are saying this home was on the market for all these days or months and then I sold it. And so they're constantly saying that you were successful. In the same environment that they were a failure that the previous right. [00:11:50] That's right. And then the third area of a farm is out of town owners in some farms have a lot more of them printed on the price range and all that. But so we sent unique marketing pieces to people who don't live in the house they own in the farm area. So you've got the general farm population expired in the farm and they had a town owners in the farm. And those are three specific marketing databases Wow. [00:12:21] So you're kind of the word that comes to mind is pass and you're really passing that market and then very specifically targeting them for their unique needs. [00:12:34] Right. For example if you if you owned a rent house in my farm you'd get a mailing that said hey if you decide to sell your rent house in this area you need to make sure you qualify. And so if you're in out of town owner you're going to receive a card that speaks to you. And I actually offer a guarantee to you because what is the problem that out of town owners have. Well they don't know their houses are vacant they don't know what's going on with it. Well we guarantee that we're going to check in every week and send you a check list showing hey all the lights are working. The doors are locking the windows are more thermostats. We have a whole checklist. So we're going to we have a guarantee that we're going to do that for you every single week that your home is on the market with us. And if we miss any single week or Market Commission at 100 bucks. [00:13:23] Wow. So now as I'm listening you go through this the thought that hits me that may be hitting some other folks is this is a lot of work. I mean it's not just you know go to this Web site a peer upload it just sell photo send it out and then go about your way over here you're actually spending time creating these pieces. [00:13:44] Yes sir. Yes sir. Now once we have a good marketing piece in place blog company we can just adapt and edit and make some changes. Yes OK. You know there's a lot of work in setting up any cash flow system any income stream. There's a lot of work and get this set up. Maintenance becomes a different story. And that's why I can work 35 to 40 hours a week because I'm maintaining several systems that I've had in place for years. [00:14:09] That makes sense I was going to ask you that kind of leading the follow up question to that leading question. Yes it takes a lot of work. My question was going to ask does it make a lot of money. [00:14:19] Well you know what I I'm very blessed to be one of those guys I decided. You remember the book that came out about how to. Be a Millionaire in your underwear. You remember that book. [00:14:29] I remember something like that. Yes. [00:14:31] And that might not be the exact power. I'm blessed to be one of those guys that can sit at home in work literally wearing shorts and flip flops until it's time for an appointment. Then I'll get up and put on a suit. Yes I can do that and I'm very blessed to be in the position where I can work on my schedule on my terms and make a very nice income. [00:14:53] All right so let's talk on because one dig a little bit deeper in if you don't mind the concept of marketing OK. [00:15:03] You learned something from at one point in time that when you applied it to your existing mailings it totally turned everything around. And and that's the same stuff that you're applying right now. Can you help those who are listening to kind of understand marketing at a really simple level so that those people who say this is a lot of work. I don't know even where to begin in kind of give them a starting point. Does that make sense why I'm asking. [00:15:28] Yeah it does and the overall most simple basic marketing world is find out what people want and need. Make it easy for them to get. And the biggest thing that anyone ever taught me. You may. You did meet Randy Smith was really a marketing mentor. Brilliant marketer took all the marketing rules outside of real estate and brought them into real estate. And that's what I try to teach my agents to do. But it's very straightforward. Quit selling and start solving. So what is the problem that the consumer has and how can you solve it. And the easiest example of that ever is Domino's Pizza they were the first ones to guarantee delivery and a certain amount of time because they solved the problem what were their consumers BIGGEST PROBLEM. WELL DIDN'T GET THROWN type atomic out there. It was cold and without it the worst thing is it got there late. It was cold and they still had to pay for it. So what was their marketing like. It was. It's fast it's hot or it's free. Remember that. [00:16:40] I do. I do a date. [00:16:42] Same thing in real estate. You're an out of town owner. Your biggest problem is hate. I don't know what's going on with my house I don't know. I mean we have some either myself or my assistant. We'll check on your vacant house every single week and we guarantee to do that. So we've solved a problem that every agent could solve but nobody else has put it into words. Does that make sense. [00:17:04] Yeah it does give me a couple other examples so that those listening can kind of grasp and start to apply in their own situation where they can where they can use it. [00:17:16] So what's a problem for a home seller who's just thinking about selling a home. They're not quite sure OK what can I get this call all the time and I'm sure a lot of other agents do as well. And that's what do we do to get our house ready. Where should we spend our time and money. Well we have a program where we actually provide a stager an inspector handyman a painter a window washer at our expense to get your home ready for the market. So now instead of well what do we do. [00:17:45] What do we do how do we do it. Who do we call. What what's it going to cost. We've solved that for you so instead of just selling selling selling we're solving solving solving so the more problems we solve for you the more chance you're going to. [00:18:00] Very interesting. [00:18:01] What are some other examples that you can give me. [00:18:07] Well I've just had one situation where if this hasn't been the market for this was the most recent. That's why I'm bringing it up for nearly a year with three other agents. They call this obvious now if one of our marketing pieces I went out and the house was vacant carpet in the master was wavy. I've just paid a carpet stretcher to come in and stretch it. I carpet cleaners to clean it. The patio was extended. Very nice big but it was all stained. I had a handyman coming in power watch it had a crew come in and clean the house because it was bacon. Kind of you know you start to see bugs and cock and other agents have had this home on the market in this condition. We sold in sixteen days. So basically what we're doing is stepping in that owner's out of town. You know how hard it is to coordinate that type of thing. You know it's done and make sure they're paid. We took care of all that. We paid all we coordinated them. We scheduled them to put the house in condition to show. I mean to sell destiny. [00:19:10] So if you and so if you take all the things you do in terms of marketing what you know some people running Facebook ads and some people running getting you know they're there doing email blast and all kinds of things. When you say marketing are you talking about all these things are you talking about something down this channel or that includes all those postcards and mailings. [00:19:37] I still believe very strongly in mailings and in a lot of my income comes from maintenance. I've just got a mailing. This is I don't know if you only take the time and all that but literally a couple months ago from a little company that made me feel like mailings work because Google sent me a postcard. Wow that's very hard trying to get me to use Google AdWords. [00:20:03] A lot of people send in postcards I think and they work they they must I know we send a lot of postcards and they do work so well let's shift gears a little bit and I want to talk about balance in your life because one of the things that when you and I had first started talking you were sharing and this is a first in 2012 2013. You spent a lot of time with your family as a realtor and and a lot of there's a lot of struggle especially you know everyone straight commission and fighting for the next deal. And so the idea of being available almost like 24/7. Yeah. We'll ask an agent know hey how is your weekend they look at me and go what's a weekend. Okay talk to me in terms about how you bring balance to your life as a real estate agent. [00:20:53] That's that's a great question. It truly is a challenge for most people in this business. It's a matter of fact a friend of my son was getting into real estate or is getting into real estate and he asked if I'd have lunch with them and they were interviewing. And just having lunch with a few top agents around our market and they asked me. OK so tell us about your schedule and you know weekends and evenings and I said well at work we can tell you said really. So what about your phone you always interested. Well if I'm with my family I do not answer my phone because I want my family and my kids to know you're more important than anything else that's going on here. Now my family understands I'm in the real estate business. So even when we're on vacation I'll set a time of the day when I return calls. But if we're out and they said you know what. We just talked to another agent she said she was in Paris France not Texas. Well I'll be with her family. She got a call. She took it. He goes I'm in real estate I take my call. I just feel differently about it. So I do not as quick work on Sundays. Many many many years ago when my first son was born I quit work in 30 days and let my wife have a whole day off and spend it with him and we took that through both sons and it it's just it's just too important. Guess what. I've never lost any business that I know of because I've put my family as a priority. [00:22:21] Wow. [00:22:22] So there are two things running through my mind on this one is what's the motivation to be that determined that deliberate. And number two the other thing running through my mind is the risk because you know you're potentially losing business. So help me understand those two things that makes sense. [00:22:45] It does. And I'm going to be kind of straightforward and blunt place. I believe that there are two words to start with that that are really really important and one is fear and one's faith. And I have faith that my father in heaven is going to provide. And I don't fear that I'm not going to get business because my faith overrides that fear and I'm not. Believe me I'm not always successful that because fear can certainly creep in. But this is a business where if you don't depend on faith it's going to be a much more difficult road to hoe. So I've always depended on the fact that my father's been blessed us our family and that if I go about doing my business in a way that I believe is is pleasing to him then we're not going to have to have that fear. [00:23:38] That makes a lot of sense. We we do a lot that sells on our own as you know. [00:23:44] Talk to me a little bit more than about your faith and really kind of how it drives your business or maybe how how your faith drives you in your business. Does that make you kind of talk a bit more on that. [00:23:57] No I would say it's the real estate business is it is a challenging one. And I really preach to my agents that you know faith is is really really important as far as pay if you do what you're supposed to do. You can't be afraid that you're going to fail at it. So that that step by step faith over fear is something that we're always working on. [00:24:23] But the way we handle our business is is not I know this going to sound trite but it's not money driven. Do I have financial goals. Absolutely. Do I have financial obligations. Absolutely. [00:24:38] But I've got a song on my wall over here that says the more you serve others the more successful you will be. [00:24:47] And I just believe that in my heart. So we treat each situation in a unique way that has to do with that client. And we don't ever. My team and I for example we collect money we contribute our own money to make house payments for people in need. You know a lot of people you know hit a time in their lives when they need a helping hand. And we don't. We've had many people want to help give publicity to us for that. And we've always refused. That's just a part of something we feel like we should do. So as a teen we call it our house payment program. Once a lot to have someone asked me to come do some training. What. What do you charge. And I'll say it was instead of me charging a fee you in your office contribute to our house payment program. [00:25:40] Now give a little pitch about what it is and tell me about some of the people that we've helped. We helped a fireman a year before last who had a devastating accident and couldn't work for some time. And yes he had some some income come in from you know disability and all that but it didn't really cover all their bills so we helped make their house. We had a family grandparents who lost their children in a car wreck and took in their five grandchildren. And you talk about financial struggles. We've stepped in and helped them make house payments. So those are the kind of things that we we feel like or part of what we need to be doing. As you know it's part of our business. [00:26:25] That's really neat. [00:26:26] You know the whole idea of trusting in giving is it resonates really with me a lot because you know our business over the years we've been in business for 20 to two years I think it is now and we've seen some highs and we've seen some lows and even in the lows I advised it out. I'll tell you this story because this is years back so I can't take really any credit but we at that time we gave a real high percentage of of every profit every dollar we made whatever I took out and whatever the company made is profit. And every month we would give it into ministry and we had this client that was 70 percent of our volume and about one hundred and some odd percent of our profits and they were scheduled to leave about three four months from now. It was a term contract. And so we kept giving and you know storing nothing up. Now it's talking to a friend of mine who's a another Christian businessman and his name is building said Betty I believe in trusting God but I've never put myself in a position where I had to. And but you know this whole this whole lifestyle of you taking the day off or doing these things you know helping other people out and just really trusting your fate to your faith in the Lord. [00:27:57] I just think it's it's it's it's freeing isn't it it makes all the difference it makes doing this business of pleasure it really does. And not being tied to that commission is is everything. And I may have shared this one with you I had a client you know I've had this happen several times over the years but one I think I shared with you I had a client that the Commission on their house was just shot fourteen thousand dollars like thirteen thousand nine hundred. And they were in having some difficult financial struggles. And when we got to the closing after their escrow because yes we should know the pay off and they told me what the payoff was and when it got to it they did not share with me that they were behind payments. [00:28:45] So after paying off their loan that was thirteen hundred and twenty seven dollars left. Now they have paid my commission they have had to come out of pocket twelve thousand plus I didn't have it so I said we're fine. No I'm not depending on this commission you know to make my house payment and I believe that you guys can go in close I believe that you should have this burden lifted from you and in the you know if I can ever help you again I'm I'm here to help and I can tell you a lot of people would think that you twelve grand you can I didn't give up twelve grand I didn't have twelve grand I helped somebody in a situation and I came out you know thirteen but to hit thirteen hundred dollars hit you know and they still for referred me business to this day so that's just the way I approach each of those commissions it's it's not money driven it's people and again am I. [00:29:52] Do I fall short of that. [00:29:53] Of course I do but it's nice to step back in and I pray every single day that God will put people in my path that I can serve on his behalf do you do anything else with your faith in how you engage with clients on an ongoing basis I know like when we bought our house you know our realtor really super lady loves the Lord and so you know we're at the kitchen table of the house that we now own and filling out the the offer and so she said hey let's just pray over this I'm thinking you know what a great way to do it how do you do you live it out in any way like that strategically it's not great with many clients over the years and I do have it I call it my pre listening package which has enough every single cell in it has a a page in it that basically espouses my faith and lets them know that we depend on God for all of our blessings and we put him first and that's in every marketing package that we send that I love that so you don't you obviously don't subscribe to the idea that he has your faith here and you have your work here and they need to be separated right. I'm not sure that's possible I don't think it is. One last question just saw as we're on this topic and there you may not have anything or you may not have anything that you care to share but you know a lot of times as a realtor or even just as a husband and a father you go through struggles and and there are times when you just have to. You fall on your knees and the Lord just really carries you through is there anything that stands out that you would like to share in terms of the impact of your relationship with Christ as you go through struggles absolutely no question that he has brought us through many difficult times. [00:32:01] I still remember many years ago when we were in danger of not being able to make our house payments. This was before we had kids. Not to say that it's been a cakewalk since and because it hadn't but I still remember Rebecca and I and I bless her. She is the most incredible prayer warrior. I still remember sitting at a table approaching midnight praying about whether we should get out and try to find no less smaller house and find a way to move bills aside and find a way to find a way to do all that. So as we as we prayed through that and continued to over time we just felt we knew what what what he wanted. And so we continued on the path that we were on in and we're just blessed with you know the relief of that art. I still remember back then going you know what. I don't know anybody that does this much business with real estate but I'm truly. Again it's not one of those. Oh well if you believe in God and Carville he'll bless you and give you a lot of money that's not what it was at all we were willing we went look at smaller houses and we went and looked at different ways to lower our last home. [00:33:23] We weren't leaving an exciting lifestyle by any means but we just hit. Been in some tough roll snake markets when interest rate 10 percent. I've been I've been in three crashes over my career but we just felt truly comfortable that we should you know stay on the path that we were on. So we did he blessed us. My business flourished in a time when you would never expect it in. A couple of years after that we had kids and just moved on down that line. But one of the best things that I remember is I asked my kids questions all Thompson. Come on. But I said if you were to say one thing about your mom and your dad that you remembered us for what would that be. And I shared what I remember my parents for in the thing that I I'm really just overwhelmingly touched by. [00:34:17] Is one of my sensitive you said you know you have an incredible work ethic but you do it for a reason and that reason is your family and God. [00:34:33] If that's the way he remembers me you know I'll be very happy. [00:34:38] What a legacy. What a legacy on that. [00:34:42] That's great. You know our children. They pick up more from what we do than what we say. Yeah. Let's talk on one more thing if you don't mind. [00:34:54] You've been married for how long thirty three years. [00:34:57] Thirty three years. And if I'm approaching an area let me know and we can edit this part out but I want to talk in terms of a marriage that's founded on Christ. And can you talk anything on that. You know how's your relationship and and what do you consider kind of the core reasons for the relationship being as it is wow you aren't getting big. [00:35:26] You know it's it's incredibly comforting to know that my wife's faith is is so strong in that she doesn't necessarily depend on me for her happiness and gratification. She depends on our Lord and in the same way with me. We we both know that our marriage is is. I mean it's wonderful. Now have we had some tough time yet. Absolutely I don't. Yes I really know of anybody money. But the bottom line is is we both know that supporting each other based on and our prayer is always that the decisions we make will be in our mortgage will and that's the decision we make for our kids. That's the decisions we make business decisions we make for each other and her faithfulness over the years it's just been an inspiration to me. [00:36:27] You know I I I stepped in here without really having much knowledge but I felt I was safe in that direction because I'm similar. [00:36:37] We're married a lot fewer years where I'm coming on our 26 anniversary on. But what's really interesting is our love for each other is so much stronger today than it was years back. There's never been a time we haven't been in love but it's gotten a lot stronger Yelp experience. [00:36:56] Absolutely. Absolutely no question about it. It does matter fact. We have been talking about that recently. You know we're empty nesters and you know wow I was afraid how it's going to come up with me. You know when the kids are gone. But we we've just grown closer and stronger as the years go by. [00:37:13] You know one of the things that someone taught me years back he said kind of a triangle put God at the top. [00:37:19] And then the two lines coming down is the husband and wife and as each husband and wife seeks and they get closer and closer together. So that's kind of what I attribute. And I have to tell you an interesting story. One of the members in our separate club that church is a he's a pastor. He came from pastoring his own church and now being an assistant pastor in our church and in his area of ministry as a pastor. A lot of challenges relating to divorce and moving into divorce. Now he's asking in this quiet house because I'm using this concept and I'm saying has there ever been a time that you recall anyone going through the process of divorce or considering divorce where one or both of those people had been consistently seeking the Lord and he said no he cannot recall and that I think has been the about bedrock for our relationship as I would imagine for years. [00:38:26] Very good. That's that's a good one thank you. [00:38:30] Well we kind of probably need to wrap up a little bit is there and we start on a real marketing side and excited now we're kind of mellow down and talking to about really the most important things in life. But is there anything that's been on your mind or anything you've thought about that you'd like to share before we wrap up anything that on any topic or anything. This is your chance to shine. [00:38:55] Well I can tell you that the more people like you that I'm able to work with who have a faith in a belief like mine the Better Business is. So being able to talk openly with you in I know I don't know how much people watching us know about you but if they've never heard you teach scripture you're an amazing teacher but they might have friends. My broker people on my team and people involved in my business be able to pray together vehicle to encourage each other to be able to you know share in challenges and in victories and give that glory to God rather than to ourselves. We understand that. I mean the guy that I've told you about just had a breakthrough with an incredible couple months and then couldn't himself or any of he feels and knows that it's it's a blessing. And he put in the work and God bless him with the results in total surround yourself with people that that really makes the real estate business very different and a more enjoyable career than if if you're not. [00:40:17] Yes it does. [00:40:18] And to work with people like you like mine makes my work all the more meaning that frequently I go you know what's the purpose of it. You know it's just money right now. Is there any eternal purpose and the Lord keeps reminding me. Yes but you need to be a full time minister secretly disguised as a business owner and you do a great job of that. Well I don't know. He's been spiking me a little bit saying you haven't done it the way I've asked you to. So we're working on that. Well Stuart I've really enjoyed visiting with you and thank you for sharing your time. And for those who are listening or watching if you like this please Subscribe or like us and they come back as we interview more people. So Stuart and have a great day and be blessed. [00:41:10] Thank you. You too. [/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
Have Questions or Comments? Please ask your questions in the comments section below. We attempt to respond to ALL questions or comments. Listen via YouTube video if desired Caroline: Hi, I’m Caroline Springer and welcome to our next session of Radical Faith. We have a Radical Faith podcast as part of our Get Sellers Calling You podcast with Beatty Carmichael. Professionally, Beatty is the CEO of MasterGrabber, the creator of Agent Dominator and a top marketing expert in the real estate field for many years. And personally, for many years, he has been a Christian and loves to talk about the Lord and that’s where the vision of this podcast came from. So I’m just going to pass it over to him to give a little disclaimer about the Radical Faith podcast and kind of what his idea is behind it. Beatty: I’m not sure I would call it a disclaimer, but maybe it is. The whole idea about Radical Faith is this has nothing to do specifically and directly with real estate business. It has everything to do with living your life as a passionate Christian. So this is all going to be about my Christian philosophy or theosophy if you call it that. So if you don’t want to hear it, you can delete this podcast out and just listen to the podcasts focused on how to build a real estate business, but we are going to talk about Christ today. That’s my disclaimer. Back to you. Caroline: We always chat a little at the beginning about the world we live in and how we have to give a disclaimer, but I think it is good. It excites me so I’m like, “All right, let’s jump in.” This is going to be about the Lord and nothing else. So I’m okay with that. Beatty: Part of that chat we were having is normal Christianity. So I definitely kind of want to bring that onto this call a little bit. The focus of these calls is what I call “normal Christianity.” If I were to ask you, Caroline, what do you think the typical Christian’s view of “normal Christianity” is? Is it healing the sick, raising the dead, casting out demons, doing miracles or is it being a good person, not saying curse words, going to church on Sunday and reading your Bible? What is normal Christianity? Caroline: Yes, I would think sadly in the “normal” or maybe average Christian’s viewpoint, for those who claim to be Christian that’s what they would claim: being a good person, attending church, like you said, not saying curse words, living a chaste life, reading your Bible, praying before meals. The more Radical type of lifestyle is something that a lot of people may think is just preserved for certain people or that’s not really a thing anymore. I think that seems too far-fetched for them to believe that it’s something we’ve been invited into now. Beatty: True. So let me ask you. Who is our model for how to live as a Christian? Caroline: Jesus. He is our model. Beatty: Did he consider what he modeled to be normal or to be radical? What do you think his perspective on it was? Caroline: That’s a good question. Beatty: Let me ask that question another way. He is modeling for us how we should live, right? Caroline: Right. Beatty: Does He expect us to live anything but what He considers normal? Caroline: No. I think He was saying He only did the things He saw His Father do and he models for us a life like that so we can follow that. So I think His expectation was for Him to be paving a way for us to walk the way He walks. So I guess that would be normal for Him and normal for us. Beatty: Okay, so then how did He walk? It says, I think in John 14:22, don’t quote me exactly, but somewhere in John 14. It says, “Truly, truly whoever believes in me will do the works that I do and greater works will he do because I go to the Father.” Jesus is living out the works that we should do. If I were to ask, “What were the works that Jesus did,” what would you tell me? Not saying curse words? Read the Bible? Or something different? Caroline: I think something more. Like you said earlier, healing the sick, raising the dead, casting out demons, parting the way, making a way for Heaven to invade Earth. That was His life. Beatty: Therein lies the topic of Radical faith. Most people think it’s radical. Jesus thinks it’s normal. Now we are not going to talk about today how to raise the dead or heal the sick. We might get into the sophics, but I think more than anything else it’s really understanding what we are called to do as a Christian. How are we called to live and those things that we consider in our 21st century nature to be radical, I think Jesus considered normal. How do we go back to what is normal and not what is myopically considered radical. That is where I want to kind of lean us into this call. Can I take the lead real quick and just kind of get this thing started? Caroline: Absolutely. Beatty: For those of you who have been listening in on our podcasts, you’ll kind of see this pattern. Caroline takes the lead in the interview process on the marketing stuff. I end up taking the lead on the radical faith stuff because she becomes my guinea pig just to use as a sounding board. On all the marketing calls, she has an outline of the direction we are going on the calls. But on the radical faith calls, she is totally blind, so she doesn’t know what I am going to bring up or what I am going to ask her. So we are going to put you on the spots a few times and see what your thoughts are. Okay? Caroline: Oh, good. Beatty: Oh, good. It’s just like normal. We are going to be normal on this call. The last call that we did on radical faith, we are been going through this series of what I call what is faith. We are trying to lay this foundation of what faith really means. On the previous call we started to talk about that faith comes hearing and hearing from the word of Christ. And then we started to look into that faith emanates from Christ. It emanates from His word. We then dissected the two most common Greek words that are translated into our English word: word. Those are… Caroline, do you remember those two Greek words by chance? Caroline: Logos and rhema. Beatty: Do you remember what the difference between logos and rhema are? Caroline: Oh goodness. Wasn’t logos more like a word and rhema was more like something you received and heard? Beatty: Exactly. So logos is simply a word that embodies an idea. In other words, Jesus goes out and preaches the Word to people. He is generally telling them truths. Rhema is when Jesus tells Peter: “Walk on the water.” Okay? Or tells Peter: “You will deny me three times before the cock crows.” Peter remember the word that Jesus told him. Or the angel that comes to Mary and says, “You are going to have a child.” And she says, “Be it done to me according to your word,” according to your rhema. Faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word or the rhema of Christ. So in our real loose definitions. This is not a scholarly definition, this is more what I would call a, “how do you live” definition. A loose definition of rhema is something that God points directly at you. A real simple kind of understanding, Caroline, have you ever (I know you have) been reading your scriptures, reading the Bible and a passage stands out like God is talking directly to you. Have you had that happened to you before? Caroline: Absolutely. I have a lot of times where I will be in kind of conversation with the Holy Spirit. Later on, I will hear or read something in the Bible and it’s like the confirmation of what the Holy Spirit was just saying. There are a lot of times when things were highlighted. I feel like the Lord does that a lot for reassurance or confirmation. Beatty: Well, He does that a lot with me too and when that happens that, in general, what we call rhema. That is when the Holy Spirit is speaking directly to you. That is where we were when we wrapped up our Radical faith call. What I want to do is pick up from there and kind of try to wrap up this section before we run out of time. One of the things that we find about faith and this what I will call Radical faith is the idea or the truth that faith cannot exist by itself, that it is always accompanied by works. There is a passage in James, James 2:17 that says: “Even so faith if it has no works is dead being by itself.” So you kind of get this picture that faith cannot exist by itself. It’s sort of like the body without oxygen. It just dies. That body and oxygen have to go together. Faith and works have to go together. It says a couple of verses later. It’s talking about Abraham and it says, “Faith was working with Abraham’s works and as a result of the works faith was perfected.” So here is the question for you, Caroline. What does it mean that faith is perfected by works because, growing up in church, you always hear that we are saved by faith, not by works. Then we read this thing in James, you say you have faith but I have works and I’ll show you my faith by my works. So what is all this mean? What is the separation between faith and works? How would you describe that? Caroline: To me, whenever I’ve had conversation with people about that with grace and works and how they all go together. To me, works comes as a natural outcome of your faith and what you believe. Your faith also partners with that to also give you the strength and belief to be the foundation of your works. So it’s not like your works are an outcome of striving but your works are an outcome of beliefs and trust and pursuing the Kingdom. It’s a completely trajectory comparatively with those that, maybe some people struggle with feeling like they have to prove and work their way to the Lord or earn their salvation, which we know, scripturally, is not true. But I think that is just the natural question to struggle with for a lot of people. I think God’s intention in James is that it doesn’t have to be something that is conflicting, it can be something that can actually partner a lot easier and your faith is going to naturally push the works and your works are naturally going to cause you to increase your faith. Beatty: So let me see if I can make a real simple illustration to kind of tie this together. I want to invite you to a party. In fact, I am going to give this party in your honor. It’s going to be over at my house. It’s going to be Thursday night at 7:00. Can you come? Caroline: Sure, yes, I’d love to. Beatty: Is that a commitment? Caroline: Yes. Beatty: So now you have just given me your rhema. “I will be there.” So now, Thursday at 7:00 comes up and you are all excited because I’ve told you that we are going to get a caterer. We are going to invite all the people from church, all the people from the neighborhood and all the people from everywhere. And it’s going to be a great big party. And we are going to have child care so you don’t have to worry about Jethro and it’s going to be a wonderful time with your favorite foods and you are all excited. “This is my party.” Now you come over to the house. You come over at 7:00. You drive up to my house and you notice something strange. There are no cars out there. “Okay, well, I’m not sure what’s going on.” You have this question mark. You come up to the house and it’s kind of dark outside. There are no lights on. There are a couple of lights in the room but it’s not like it’s lite up. You look inside; there is no one there. You right the doorbell, ding dong. No one. You ring it again, ding dong. You are just about to walk away from my door and you hear these steps, boom boom boom, and it sounds like someone is coming up some steps and you see me running around the corner. I’m in my exercise clothes and I’m all hot and sweaty. I come to the door and open it. As soon as I catch your eyes, you see my expression go, “Oh my gosh!” You know that expression I’m talking about? Caroline: Yes. I imagine that you are trying to say that you forgot. Beatty: I didn’t forget. I say, “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t think you would be here. I never made any plans for the party.” Now what happens to you at that point? Are you happy or are you sad? Caroline: I imagine you would be sad and disappointed and questioning why you didn’t think I would attend. Beatty: Yes, you would have all these questions. Did I just sin against you? Caroline: That sounds so intense. I guess for the purpose of the illustration, yes? Beatty: So here is what happens. Let’s now analyze this a little bit more. You gave me a rhema and I did not act in works upon that rhema. Do you follow me so far? Caroline: Okay. Beatty: Faith is perfected through works. Faith is what we believe in. Faith comes by hearing the rhema of Christ. So if we hear Christ’s rhema and don’t believe it then we never act on it and therefore faith is never perfected because our works did not carry it out. Make sense? Caroline: Yes, that makes sense. Beatty: So in this illustration, how can your faith be perfected by works? Because if I had faith that you would have shown up then my works would have demonstrated that faith. I would have called the caterer. I would have called all the people. We would be having a great party. We would have a special parking space right up front to protect a special parking area just for you just o you could come right to the front door. All of this. But the fact that I did none of it means that my faith was never perfected because I never believed it. It’s not that I work for my faith; it’s that my works emanate from my faith. So here are a couple of truths that we can learn about this. Number one, our works are a demonstration of our faith. We do not produce works to have faith. We generate works because it emanates from our faith. Faith comes first and faith naturally births the works in our lives because we become as we believe. As a man believes, so he is. In fact, I heard a preacher this past Sunday hit on that comment quite a few times. Do you remember anything like that? Caroline: Yes, I do. Beatty: So it all kind of ties together. And here are a couple of other things we can take out of this. So you come to the door and I go, “Oh my gosh. I didn’t believe you. I thought you were lying to me. Therefore, I didn’t make any plans at all.” Now you are feeling dejected and rejected. You are frustrated. “How dare you? I planned my whole week around this. It has taken two hours to prepare for this. I’ve been making myself look beautiful. I’ve been telling all of my friends.” Now you are really upset at my aren’t you? Caroline: Yes, it sounds like I would be. Beatty: Yes, you would be. What happens then is that you turn away. You hop back in your car and you drive home. And now I have lost the blessing of your presence and fellowship with you because I did not believe. Now, this is what the images between us and God are. When the Lord gives us rhema and I’m not talking about something huge like step off a mountain and I’m going to hold you up, okay? I’m talking about just anything where we fail to trust the Lord and we know that we don’t trust him because our actions prove that we don’t believe just like in that example. Then what happens is that all of God’s amazing blessings that he had in store for us fall through our fingertips and we don’t even receive them because they are only received by faith, not by works, but it’s our works that demonstrate our faith and therefore, that’s how our faith is perfected with works. Is all of this kind of making sense? Caroline: Absolutely. I think that was a good step-by-step explanation with that scenario about the definition and how that works. It’s a funny scenario. I think it’s a great example and explanation. Beatty: Okay, cool. So now let’s talk a little further on this, if we can. A simple takeaway. Your faith is always displayed by acting on God’s word. If you don’t act on it, you don’t really believe it. This is the essence of what I call “radical” faith. It should be normal. By the way, was there ever a time in Jesus’ life where He did not act in works based on His faith in what God had directed or told Him to do? Any time? Caroline: No. A time when He did not act based on what the Father told Him to do? No, He didn’t. Beatty: So when He raised someone from the dead, was that Him acting by faith? Caroline: Yes. Beatty: Okay. If we use this definition of faith. When He healed someone, was that acting by faith? Caroline: Yes. Beatty: And did He raise them from the dead? Did He heal them or was it the Holy Spirit doing that work? Caroline: It was Him. The Holy Spirit came later. Beatty: Matthew and Acts both say that it was the Holy Spirit working through Jesus that performed the miracles. Acts says that it was God’s power working through Jesus of Nazareth that did all of these miracles. In other words, that Jesus was modeling for us; this doesn’t take any of His Deity away, I’m just saying that the scripture says that the Holy Spirit is what raised someone from the dead. Healed somebody. We even see this in scripture that God commands, but it’s the Holy Spirit. You have God the Father as the ultimate authority and all power. He designates His authority to Jesus and then Jesus delegates authority to the Holy Spirit. In fact, Jesus says that the Holy Spirit will open your mind to all of these things and He will not speak anything to you that I have not commanded him already to speak. Are you with me or did I just lose you? Caroline: No, I’m here. Beatty: Maybe I’m going too deep in this. Let me pull back out before I get too deep. So faith is displayed by acting on God’s word. Jesus displays living by faith and, when you live by that faith, you act on His word then amazing things happen. I want to tell a personal story. We all kind of get caught into this because we get our eyes on the natural rather than our eyes on God. Jesus always kept His eyes on the Lord. He said, “Everything I do is what I see my Father doing.” He’s always looking at the Father first. Go back quite a few years, this is 2002. We are running and making a lot of money the first part of 2002. We’ve got a large corporate account that is scheduled to leave on June 1 and as soon they leave, we are going to be upside down. We are going to lose huge amounts of money, more money a month than most people will earn in a year. We hit June, we start to go upside down. The first month or two, I’m okay. By the third or fourth month, somewhere in there, I start to panic. Oh my gosh, I’m scared. Because I look in the natural. Just like Peter walking on the water, he looks at the wind and the waves and he gets scared. I’m looking in the natural; I get scared. We start to batten down all the hatches. Everyone is put on forced payroll reduction. I take the biggest cut of everyone. My number two man takes the second biggest cut and everyone else takes a bit cut as well. We are trying to weather the storm and we are losing money month after month. Now, it’s January 2003. Now, we’ve been unprofitable, losing money for about six months. Do you get the picture so far? It’s desperate, dire circumstances. Right? Caroline: Right. Beatty: So I’m out there on my day of prayer. I take a day off and say, “Lord, I am going to meet with you.” I’m out there. It’s now the end of January, just a couple of days before the end of the month and I’m on the golf course which is where I take my day of prayer. I don’t play, I just walk and pray and talk. I’m asking the Lord, “Lord, when are you going to let up? Do you know what the Lord told me? He asked me a question. “Do you really believe I can take care of you?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “If you really believe, how would you act differently than you are acting right now?” So what I said is, “Well, if I really believed it then I would put myself at full pay and I would put all my other people at full pay.” He said, “Then why don’t you do it and trust me?” Okay? This is what I’m talking about with radical faith. It makes no sense, but it is trusting the Lord. It is doing what Jesus said. Jesus trusted the Lord and He never feared. Why do we fear? Because we live in the natural. So I did. I put my eyes on Him instead of on the circumstances and I called my number two guy at the time, his name was Walter and I said, “Walter, put me and everyone else back at full pay, retroactive for the full month” because everyone had gotten a short paycheck midmonth. And so he did. Two days later, payroll hit. We lost a lot of money because that was a lot of money that we didn’t have. But here’s the cool thing. The very next month, we made a profit and this is a small business, we had a $20,000 swing on our bottom line, $20,000 more on our bottom line than we had the month before. And I looked at the P and L and I couldn’t find it even to this day, I’ve go back to that P and L multiple times and there is nothing there where we had a lot more revenue, less expenses. I don’t know how it happened, but it happened. And, for the next string of months, we were profitable. What changed? What changed in all that? Do you know? Caroline: Your faith. Beatty: Yes. I acted on my faith. Faith is perfected by works. That’s what this is meaning. So for those of you guys listening out there, what are you afraid of that you know God has said, “Trust me.” If you really believe God’s word to be true, how would you act differently than you are acting right now? And whatever that is, do it, because that is what James is talking about. Faith is perfected by works. Faith without works is dead. Therefore, you cannot believe unless you are going to show that belief through your works. Pretty fascinating isn’t it? Caroline: It is. That was a really inspiring story too. I think it also makes a better definition of that verse and that challenge explaining how faith and works go hand and hand. They are not in opposition of one another. Beatty: No, they definitely are not. We are going to go just a little bit over on this call but I have some points I want to wrap up with. So what faith really is, Caroline, it is seeing from God’s perspective. See, when Peter was walking on the water he was looking at Jesus seeing Jesus’ perspective and he was walking then he looked from His perspective into the waves and he gets scared. And in the very same situation he has two completely outcomes. One outcome by perfecting his faith through works. The other outcome by getting afraid and stop working by faith. Okay? The same thing happened with me, just reversed with the money. So when we see what God sees then we believe as God believes (if you want to use the term “God believes”). When we see as God sees then we get to believe as God believes and then when we act on that belief that is when our faith is perfected. And the challenge that we run into, and this is why it is so tough. Let me ask you a question instead of making a statement. Are we more spirit being or physical being? As a Christian? Caroline: Spirit being. Beatty: Okay. Where do we spend all of our time, focus and our sensory senses? Physical or spiritual? Caroline: I guess physical Beatty: Yes. So here is our problem. We are more spirit beings living in the spirit or should be, but where we actually live most of our time is in the physical because we have physical bodies. We have our sight, sound, hearing, everything, taste, touch is all physical. It’s easy to lose sight of spiritual truths because we get to see everything in the physical. This is where the challenge comes from. But if we can overcome and look in the spirit realm, both figuratively and literally. We look in the spirit realm figuratively and spiritually by looking at God’s truth and his truth trumps the physical. Okay? It is what it is. I want to give you some examples. I want to give you some passages and some scriptures and show you how this plays itself out in the scriptures. The first one comes from 2 Kings, Chapter 6. This is Elisha and his servant. This is actually where we get the term “chariots of fire.” There is a battle with King Aram. King Aram is the enemy king and any time he makes a move against the Israel king then Elisha is telling the Israel king what is going on. So the Israel king gets to adjust. It may have been Judah, but I think it’s Israel. And now, that is where we pick up. “This enraged the king of Aram. He summoned his officers and demanded of them, “Tell me! Which of us is on the side of the king of Israel?” “None of us, my lord the king,” said one of his officers, “but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the very words you speak in your bedroom.” “Go, find out where he is,” the king ordered, “so I can send men and capture him.” The report came back: “He is in Dothan.” Then he sent horses and chariots and a strong force there. They went by night and surrounded the city. When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. “Oh no, my lord! What shall we do?” (Just like me. On my goodness, we are losing money, what do I do?) the servant asked. And then Elisha, who sees from God’s perspectives says, “Don’t be afraid,” the prophet answered. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” And Elisha prayed, “Open his eyes, LORD, so that he may see.” Then the LORD opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. Here is the point on this, once the servant saw from God’s perspective, which is in the spiritual realm, he was no longer afraid. Does that make sense? Caroline: Yes, that does. Beatty: Let me give you another example. Say it’s the 27th of the month, and this is personal for you and Wes, it’s the 27th of the month and you guys have $2,000 of bills needing to be paid and you don’t have the money. You don’t know where it is going to come from. You’ve run out of money for the month and you still have $2,000 left to pay. And this is critical. Maybe this is your mortgage. Okay? You are at risk of losing the house if you don’t pay it. So you are going to pray and ask the Lord to help you out, is that right? Caroline: Right. Beatty: Okay. So when you pray and ask God to send it, how solid is your faith that He is going to send you that money in the next two or three days? Caroline: Pretty solid because we just seen Him be faithful time and time again. He’ll be faithful again. Beatty: Let me ask you, would you put Jethro’s life on it? Do you believe it that much? Caroline: That such an intense question. I don’t know that the Lord would ask me that. Beatty: I know He wouldn’t but the question isn’t, how much do you really believe? Do we believe in essence, trusting that He is going to do something or do we have an absolute, unequivocal, absolutely $2,000 is going to show up in the mailbox or someone is going to bring it to me within the next two or three days. Caroline: That’s a good challenge to ask yourself. Beatty: I’m leading somewhere. I’m always leading somewhere with these questions. So the question is, we pray and we ask, but do we really believe. We trust, but do we really believe that $2,000 is going to how up in the mail in the next two days? Okay. So now, let’s look at it from God’s perspective for just a moment. One month ago, your mortgage company paid your taxes your taxes and insurance out of money from escrow. And they realized that they collected $2,000 more from you over the last year than was needed. So they processed a $2,000 check. It was mailed two days ago and you are about to get it today. Okay? That is God’s perspective. You know that that check is coming. You know all these details. Now when you pray and ask God for $2,000 do you have a different level of confidence that he is going to provide it. Caroline: Absolutely. You would have the whole scope. Beatty: So what changed? Caroline: You were placing yourself in Heaven’s perspective to see where the Lord is coming through. When you have the whole scope, your prayers change. You have faith and confidence. You can see that He will be faithful and He’s coming through. Beatty: In God’s perspective, everything changes. I think we talked about this a few times back that it’s all about seeing from God’s perspective. That’s what I am talking about here. This radical faith is seeing from God’s perspective. Elisha’s faith was not scared at all because he could see from God’s perspective. Once God opened the servant’s eyes to see from his perspective as well, he was no longer afraid. When we get our eyes focused on the natural, we become afraid. When we keep our eyes focused on the Lord and his truth, which is His perspective, then if we believe it, we are no longer afraid ourselves. The only way that we can demonstrate our belief is to act on it. That’s kind of how all that works. So that’s what faith is. Next time we will start on the topic I call, “Getting out of the boat.” We are laying the foundation now and now the next set of calls we going to start to get where the rubber meets the road and it’s going to be a lot of fun. You want to close us out real quick? Caroline: Sure. Well Beatty, thank you so much for your time and sharing all the revelation and wisdom that you received from the Lord. I think this really was a great and challenging call. I’m excited to hear next time about getting out of the boat and just continuing on in our conversation. I think we are going to wrap up. I don’t think we are doing a question and answer for this call. With that being said, Beatty, if you don’t have anything else, I think we are wrapped up. That’s all we have for today. Beatty: Great. Thanks a lot. Y’all have a great day. P024
Mail-Right: Real Estate Agents Show: About Technology & Online Marketing & Getting Seller Leads
We have a special friend of the show back on Beatty Carmichael of the “Get Sellers Calling You” podcast and we going to be discussing the best practices for getting more listing in 2019. #RealEstateAgents #BeattyCarmichael #MailRight http://www.mastergrabber.com/
Mail-Right: Real Estate Agents Show: About Technology & Online Marketing & Getting Seller Leads
We have a special friend of the show back on Beatty Carmichael of the “Get Sellers Calling You” podcast and we going to be discussing the best practices for getting more listing in 2019. #RealEstateAgents #BeattyCarmichael #MailRight http://www.mastergrabber.com/
Geographic Farming – how to make REAL money Part 7 – The Best postcard marketing 1 – self selection This is the Get Sellers Calling You marketing podcast for real estate agents and I’m Beatty Carmichael. For simple to do, proven marketing strategies focused exclusively on finding sellers and getting more listings, visit our website at GetSellersCallingYou.com. And now, let’s begin our next session of Get Sellers Calling You. Caroline: Hi, this is Caroline Springer and welcome to the next session of Get Sellers Calling You with Beatty Carmichael. Beatty is the CEO of MasterGrabber, the creator of Agent Dominator and one of the top marketing experts in the real estate field. Today we are going to be continuing on in our topic of how to make money in geographic farming. This is a series of calls that we’ve had on that. This is actually going to be our last one. We are going to wrap up and talk about postcard marketing. Beatty: We’ve covered all of the other topics. Let’s see, the topics we’ve covered, if I go from memory, we have talked about: How to select a farm and the process to make sure that your selection is dead-on accurate so you make the most money from it. We’ve talked about how to select the mailing list because there are lots of options and opportunities for the types of mailing lists you are looking for (it depends on what you are trying to do). We then talked about 10 different things you can do within a farm that are low cost but allow you to start touching it. We talked about one other thing but I forget what that was and then today we are going to talk about postcard marketing in that farm because that is generally the concept that most people think about when they think of geographic farming and it is a very effective approach to touching and persuading people to choose you. Caroline: Thank you for that. That was a good, little refresher. Just a reminder for those of you who are on our live call, we do have the lines muted and we will open for questions and answers at the end of the call. But yes, thank you Beatty for that refresher. I think this really has been a content rich series on the best ways to make money with geographic farming and I’m excited to continue on with postcard marketing that really works and kind of get into the nitty gritty of some of the differences. I know that maybe some of our listeners have tried different ways so I’m sure they are going to be interested to hear the differences and what you have seen be successful. Beatty: Yes, you know, it’s interesting, I remember when we first started doing geographic farming (this is going back to 2012 / early 2013) and I was inquiring to realtors who were thinking about using us and we were talking about the services we offer, I would always ask them, “Have you ever done geographic farming before?” And I would say probably half or two thirds of the people answered “Yes.” Then I would ask them, “Was it successful for you?” And how many of those people do you think answered yes? Caroline: Oh goodness. Maybe less than half? Beatty: Try maybe less than 10%. So your comment that maybe people have been out there and done postcard marketing before…. What we find is that most people have tried geographic farming and they failed. And they failed because geographic farming is all about process. It’s all about doing the right things, the right way consistently and most people pick a farm and mail a couple of postcards and they spend money and they don’t really have a strategy. They don’t really know what they are doing and, therefore, it fails. This is, I think, our sixth podcast call focused just on this one topic because there are so many opportunities to fail which means there are so many opportunities to succeed. And today, as we talk about the postcard, this is really where the rubber meets the road. The first thing? You’ve got to pick the right farm. Then, the second thing, you’ve got to touch it right. This call would be, I would think, number two in significance in terms of importance in making a geographic farm work. So this is going to be a fun call. Caroline: Well good. I am excited to hear and know I’ve learned a lot and I know our listeners have too. The questions that they have at the end of the call have been really good to hear as well. So just starting off with postcard marketing that works, I think it could be even beneficial, since there are some realtors who haven’t even tried geographic farming, do you want to explain the two difference types of postcards that people typically send? Beatty: Let me rephrase your question. It’s not two types of postcards that people typically send. Most people typically send neither of the two most important types of postcards. So we are going to talk about the two types of postcards that are the ones that you really ought to be sending and what most people have done in the past that just didn’t cut it. I’ve got to tell you. So let me back up and let me Paul Harvey the rest of the story. So that less than 10% of the agents I’ve spoken with when I ask them, “Was geographic farming profitable for you?” and they said “yes,” I always ask them, “What type of postcard marketing did you do?” And 100% of everyone who said that it was successful for them did the same type of postcard. And that is a Just Sold postcard. So if you got nothing else out of this call, if you just wanted to hang up right now, even though we are only a few minutes in, you could say, “I can send out Just Sold postcards and I’ll at least make it profitable.” What I’m going to talk about in these two types of postcards take the Just Sold postcard and leave it in the dust in terms of the results you can get. So you can do Just Sold postcards—most people don’t—but those who did consistently made money, but now we are going to take it leaps and bounds further down the road of how much money you can make from the same farm. The two types of cards I want to talk about today: one is called a direct response card. Internally, we call it our self-selection card. The other is what we call an inside reality card. Basically, the self-selection card that are direct response cards are designed to identify someone who is thinking about selling. Let me ask you a quick question, Caroline. If you were a real estate agent and you could drive down the road in a neighborhood that you are wanting to farm and you would know with relative accuracy which homes were actually going to go on the market in the next six to twelve months, do you think that would give you a leg up in being successful in that farm? Caroline: Absolutely. I think that would be every realtor’s dream. Beatty: Okay, so if you knew who it was, what would you do differently than what you would normally do marketing to that farm? Caroline: I would think those would be the only homes I would be sending cards to and knocking on the door and keeping my face in front of them all the time so that I could be sure that would choose me to list their home. Beatty: Gotcha. So you would up your game in how you touch them? You would touch them more consistently and, what I would like to suggest, more expensively. Your time is worth money. You probably give them more things that cost more money because you know that that is a hot target. That’s one idea. Let me ask you another question. Let’s assume for a moment that you are a really good real estate agent because most of the folks on the call probably at least feel that they are if not in fact that they really are at the top of their game. So let’s assume that you are a top-of-your-game real estate agent. You’ve been selling real estate now for 10 or 15 years. You are in the top 5% or 10% of all agents out there. Let’s assume for a moment that you are going to sell your home. If you were that agent—take the commission money aside; don’t worry about how much money you will make or save from your own commissions—but if you were going to sell your home and you are a top-of-the-game agent, would you choose yourself personally, or do you think you would choose another agent? Caroline: I would absolutely choose myself. Even like you said, commissions aside, I’d be confident that I could do it and that nobody could do it better than me. Beatty: There you go. Okay, so you would be a fool to choose anyone else based on what you know about yourself. So let me ask you a question. If all of those people in the farm were as confident about you and your ability as you are about you and your ability, would they choose anyone else besides you? Caroline: No. If everyone knew what a great agent I was and how hard I work and what a great realtor I am and my marketing and how tirelessly I would work to make sure their home was sold, if they knew that reality was the truth, they wouldn’t hire anybody but me. Beatty: Exactly. So that is inside reality. So now we just kind of defined: What is a direct response card? It identifies those people thinking about selling. What is an inside reality card? Its purpose is to get them to believe about you as you believe about you. Because once they believe about you, they would go nowhere else. So this is why I say these are the two most important cards because they allow you to suck listings out of that farm right up front and long-term start to claim most every listing that starts to come out once we can persuade them. So that’s why these are the two most important cards. Yes, you can start with Just Sold postcards, but if you focus on direct response to identify sellers, you focus on inside reality to persuade them, then at that point you’ve got a game changer that makes your farm really, really profitable. So that’s what I kind of want to go into on this call. And hopefully, we can wrap it all up on this one call. Otherwise, we will continue this call into next week if we get going too long. From there, which card would you like to talk about first? Caroline: Let’s talk about the direct response card. Beatty: Let’s talk about direct response. In marketing there is a concept known as self-selection. Okay. And self-selection is where you use marketing, you send it out to a crowd and you let the people in the crowd select themselves if they are applicable to what you are offering. Does the name self-selection make sense now? Caroline: It does. That was a clear explanation. Beatty: Self-selection is a direct response card that is focused on getting that prospect to select themselves as someone who is thinking about selling. So the question then is, how do you do it? Here is a real basic overview about marketing. There are four steps to marketing and direct response. You have interrupt, engage, educate and offer. Interrupt is a headline. Engage is typically a subhead. Educate is you explain what you are doing. The offer is you give them a chance or opportunity to go get whatever it is that you are talking about. So the way this works in doing this within a postcard environment is there are typically three types of offers. The most important part of all of this, once you get your farm identified, is your offer. Let me see if this makes sense. As a seller, you are thinking about selling your home. And I’m going to send you a postcard about planting beautiful flowers. Does that hold your attention as a seller? Does that cause you as a seller to respond any differently than someone who is not thinking about selling? Caroline: No. I might be interested personally, but not as a seller. Beatty: If I send you another postcard that is talking about how to determine what your home would actually sell for in today’s market, as a seller, does that grab more of your attention than it would if you were not thinking about selling? Caroline: Oh, absolutely. I would very much be interested to know what the value would be. Beatty: So now we have just established what an offer is. An offer is whatever I’m offering you to try to get you to respond. If I offer how to plant pretty flowers, it doesn’t do anything in separating you in self-selection, self-selecting you from everyone else. So what I want to do is take my offer and I want to narrow it down to something that a seller is interested in. Now what do you think a seller is most interested in? What type of offer do you think they are most interested in knowing? Caroline: I think they would be most interested in knowing the value of their home and how much it would sell for or maybe how much the homes around them are selling for. Anything that would guarantee them more money for their home or anything along those lines. I think they would definitely be interested in that. Beatty: Yes, so survey says, “You are pretty close.” That is not the top thing they are interested in but that is definitely on the top of the list. Now the reason I say that is because I have to put this out there. Every time I talk with agents, especially these high-producing agents who have been in the business for years and do a lot of volume. When I ask them, “What does a seller want to know” they’ll respond, “The only thing they want to know is ‘How much is my home worth and how fast can you sell it?’” And I beg to differ. This is where most agents are a little myopic. They get tunnel focused. When you start to look at this from a different perspective, you start to understand something different. Let me suggest a couple of things. Are you more interested in knowing what your home is worth or are you more interested in picking an agent who can get you the most money for your home?” Caroline: Oh definitely in an agent who can get the most money for my home because maybe they could get even more than what the market says it is worth. Beatty: Right. Or, just the opposite, you may pick an agent that gets you less than the market says your home is worth. This is just a simple example that things are not always what they seem to be. You’ve got dig deeper and understand what is it about that seller that really will toot their horn? Just as it relates to self-selection cards and the direct response, “How do you identify sellers,” we’ve done over 21 split A/B marketing tests trying to understand how you can improve that game. I wish we could go into it. We’ve found things that will consistently would get 4X and 5X and 8X higher response rates. Fonts, font colors, headlines, what the card looks like and all kinds of things. When you start to add it all together, then what you have is something that can produce a lot of results. Let’s then reel this back in and I want to talk in terms of three different offers that we have found to be most effective. Let’s talk about ‘How much is your home worth?’ We’ll call it the ‘home valuation’ approach because that is typically what most agents have access to; they have home valuation websites and there are some great companies out there that will mail postcards that say, “Find out what your home is worth. Go to this website.” It’s a great way to do it. They are very effective. And I don’t want anything to come out in this dialogue to make it sounds as if I’m poo pooing that idea because it is very effective. But here is the challenge that we have found. In certain areas, based on the culture of the community you are targeting, we have found where that home valuation approach, “Hey find out what your home is worth, go to this website or call this number” doesn’t generate quality leads. Let me ask you. Are you and your husband thinking about selling your home in the next year? Caroline: No, we are not. We love our house and are planning on staying for a while. Beatty: Okay, great. Would you like to know what your house is worth right now as your most valuable investment that the two of you own? Caroline: Yes, I would like to know. We’ve done some additions and some renovations and I would be interested to know that. You are right, I’m not interested in selling, so I would be a waste for a realtor. Beatty: So you would respond to finding out what your home is worth because you have interest, but you would be a false lead. So this offer, the home valuation, gives what is called a false positive lead. Some are false and some are positive. You have start to filter through them a little bit more. That doesn’t mean it’s bad. It just means you have to be aware. Real quickly. You’ve got to track your responses. If you are doing direct response to apply the self-selection approach, you’ve got to be able to track who is responding. The great thing that the home valuation websites do is that they make it really easy. You don’t have to have any special technology. You just buy your home valuation website service and put your own domain on it. Mine might be YourHomeValuesWithBeattyCarmichael.com. Whatever yours is: vestaviahomevalues.com. Anything like that. It’s just a simple domain. Then people go there and they enter their address. So if I mailed you a postcard, you would enter your address and it would give you generally what your home might be worth. When you enter your address now I know which address was entered. So that tells me that you might have interest in selling, but it’s still a false positive lead. Then as I go deeper into that home valuation website, I can make adjustments. I can say, no I have four bedrooms instead of three. We have three bathrooms instead of one. So you start to make adjustments on improvements you have done and then it starts to update your valuation. Then there is finally a place where you can request a professional competitive market analysis. What is happening in this home valuation website is that it’s taking you into a funnel. The further you go into it, the more likely you are to be thinking about selling. Are you following the logic process on that? Caroline: Yes, I am with you. Beatty: Okay, so that is why the home valuation website can really be a great, simple approach because it brings people into it and it can be real effective. But it’s not the only approach. In our testing, we have found one approach that actually beats everything else hands down. Would you like to guess what that offer is that wins far greater than the home valuation website? Caroline: Can I guess since I know? Beatty: Well, let’s see, do you know? You can guess and if you know, let’s test your internal knowledge of our products. Go ahead. Caroline: I know that with our customers that our most popular and most successful card is a card sending out to potential sellers that you have clients who are ready to purchase a home in a certain amount of time. We call it the ‘I have a client’ card. That would appeal to someone who is actually looking versus me who is interested in the valuation of my home but not interested in having a buyer come knock on my door. Beatty: That’s right. It’s what we call the ‘I have a client’ approach. As we talked on some of the previous podcasts, the whole idea came from a friend of mine. He was telling me that he had a client who wanted to buy on this one street, but he couldn’t find a house that he liked. When you are looking at just one street, you don’t have high turnover rate either because there aren’t that many homes there. So this agent, his name is Rob, he got creative and he wrote a letter. “Dear Homeowner, my name is Rob. I’m a real estate agent with such and such brokerage. I have a client wanting to live on your street and he has been looking for a year or two and I’m trying to help him find a house. If you have interest in selling your house, would you please call me immediately?” It’s just a straight-forward approach. But what it did is it got him a listing. It wasn’t the house that the buyer wanted, but it got him a listing because he shook the bushes and the low-hanging fruit fell out. You can take the same approach with a postcard. We’ve tested a lot of copy and we have copy that we’ve copyrighted. The general idea is that you can send out a postcard that says, “I work with all kinds of buyers and many of them are looking in your area (call the area by name – say they are looking in the Garden Heights community, if that is the neighborhood) and they haven’t found a home yet. I’m trying to help them. If you are thinking about selling, would you contact me immediately because I may be able to get your home sold immediately.” Now you have something that will shake the bushes. It causes those people who are low-hanging fruit to then respond. Since they call you, you now know who they are. You can take that concept, Caroline, and you can expand it. Watch this. Let me test your knowledge on this. When a homeowner is thinking about selling, when are they most likely to call a realtor? When they are six months away from selling and they are just pondering it or when they are ready to put their home on the marketing and actually get it sold? When are they more likely to contact a realtor? Caroline: Well, I’ve heard before the six months. I’ve heard that one before. I could be wrong but that’s what I’m going to go with. I could be wrong. Beatty: Survey says, no, you missed it. Here is what happens. Have you ever gone into a store and the sales rep comes up and says, “Hi. May I help you” and you say, “No thank you, I’m just looking.” Have you ever had that happen? Caroline: Yes, that happens all the time. Beatty: Are you actually in the store looking for something specific? Sometimes? Caroline: Sometimes, yes. Beatty: Have you ever just given that knee-jerk response, “No thank you, I’m just looking.” They walk away and then you chase them down and say, “No, wait, hold on, I’m looking for this item, where can I find it?” Have you ever done that? Caroline: Yes, I have. Beatty: Here is what happens. It’s human nature. We have a knee-jerk response that says, “I don’t want to engage a sales rep because I don’t want to be bothered” even if you have interest, you say, “No thanks.” What we find typically, when someone contacts an agent saying, “I’m thinking about selling my home,” that agent usually gets a signed listing agreement within seven days of that initial phone call. What does that tell you? Does that tell you that that homeowner just decided today, “Hey, I was just thinking about selling, let’s call an agent” and within seven days they have a listing agreement? Or do you think that homeowner has been planning to sell for months and they are now finally getting around to calling the agent because they are finally ready to do something about it? Caroline: Maybe that is the stat that I’ve heard. They’ve been planning and thinking about it for six months but then they don’t call until it is time to list. Beatty: That is exactly right. What happens then when you use the ‘I have a client’ approach and you say, “Call me,” you are only going to get those people who have been thinking about it and are now ready to go on the market. But, you miss everyone else, which is a greater number of potential listings, those people who are thinking about selling six or twelve months down the road. The way that you can then capture, not only the low-hanging fruit—those thinking about those going right now and those thinking about possibly selling in six or twelve months—is by changing the, what we call, the call to action. Rather than “Call me,” what I would put on that to keep it real simple is use a call-capture number. This is a toll-free voicemail number that captures the caller ID. You can simply put on the postcard, “Call this number and hear specifically what my buyers are looking for and then if it matches your home, contact me as soon as you are ready to actually sell.” So now, if that were the approach, do you think that these people who were thinking six or twelve months out would likely call that phone number to see what type of homes his buyers are looking for? Caroline: Absolutely. If it’s a sure thing to call and find people who are looking, I think they definitely would. Beatty: Right. As long as it’s free and as long as I don’t engage a sales rep, I’m more likely to respond. This is what we have found over the years in generating leads. What we are technically doing here is generating seller leads within a geographic farm. You can use a call capture number, put a recording on it, and now you get the caller ID of everyone who is responding. Now you know who is likely thinking about selling because they actually took the effort to respond to see. We do it a little bit differently. Ours is a little bit more accurate, but it accomplishes the same thing. When we send out those types of postcards, we have some special technology we program into our system and we actually send them to a website. That technology that we program will pinpoint with laser accuracy the exact address that they are responding from. Now we can send out postcards that say, “Hey, just go to this website to find out what my buyers are looking for.” As soon as they go there, we now know which address is looking and we notify the agent. The key is if you make the identification a stealthy process, where they don’t know that you will know who they are, you are going to get a lot more people freely responding because they don’t want to engage a sales rep right now. That is the second type of self-selection card you can do using the offer of ‘I have a client.’ Now we have one more. We are almost out of time but let’s go ahead and rap this one up and then we will finish this section. There is one other thing that we have found. Ponder for a moment, Caroline. Let’s say that you and Wes were thinking about putting your home on the market. If you were going to put it on the market in three months, what are some of those things that you might be thinking about in terms of getting it on the market? Tell me the process. If you were going to put your home on the market, what are the things that you are going to do to prepare your home? Caroline: We would evaluate our budget. What can we spend? Maybe we would do some quick little fixes here or there. Maybe we would do is a little renovation that wouldn’t cost too much but would maybe give us a lot more money when we sold the house. We would probably be thinking about that or even switching out fixtures. I know hotspots are bathrooms and kitchens, so anything in there that might make it more appealing, we would do small things like that. Beatty: Okay, perfect. So now, would it be helpful if I’m the realtor for me to tell you specifically the things in your house that you want to invest money in that would get you back a greater sales price in a short amount of time or would you prefer just to guess on your own? Caroline: I would definitely love to know from a professional, because that is what they do all the time. I would love that. Beatty: Then, as a professional, if I were to offer you—someone who is thinking about selling—a list of maybe the top five things that you ought to be doing around your home to get it prepared to go on the market, would that hold interest? Caroline: Absolutely. That is something that I would definitely click on. Beatty: Okay. Now, if you were not thinking about selling your home, would that hold interest? Caroline: No, I don’t think so. Maybe, but definitely not as much so as if I was. Beatty: Okay, great. Now we have another self-selection process. That is giving information to the seller on things they can do to make sure their home is ready to sell for the most amount of money in the shortest amount of time. The way you do this is make a list. As a realtor, if you were to advise a client who wanted to put their home on the market in three months, what are the things they should be focused on right now? Make a list of what those things are and then figure out the most important things: The 20% of things that will produce 80% of the results. From there, call it the ‘Top 7’ or the ‘Top 3’ or the ‘Top 5,’ whatever the top number of x number of things to do to get the most money out of your home when you get it on the market. Now you have this free report. What you can do is mail out a postcard: “If you are thinking about selling and you want to get the most money out of your house, I put together a list of the top 5 things that are most valuable to generate the quickest sale with the highest sales price. Get it now. You can go to my website.” They go to your website and maybe they have a form fill that they fill out so you can identify them. Or “Call this toll-free number to request the form.” They call your call-capture number. You put a message on that that says, “Leave your name and address or email address and I’ll mail it to you.” Or, if you do what we do, “Go to this website.” When they go to the website, our technology pinpoint accurately identifies who they are. Some way, you give them a call to action that then leads them to where they request that information. When they go to that call to action, then you identify them. That’s three ways that you use the direct response approach to identify sellers: What’s your home worth? I have a client and a free report. If you do that in a geographic farm, then what will happen (and we’ll talk about this next week) is, if you have the right culture within a farm already, then you will start identifying sellers right off the bat. We’ve had so many clients that when they just started with that approach in a geographic farm, they would get two or three or four listings within the first month or two—I mean Boom Boom Boom Boom—because those are compelling offers. Then, as you nurture the farm longer, you start to pick up more. The biggest thing in geographic farming that kills most people is that they run out of money before they can successfully complete farming it. This approach, using self-selection, gets you cash right up front because you can start turning in transactions and then it pays for the farm. That is one way that you start making a lot of money. Let’s do the remaining part of this next week and we’ll talk about inside reality cards then. Does that work with you? Caroline: Yes, that works great. This is really good and informational. Now we have a whole different card to talk about. We can talk about that next week. We are out of time. Beatty, thank you so much for your expertise and your time in sharing today. I do think this was a really great call and I’m excited to continue on next week. Before we close out the call do you have anything else that you would like to share? Beatty: I actually do. Obviously. There are a lot of things that you can do. I love what a friend of mine said. He’s a top realtor and one of his slides, when he talks to a seller—because you know sellers in a hot market are thinking ‘should I sell the home myself or should I hire a realtor’—one of his slides says, “If you think hiring a professional is expensive, try hiring an amateur.” This kind of hits the nail on the head because there is so much that goes on. A story that comes to mind is there is this old, very successful businessman. His young, hotshot employee has been with him a few years comes to him and says, “Boss, I’ve got good news and bad news.” He says, “Start with the bad news.” “Okay, what’s the good news?” “I’m starting my own business. I’m going to do the same thing that you’ve done and I’m going to be a competitor against you.” And the old businessman just sort of leaned back in his chair, looked the young buck in the eyes and said, “Well, that’s fine, but just remember two things.” He said, “What’s that?” “I taught you everything you know, but I didn’t teach you everything I know.” There is a lot of content here and this is just scratching the surface. So if it’s overwhelming and you want help then let me encourage you to go to our website: AgentDominator.net. This is where we do all of this stuff for you. You can hire us. You pay us a fee. We provide the professional expertise and the other thing that we do, which is really cool, is that we actually guarantee your sells or we give all of your money back. So there is really no financial risk, it is just a matter of outsourcing and letting us do what we do better and then you do what you do. If you have an interest in that, then it’s AgentDominator.net. Back to you, Caroline. Caroline: What we are going to do is wrap up the call. For those of you who are on with us on the live call, if you have questions that you would like to ask just hold on. As soon as we wrap up, we’ll do a short question and answer time with Beatty. That’s all we have for today. Thank you again and thanks Beatty for sharing. Beatty: Thanks and you have a great day. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please tell others about. Also, be sure to get our step-by-step training on how to double sales and referrals from past clients and sphere of influence. It’s absolutely the easiest way to grow your business fast and it’s completely free. You’ll find it on our website at GetSellersCallingYou.com. Thanks for listening. P023
Have Questions or Comments? Please ask your questions in the comments section below. We attempt to respond to ALL questions or comments. Transcript Beatty: This is the Get Sellers Calling you marketing podcast for real estate agents and I’m Beatty Carmichael. For simple to do, proven marketing strategies focused exclusively on finding sellers and getting more listings, visit our website at GetSellersCallingYou.com. Now, let’s begin our next session of Get Sellers Calling You. Caroline: Hi everyone. I’m Caroline Springer. Welcome to this next session of Get Sellers Calling You with Beatty Carmichael. This is one of our special calls, our Radical Faith calls. I’m going to pass over the call to Beatty for just a moment. If you maybe want to explain what your vision is and idea is behind the Radical Faith series. Beatty: Sure. Most of these podcast calls are all focused on how do you grow a real estate business from a marketing perspective, but really we’re not only real estate agents. For those of us who are Christians, we’re also children of God and we have a responsibility there. We do these calls called Radical Faith and I just want to be right up front real quick. If you’re not interested in Christianity, if you don’t want to hear my views or perspectives from a religious standpoint, then you can go on and delete out of this podcast because that’s all we’re going to talk about on this call is how to server the Lord and how to live by faith. So that’s my little plug before we get started. Caroline: Perfect. Well, thank you, Beatty. I like it. It’s their free pass if they don’t want to listen. Beatty: That’s right. Free pass to leave before you get offended, right? Caroline: Yes, there you go. That’s a little claim labor kind of thing. Just a quick reminder about who Beatty is. Beatty is the CEO of Master Grabber. He’s the creator of Agent Dominator and one of the top marketing experts in the real estate field. Also, like Beatty just mentioned, he is a Christian and has been for much of his life and has been a Christian businessman for much of his life as well. I know just from dialoging with him back and forth on these and then watching Beatty work as a Christian businessman, he has so many testimonies of really actively seeing the word at work in his business and in his business partnerships, it’s really inspiring and refreshing in the world that we live in because so many people want you to keep your faith out of the business world. Whatever industry that you work in and for most of our listeners, that’s the real estate industry. Today, I really don’t have a topic because Beatty wanted to surprise me with what we’re talking about. We’ll just have a free, open dialogue and then just a reminder for those of you that are on our live call, we do have the lines muted, but we will open up at the end for questions and answers. So, Beatty, I’m very interested and curious what we’re going to be talking about since I don’t have any outline or idea. Beatty: We are actually going to be doing a continuation of the last 2 Radical Faith calls. We’ve been on the focus of trying to understand what faith is. Where this goes, as a Christian, is we want to first understand one of the core concepts of Christianity, of our relationship with the Lord and that is really understanding what faith is. Until you understand what faith is, it’s impossible to live as Christ lived because everything Jesus did was by faith. The only thing he really ever rebuked his disciples for, I think that probably out of 10 different rebukes I’ve seen 8 of them if not 9 are all focused on ‘Oh, ye of little faith’. Now, there may be more than 10, there may be less than 10 but the bottom line is, except with 1 or 2 exceptions is the only thing that Jesus rebuked his disciples about is their lack of faith. The question is, what is this thing that we call faith? Why is it so important? How do we apply it in our lives? If we can really understand it, then we can really start to follow it. Does that make sense? Caroline: Absolutely. Even going through some of these podcast calls in this series have been challenging and good for me too. They’ve brought me to more of an understanding and like you said, and even shedding more light on some of those things that you were saying where Jesus rebuked them for a lack of faith. Depending on the church that you go to, sometimes that gets watered down and some of that is overlooked. I think this is a good challenge but a refreshing, good challenge because when we’re invited into it, that’s what we are created to walk in. It’s a lot easier than it may feel at times because we don’t just have our strength, we have the Lords. Yeah, that makes total sense. I’m with you. Beatty: Great. If we look at the ultimate goal of our Christian life, it’s to be transformed by the renewing of our minds and become more into the image of Christ. That’s the process of what’s typically called sanctification. The question is, how do we get there? The first step is the concept of faith and that’s why I want to dig into it a little bit more. When we start talking about faith, Jesus talks about faith and belief as 2 separate things. The Bible starts to make clarity that faith and belief are actually different. However, for simplicity sake, as we go into this right now, I’m going to combine them together. Sometimes Jesus may say, believe. Sometimes he may say, have faith, but for real basic understanding, we’re going to assume that they’re both the same and maybe on a later discussion we’ll separate them out and define what they are separately. With that, let’s talk about what faith really is. I want to go back to just a few foundational passages that start to give us a framework and some simple truths. One of the truths that apart from faith, we can receive nothing from the Lord. James I, 6 and 7, let’s test your scripture memory. Do you know what James I, 6 and 7 says? Caroline: Oh, gosh. You always put me on the spot like that. Beatty: I’ll bet you’re looking it up in your Bible right now. No, I’m teasing. Caroline: Well, I know it’s about faith and then when you’re asking the Lord and you don’t doubt. Beatty: Yes, that’s it. That’s exactly it. Caroline: Is it something along those lines? The reason is because we just talked about that recently so I promise it really was because of that. Beatty: I love it. Well, it was a special circumstance. Here’s what this says. It says, ‘but he must ask in faith without any doubting for the one who doubts ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord’. Here, we can find one of these pivotal truths that without faith, it’s impossible to receive anything from the Lord. This is also where Jesus says in Mark 11:24, which is the next foundational truth, and that is ‘when we pray by faith, we receive what we ask for’. We know it to be true because it’s a spiritual truth, but sometimes the question is if we pray and we don’t receive, it doesn’t invalidate the truth, it just means that we did not fully apply it. But here’s what Jesus says. Mark 11:24, ‘Therefore I tell you whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours’. A real simple question, is that an emphatic statement or do you think there’s a lot of wiggle room in that statement? Caroline: No. I don’t think there’s a lot of wiggle room in the Bible at all. Beatty: Yeah, right, okay. Caroline: I think that’s a truthful statement. Beatty: It’s a truthful statement because Jesus said it and therefore if we pray, say, well, I prayed in faith and I didn’t receive it, all I can tell you just because you didn’t receive it doesn’t mean that you prayed in faith. We have truth and then we have experience. We’re going to get a little bit into today, but more in subsequent sessions what happens when we think we’re acting by faith, but we’re really not and how does that impact what we get. We have this second foundational statement that when we pray by faith, we receive what we ask for. The third foundational statement that I want to kick off this call with is at the heart of all sin is unbelief or a lack of faith. As you read through Old Testament to New Testament, especially going through the Israelites coming through the desert and in the wilderness and for 40 years. What the Lord’s word keeps saying is they did not believe, they did not trust and because of that, God’s wrath burned against them. What we find is that the lack of faith or an unbelief is really the root of all sin in our life. This is where one of Jesus’ primary rebukes, ‘oh ye of little faith’. That’s the only thing he really rebuked his disciples for consistently. Why that and what is is it? That’s the preamble. Let’s start talking about this. The Bible tells us specifically, let’s test your scripture memory location on this one. There’s a verse in the Bible that says, ‘faith is’, so you remember where that might be? Caroline: That’s in Hebrews 11. Beatty: Yay. Good job. Caroline: The reason I remember that is because we did talk about that in one of our recent calls, but that is a verse that I will go to a lot at ones time in life. Beatty: Hebrews 11:1, ‘now faith is the assurance of things hoped for. The conviction of things not seen’. The Bible tells us what that is. I want to read 2 other versions of that same verse to show you how these translations start to explain it further. In The Living Bible, it says, ‘What is faith? Faith is the confident assurance that something we want is going to happen. It’s the certainty that what we hope for is waiting for us even though we cannot see it up ahead’. Now, let me define the word ‘hope’ in the Bible is not used the same way as we use it here in America. I hope it doesn’t rain. That’s the way we use it here in America. In the Bible when the word hope is used, it’s an absolute assurance of a promise. The hope of salvation. It’s not like, well, we hope I’m believing this thing right. No, the hope of salvation is the absolute assurance of it. When it says that it is the certainty that what we hope for is waiting for us even though we cannot see it up ahead, this is talking about it’s this absolutely certainty of what’s going on. The Amplified Bible gives my favorite definition this one. It says this, ‘Now, faith is the assurance or the title deed of things we hope for. Being the proof of things we do not see and the conviction of reality. And then it puts in brackets [faith is perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses]. What we have, Caroline, is we have the concept of faith which is a title deed. We talked last time about a title deed being, you know if you have title to your car that means you own it, is that right? Do you remember that? Caroline: Yes. Beatty: Okay. So you own the car, which means you have claim to it and no one can take it from you because it is yours. And that is what we are talking about with faith. It is title deed of the things that we hope for. This is now starting to move into where faith really starts to come in because faith is not in the physical world; it is not in the Earthly realm. It is of the spiritual world or the Heavenly realm. And faith is perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses. In other words, it’s perceiving as reality what in the physical realm we have nothing to tell us it’s there. This is why faith is sometimes so difficult for people. It’s because we are trying to apply our physical senses and our physical being into it. And it’s a supernatural type of element. Okay? That is why it is kind of tough at times. Let me ask you a question. Can you truly believe in and have faith in something that is not true? What do you think? Caroline: That is not true? I would think, no. Beatty: No, you can’t. There is no way to truly believe and have faith in something that is false. That would merely be a deception but you can’t have faith based on this definition. By definition, it the title deed. It is the absolute actual ownership of it, which means that it must be true. And so what I want suggests is that there is a difference between truth and what is true. Okay? Let me see if I can make sense with this. We are children of God, sons of the Kingdom. Does that make sense so far? Caroline: Yes. Beatty: Does our Father have and possess all possessions? Does he have all provisions and have enough to meet all of our needs? Caroline: Yes. Beatty: Okay. So it may be true that I am broke, but truth is my Father owns it all and can take care of all my needs. It may be true that I sick, but truth is, He can take away my sickness and disease because that is the heart of the Father. It may be true that I am broken and downhearted, but truth is, I have all joy and peace in Christ. Do you see the difference between true and truth? Caroline: Right. I think that is a great depiction of it. Beatty: So truth, is God’s word. True is what I perceive in mind’s eye, my natural eye, as what is my reality right now. What we are going to find, especially in the later things that we talk about, is that there is a difference between what is true and what truth is. And truth trumps reality because reality will change. If we go back to Jesus’ statement back in Mark, it says, “Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours.” So we have this thing that says believe which is the root word for faith. Have faith that you’ve received it and then it will be yours. But the converse is true. If you don’t have faith and you receive it, then it is not going to be yours. So we have the difference between truth and true. Truth is you believe by faith and it is yours. What’s true is that you may not believe by faith and it’s not yours. So true, or reality, is not fixed but truth is. And you can only faith in what is truth because you can only have faith in what is fixed by the Lord. I may be kind of confusing you, but are you following where I’m going on that? Caroline: I am. I think that is a great reminder. I think you are such a great teacher the way you explain the differences between things. I am completely following you. I think that was a great explanation between those and what that means for us. I am following. Beatty: So the next step is, where does this faith come from? And so, Romans tells us, in Romans 10:17: “Faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ.” So now we have the scriptural reference that faith is based off of truth, which is the word of Christ. But I want to dissect this passage in Romans a little more. Faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. I remember when this passage was explained to me. Go back quite a few years ago; this is now 1997. Okay? I’m an unemployed, stay-at-home dad. My wife is a stay-at-home mom. We have a baby in diapers. Another baby came that year. I was trying to make ends meet. I did 13 different things that year. We had a mortgage on the car and a mortgage on the house and everything else. I did 13 things to try to make money. My entire income set this year was $11,882. That was my adjusted gross income. You can tell that I didn’t do a really good job, but the Lord blessed us. I’ll share more about that later. But we came through a period of time when we had nothing. During that period of time, we continued to give 20% of whatever we earned directly into the Lord’s work before we spent any of it. So even in our lack, what happened was, we realized we could trust the Lord and he would take care of us. Kind of the net of what happened there was, we were never late on any of our payments. In fact, we never missed a payment. We never went hungry. We had plenty of everything we needed. The Lord completely took care of us. It was an amazing experience. When I started our business and the business started to grow, I was meeting with a Christian business man, a mentor of mine named Tom. We were looking at our PnL. For those of you who don’t know what a PnL is, it’s basically like a scorecard that basically tells you if your business is making money or not. Every month we are growing my $20,000 profit. $20,000, $40,000, $80,000, like that. And I’m over here tickled pink. I’m all excited. I’m meeting with my friend Tom and saying, “Tom, how can I have faith when I can see the money on the PnL?” Because, in my mind, faith was, you have no knowledge of what is going on and therefore you merely have to trust the Lord to take care of you. That was my definition of faith. Does that make sense? Does that kind of ring true that most people’s definition of faith is, “I’m just trusting the Lord because I have no knowledge of anything else”? Are you following where I’m going on that? Caroline: I am and that is exactly what I was thinking. I think that is probably true for a lot of people from what they have experienced and from what they know. I’m sure that would resonate with a lot of people. Beatty: So faith is not trusting God; I hate to say it that way. Trust comes out of faith but trust is not faith. If we come back to Romans 10:17, it says, “Faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ.” And so I asked Tom, “How can I have faith when I can see the money and it is growing every single month.” That is when he said, “Faith doesn’t come from seeing. Faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ.” Where is that? Romans 10:17. And it totally rocked my world in starting to understand what faith really meant. So I wanted to take this moment to start to dissect this and talk about this. So there are two key words in this passage. “Hearing” and “word.” “Faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of Christ.” So if you look at the Greek word—and I’m not a Greek scholar, I just happen to have a concordance that happens to have the Greek in there. The word hearing means audible. It is not reading. Faith doesn’t come by merely reading the word; it comes by hearing it. Now, there are different ways to hear it. Sometimes the Lord highlights it off of the page. Other times he impresses it in some significant way. Other times, it may be audible. I mean, I’ve heard the word of God audibly once in my life. It was really clear and it surprised the heck out of me. I looked around, “Where did that come from? No one is here.” But faith comes from hearing the word of God. It is that audible side of things. The main thing I want to focus in on is “word.” Faith comes from hearing the word of Christ. And there are actually two primary Greek words used in the New Testament that translate into the English word called “word.” Let’s test your Greek knowledge. Do you have an idea of what those words are? Caroline: That I do not know. Beatty: Okay, so the two Greek words are: logos and rhema. I knew you knew it. What happens is, sometimes we hear these things but maybe they don’t come out quit so quickly. I am not trying to embarrass you; I’m just trying to create dialogue. Caroline: I did know both of those words as soon as you said them. Beatty: Here is what they are. Here is a simple definition of logos: A statement that embodies an idea. Let me give you three verses and I’ll show you how this comes out. Mathew 5:32 states, “Jesus says, ‘But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife except for the reason of unchastity makes her commit adultery.’” That word reason, “except for the reason of unchastity” – that is logos – except for the idea of unchastity. Then you have Mark 2:2. It says, “And many were gathered together, so that there was no longer room, not even near the door and he [talking about Jesus] was speaking the word to them.” That word is logos. He was speaking a statement that embodies an idea. He was talking to them. Then we have another example that is in Luke 1:2. It says, “Just as they were handed down to us by those who, from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word.” The word is the Gospel. “Eyewitness and servants of the word” is logos—a statement that embodies an idea. So we see this word throughout scripture and it is important but it doesn’t have a whole lot of power behind it. It’s just talking about a concept of an idea. Are you following along with me? Caroline: Yes. Beatty: So then we look at the word rhema, which is the other primary Greek word. Now, if there are any Greek scholars out there, I understand there are lots of meanings and lots of ways to interpret the word. I’m just focusing on what I call the framework of what goes on here. I’m not trying to become a Greek scholar. I’m just trying to share generally. This is just generally framework of what these are. So a simple definition of rhema means: By implication of matter, especially of an operation, command or dispute. So it is a little more specific, but when I start to show you how rhema is used in scripture, or at least in sample scripture, we start to see that it is different from the word logos. This concept of faith comes from hearing the word of Christ, hearing the rhema of Christ. I think this is significant because now it starts to give us an idea of what we can actually have faith in. Okay? So let’s look a couple passages. The first one is in Mark. It’s Mark 14:72. This is at the time when Jesus has been taken before the high priest. It says, “And immediately the cock crowed a second time. And Peter remembered how Jesus had made the remark to him, ‘Before the cock crows twice, you will deny Me three times.’” “He remembered how Jesus had made the remark to him.” “Made the [rhema] to him.” So Jesus made a very specific comment, very specifically to Peter that had a very specific outcome. That’s a rhema. Okay? So we look at Luke 1:38. This is Mary talking to the angel. “And Mary said, ‘Behold the bondslave of the Lord; may it be it done to me according to your word.’ And the angel departed from her.” “Let it be done to me according to your word,” according to your rhema, according to that statement, that direction, that command, that promise, that forth telling of what is going to happen. Okay? Here is another one in Luke 5:5. “And Simon answered and said, ‘Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing, but I will do as you say and let down the nets.” “I will do as you [rhema] and let down the nets.” Do you see the difference between logos and rhema? Logos is kind of a general idea, but rhema tends to carry with it very specific instructions, very specific promises of what is about to happen. Do you see this played out in scripture? Caroline: Absolutely. I think too with rhema it almost feels like there is more of an action with it, even though it is still a word, it kind of feels like there is more of a speaking action. I don’t know if that is right, but it feels that way. Beatty: You are right; it is more of a speaking action. It is something that you can sink your teeth into. And so when we talk about faith and living our life by faith and acting by faith, it is not simply acting by ideas, it is acting on truth. And so if we go back to truth versus true, you can only have faith in truth because only truth is solid and in each of these examples of rhema, there was a truth given and that truth occurred and, therefore, when that truth was given as a rhema, then the recipient of that truth could have faith in it that it was going to happen. It’s confident assurance of something to occur that we cannot see right now. Does this kind of wrap it together a little bit? Caroline: I think it does. I think that was a great explanation too and even gave people a picture of it. That’s great explanation of that. Beatty: So if we go back to the amplified version: Faith is the title deed, okay? When Jesus told Peter before the cock crows twice you will deny me three times. That is a title deed. You can take that to the bank because Jesus made a comment that is the absolute truth and then it occurred. An angel told Mary, “You are going to have a child and you are not going to have relationships with a man to have that child. You are going to be a virgin.” She said, “Be it done according to your word.” That was her title deed because the Lord had delivered that message to her. Or when Jesus told Peter, “Drop down the nets.” “We worked late all night, but by your command we will do it.” That’s what rhema is. This is where faith comes from. It comes from this concept of rhema. What’s interesting is the Holy Spirit is just an amazing helper. So you have the Holy Spirit that is sent to us, as believers, to guide us through the scripture, to interpret the scripture, and to highlight things to us. It’s basically guiding us through the entire path in life to ensure that we hear God’s instructions to us. So basically it’s our choice if we want to follow it or not. It’s not really our choice, but He gives us some choice in the matter. And so what happens is, we can be reading God’s word and we might read something that would normally be logos, such as Jesus giving the parable of the servant with the ten minas. The master says, “Well done faithful servant. Because you were faithful with a little, take charge of ten cities.” So if you just read that you are going to say, “That’s a nice story.” But then something may be going on in your life and the Holy Spirit causes that passage to stand out and you read over it and it’s like your eyes just latch onto it. Almost like a pair of magnets and something is really unique. Have you ever had that happen as you read the scripture, something just kind of stands out and you go, “The Lord is telling me something here”? Have you ever had that happen? Caroline: Oh, absolutely. Things or highlighted or things jump out or something happens and I start thinking about it. That has happened to me. Something will happen and I’ll be reading about it and then I’m look, “Oh, that was you.” So absolutely. Beatty: Perfect. So here is what is going on. The Holy Spirit will take that passage and highlight it. And when that happens, in this kind of loose terminology of logos versus rhema that becomes your rhema. That now becomes something that you can have faith in because not it has spoken to you by the Holy Spirit. Now obviously we want to make sure that it’s the spirit that his highlighting it not just our own desires. But as you mature as a believer than you can discern the difference between when the Holy Spirit is telling you to take notice because this is for you versus when we are trying to say, “Oh, I want this for me.” Okay? But when the Holy Spirit highlights it, then what happens is he takes the general word of God, the logos, and he turns it into a rhema for you that now you have the title deed to it. And now when you pray for that, believing that you received that you received, believing by faith, then that is when you receive it. This is when you ask for something, let not a man doubt, otherwise you should expect nothing from the Lord. So when we have the title deed, then we have no way to doubt it. Is this starting to open up these concepts? Caroline: Absolutely. I was just thinking about how that is coming full circle and connecting. I think that was great explanations that makes connections between all of that. I think that for a lot of people these are concepts or thoughts that maybe they’ve heard a lot but this is bringing new or deeper truth or revelation to the depth of what we are being invited into. I’m thankful that I get to be on the receiving end of this. Beatty: I love it. Well, do me a favor because I know we are out of time for this segment. I would love for you to sum up what you got out of this, anything that stands out and we will kind of start to wrap up the call. Caroline: Okay. You put me on the spot here. I think like you said in the beginning, one of the concepts that I think that I’m continually trying to renew my mind about is about hope and assurance and like in that verse where the title deed example you were using about salvation. This is like our deed. Because I think that sometimes the world that we live in—or like you said, the American culture—we look at things through a certain lens. We look at faith; we look at hope. We look at what we can ask for through a certain lens. Maybe even what we’ve experienced or seen other Christians say is available. I think this has been really good as an invitation. “Hey this is real. This is what we have access to. It’s not like an “I have to try.” It’s not an “as hard as I can pray and ask the Lord for something.” It’s like a complete washing of your mind, of saying, “Okay, this is true. This is what we have access to. This is what is real. This is the Kingdom and the reality that I choose to be more aware of than what my surroundings are. Even like you said, if it’s something that we pray for and haven’t seen what we’ve asked the Lord for, it’s just saying, “Hey Lord, this is what your promise is.” I’m going to stand in this. I’m going to stand in this truth and in this promise and continue praying and continue believing. I feel like this is a good and an exciting challenge what we are invited to as sons and daughters, what we have access to, to not question it and not doubt and not ever stand back from what we know to be available in truth. When you are talking, my mind is going a million different places of different things and different examples and to my own relationship with the Lord. So those are the things that I was getting out of it. I don’t know if that is a perfect summation. Beatty: I think it’s a great summation. Absolutely. Caroline: Okay, good. I think there is a lot we can learn from this. I’m going to share the recording myself. Beatty: Well good. I think we are probably about out of time for this session. Is that correct. Caroline: Yes, we are. I didn’t want to interrupt you because it was so good. But yes, we are out of time and we need to wrap it up. Beatty, thank you so much for your time and for your willingness to share a revelation that you received from the Lord and what you’ve walked with in the Lord and for giving us all of this great challenge of who we are and what we are called to do and what is available. So, if you are on the live call with us, what we are going to do is wrap up and if you have any questions that you would like to ask Beatty, just hang on and we’ll go into a short Q&A session. So I think that is all for today. But thank you again, so much, Beatty, for sharing. Beatty: Well, thank you. I’ve enjoyed it. Y’all have a great day. Beatty: This has been the Get Sellers Calling you marketing podcast for real estate agents and I’m Beatty Carmichael. For simple to do, proven marketing strategies focused exclusively on finding sellers and getting more listings, visit our website at GetSellersCallingYou.com. P022
Transcript Beatty: This is the Get Sellers Calling You marketing podcast for real estate agents and I’m Beatty Carmichael. For simple to do, proven marketing strategies focused exclusively on finding sellers and getting more listings, visit our website at GetSellersCallingYou.com. Now, let’s begin our next session of Get Sellers Calling You. Caroline: Hi everyone. This is Caroline Springer and welcome to the next sessions of Get Sellers Calling You with Beatty Carmichael. Beatty is the CEO of Master Grabber, the creator of Agent Dominator and he’s one of the top marketing experts in the real estate field. Today, we are going to continue with our topic of geographic farming. Last week we were talking about the 10 low cost ways to touch your geographic farm and we’re going to continue on with that today. Just a reminder for those of you that are on our live call, we have the lines muted, but will open up for questions and answers with Beatty at the end of the call. So, welcome, Beatty. Beatty: Well, thank you. It’s good to be back. Caroline: I’m very excited and interested to continue on, I know this has been a lot of calls in our series on geographic farming has been really informational. I know I learned a lot and I’m sure that our listeners feel the same way. Last week we started on 10 low cost ways to touch the farm which I know is something that you’re really passionate about and have a lot of advice and success stories on. I’m very interested to hear the rest of your suggestions for 10 low cost ways. Beatty: Well good. I’m kind of excited to share some of them and we talked on 3 of them last week, and so we’ve got about 7 more to go or possibly 8, depending on if I add any new ones that I think about as we go along. The great thing about all this is that there’s just so many ways to touch your farm successfully that it almost doesn’t matter what you do. I say almost. Sometimes it actually does, but in general when you’re doing geographic farming, there’s really 3 things that you do if you want to get listings there. There may be more than 3 ways, so let me just back up and say, if you are to start geographic farming, what you do to get the most results out of it. One of the things you want to do, we haven’t talked about this at all, so this is kind of a bonus thing. Maybe we’ll do a call more specifically around this idea. If you’re going to do a geographic farm, you ought to be an expert in that locality. That subdivision, that neighborhood, whatever it is. If you are not out there actually previewing all of the sales coming on the market, all the listings that are on the market, I mean, and walking through and understanding what each home has, what it’s priced, what you like about it, what you don’t, so you can talk knowledgably about it, then you’re really not an expert in that area. I want to share a story. One of our clients, we started working with him in a geographic farm. He’d just started in this farm. Never marketed there before. One of the things that he did, is he did these best practices. One of those best practices is for every listing that was on the market, he went and visited. Where he was, you actually contact the homeowner and come out and take a look. In his environment it was okay. It was listed by another agent, but he could contact the homeowner and say, hey, I just want to come out and look at your home. They would always ask why. He would say because I focus here. I know every home on the market. I know what’s going on and I make it a practice to walk through every home. That way as I have buyers, I can tell them exactly what’s on the market. I can tell them what’s best for them based on what they want. When I have a listing, I know exactly what it should be priced at and that’s how I do my business. They’re always impressed. He would walk through the home and he would leave a notecard with suggestions. What he liked. What he didn’t like. Things that he would suggest that they do to improve the salability of their home. Here’s what’s really cool. He goes out and does that simply to know what’s on the market. At the same time, we’re mailing postcards into that community and he starts getting listings right off the bat from expireds that didn’t sell. They were so impressed with him that they gave him the listing and he sold it. One of the things that you can do, and again, all we’re talking about is touching them. Making sure you go out and you meet the people. Make sure that they see you all the time. Make sure that they trust you. If you are actually going through and looking at the homes and leaving a little note about things they could do to improve the salability of their home, you know, hey, I think you ought to take out the gold fixtures and put in iron fixtures, anything like that, then that makes you more of the expert. They start to trust you and you might actually pick up some expired sales along the way. That’s kind of a free bonus. But let’s get back to touches in general. These low cost thing that you can do. Last week, I think, Caroline, we talked about doing Facebook marketing, doing door knocking, and doing what I call an ice cream give away or a cupcake give away down at the park. Let’s talk about something else we can do. We want to add as much value into someone’s life as possible. One thing you can do is you can give away 2 for 1 coupons. You can add this into the mix with what you do with door knocking. You could add this into the mix when you do a cupcake give away. You could add this into the mix simply by hiring some teenagers to go out and place this on every door in the neighborhood. The idea is this, if you will get these coupon books. Caroline, have you and Wes ever gotten these coupon books? You pay like $15 or $20 and it’s a great big book. You go through it and you’ve got all these restaurants and other retail places, and they’re 2 for 1 or half off or things like that. Have you ever gotten one of those coupon books? Caroline: I have and since our son was born, I feel like I’ve definitely frequented it a lot more. Beatty: I’ll bet. Caroline: Having a baby now, having to cut costs, I’ve definitely looked at those recently. Beatty: Let me give you a little secret. Watch this. Did you know that every one of those retail stores and restaurants pay money so they could put their coupon in that book. Did you know that? Caroline: I figured that just because it is free advertising. There were definitely a few places that we frequented that we didn’t beforehand. We probably wouldn’t without the coupon. I figured that, but that’s my confirmation. Beatty: They pay to be in there. Now, you, as an individual can tap into that. Let’s say that you wanted to target Garden Heights community, where ever that neighborhood might be. You go through that coupon book and you say, what’s some nice restaurants near here? You go, oh, here’s a nice restaurant, let’s call it ABC Café and in that coupon book, they have a 2 for 1 coupon. Buy one entrée get another one free. Then, what you can do is you can contact ABC Café and say, hey, I’m a real estate agent. I’m marketing into Garden Heights neighborhood which is right in the area you serve and I would like to promote your restaurant. I see you’ve got these 2 for 1 coupons in this booklet. Will you give me some 2 for 1 coupons or will you give me the ability to create a 2 for 1 coupon with your permission and let me get it out to every homeowner in Garden Heights? What do you think that restaurant would do? Do you think they would say yes? Caroline: Absolutely. It’s free advertising for them. Beatty: That’s right. It’s totally free. They don’t even have to pay for it this time. Now, you can add great value to those homeowners that comes from you by saying, hey, I worked out a special deal and I would like to give you a benefit. ABC Café will give you 1 entrée for any entrée that you purchase as long as you present them this coupon that shows my name and information. You have your coupon with your name and photo and stuff and we will call this The Caroline Springer Special. People go, wow, this is really great. Thank you, Caroline. You’ve now added a value to them. You even put in that little note, whether it’s a door hanger or a letter that you send out or put it on a postcard, say, stick this on your refrigerator until you are ready to use it. What that does is that it keeps your value, your face, your name, your brand always in front of them, facing them with this great benefit that they get simply because you were there. Isn’t that a cool way of doing it? Isn’t that a cool touch? Caroline: I think that’s a great idea. I know that’s something that myself, as a homeowner, would appreciate and I would definitely remember because I’ve never experienced or had anybody do that for me before. That’s something that would make a realtor stand out, I think. Beatty: It definitely would. You used the perfect term. We touched on this on one of our calls a while back on sphere of influence, but the question is, when you do a touch, what type of touch is most important? In other words, are all touches the same or do some touches have greater value? What this touch does, you said, it’s something of value. Something that you appreciate and when you can do a touch that your recipient appreciates, what that means is you go up in those little brownie points in their minds. Not all touches are the same. Just because you do a touch and it shows your name in front of them, that’s great, but if you can do a touch that keeps your name in front of them with appreciation, you get even more bang for the buck. This is something you can do and it’s real easy, real low cost and especially if you just want to get out to the whole neighborhood. You hire a couple of teenagers and say, I’m going to pay you X number of dollars to get this out to everyone in the neighborhood. So they hop on their bikes or they hop in their car and they get it out for you because for them, it’s great money. For you, it’s almost nothing. That’s a low cost touch. That’s number 4 that we talked about. Number 5 touch is what I call a BBQ in the park social. This is similar to what we touched on last week where you have a giveaway. Like a cupcake or ice cream give away and you do it down at the park. This is going to be similar to that except it’s more of a BYOB, bring your own beef, okay, beef or hotdogs or whatever and we’re just going to go grill out. You coordinate a social in the park where everyone just grills out. They come out for Saturday lunch or Saturday early dinner. If you want, you could actually put hotdogs and burgers on the grill and give them away. Do another social event especially if the area you’re targeting has some sort of a park or common area that people can go to. That would be Number 5. Similar to that, but different, sometimes you have a neighborhood that doesn’t really have a common area for everyone to congregate in. Like one of the areas we lived in, we had like 350 homes but yet there were no common areas. It was just residential, beautifully manicured lawns and everything else. It was a subdivision, so you had 2 entrances and then all of the inside streets. What we would do, is we would take a side street that didn’t have a lot of traffic and we would block it off on both ends and we would have a street social. If you don’t have a common space, create one out of a low traffic road and block it off. Obviously, you will need to get permission from the police or someplace and announce it throughout the neighborhood. Put up flyers. Put up street signs. Say, hey, we’re doing a band and hotdog social on this street at this time. Just coordinate something. Bring in a DJ, bring in a band. You can get these DJ’s that just play the music and they bring their own speakers and stuff and it doesn’t cost much money. Bring something for the kids. Maybe one of those fun photo booths that people can hop in and take funny photos or anything like that. Make another big deal because here’s what happens. The more you can coordinate getting the neighbors together, the more it becomes a fun activity that they really appreciate. The more they appreciate it and you are in the middle of all of it, then the more they appreciate you. Back to what you’re talking about, Caroline, with the 2 for 1 coupon, it’s something you would appreciate. It’s the same thing with all these other little touches. If you can make them appreciate it, then it raises the value that you have in their eyes. Make sense? Caroline: Absolutely. I was just thinking how much I wish that somebody would do that for my neighborhood. Beatty: All right, real estate agents. Listen up. We will give your address so that those in your area will start to create that social. I’m teasing. Wouldn’t that be fun? You bring your kids. Let’s take this a step further. Coordinate these activities. You have a social on the street. You have Easter, a big Easter egg hunt over at someone’s house. For Fourth of July, coordinate the fire truck to come over and bring a bunch of streamers and maybe bring the ice cream truck again. Have the fire truck and turn on the sirens and what happens is all of the kids in the neighborhood congregate there. All of the moms come and congregate and a lot of the dads and it’s a perfect opportunity to keep your name in front of them with value and then the other thing that starts to happen when you do this is you become known as the local real estate expert because it’s you that’s coordinating everything. If there’s not a phone directory in that neighborhood. Make one. Go door to door say, hey, I’m putting together a phone directory for everyone. I think it would be a great idea so you know who your neighbors are. You know their kids, you know their phone number, their email address and make the community a real community. You coordinate a director and it will cost you probably a couple of dollars per home, but that directory is carrying your brand. It stay with them all the time. They’re always using it. These are things that the agent that dominated our community, she did all of these things and it was amazing. She had almost every listing that came on the market in that community because she was always there. These aren’t tough things to do. They’re just things that you have to plan and execute on. Pretty cool idea, isn’t it? Caroline: I love these things. I think there all low cost and really easy too and fun. It’s not like this is something that anybody would not enjoy this. I think this is a great idea. I love all this. Beatty: Cool. Because it’s fun, most real estate agents are on this profile, that’s the I’s which are the influencers. On the other profile, they’re called sanguine. They are people that just like to have fun. They like to be with people. These are things that you can really drive on and enjoy the process of being an agent. It’s really cool. That’s actually a bonus. That would be Number 7 if we were counting that one. Let’s talk about another one I call the Athletic Schedule. Here in the South, football, SEC football is king. You go up north a little bit, in to probably the Kentucky area and basketball probably becomes king. You go a little bit farther north and hockey becomes king. You go somewhere else and maybe it’s the pro teams. Where ever you are, in most cases, there’s at least one or two athletic events that are like the big deal. We’ve all talked about this, but I want to talk about the importance of it. That’s the athletic calendar that you stick on the refrigerator. First off, Caroline, do you and Wes, by chance, do you ever stick one of those athletic calendars on your refrigerator? Caroline: We don’t, but we probably aren’t a typical family. My husband watches a lot more basketball than most. I do know that we live in the South and that’s a big, big thing so I know lots of people that would. Beatty: Yeah, and lots of people definitely do. I was talking to a realtor and that she puts out these athletic schedules, in this case, it’s the SEC football schedule. She says that she gets more business, that’s her Number 1 marketing method in terms of return on investment. Here’s what happens. You’ll spend a couple of dollars dropping it in the mail and getting it to that homeowner, printing, mailing and all that stuff, a couple of dollars, but for that couple of dollars it stays on that refrigerator 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all season long. You can’t put a price tag on that little $2 investment to keep you always in front of someone. That one thing by itself isn’t going to totally take your business to a new level, but when you put that in the mix with everything else, what’s happening is you’re always in front of them and these are low cost things that you can do. It’s not much money, but you’re always in front of them and because you’re always in front of them, they always remember you. Number 1 reason an agent gets a phone call from a homeowner is simply because that homeowner remembered to call them. If you can stay in front of them so that they remember you, you’ve got the game won. That’s actually 8 if you add in the bonus thing I just gave you. This will be Number 9, which is the refrigerator magnet clip. Let me explain this because I found this really fascinating. I went to the NAR convention a few years ago. One of the large mortgage companies were giving away magnet clips that you put on the refrigerator. Let me ask you, Caroline, is your refrigerator steel where you can put magnets on it or is it stainless steel where magnets don’t hold? Caroline: The front is stainless steel, but the sides are steel. I can put magnets on the side. Beatty: Great, and do you put magnets on the side? Caroline: I do. Beatty: Okay, I’ll be you do. Stainless brings in a little bit of a different challenge, but we’ll talk about that. For the majority of refrigerators out there that most people have, they’re made out of just the regular metal that the magnet will hold to. What these things are that we picked up are refrigerator magnet clips. Think about this. I know in our house, this was always a challenge especially with kids. Trying to find another magnet to put that other piece of paper on to hang it on the refrigerator. Do you know what I mean, Caroline? Caroline: Yes, I do. Beatty: What do you do? You’ve got these little flimsy magnets and you’ve got 2 or 3 pieces of paper stuck underneath them. They fall off and then you’ve got another list that you try to put up there and it slides out. Everything falls off because the magnets are typically pretty weak. What these magnet clips are, is that they will hold really tightly to the refrigerator but now they’ve got like an alligator clip. You can put pieces of paper there. You can put several sheets of paper if you want. You can put an entire notepad. It will hold it there and it’s not going to drop it. What I found happened with us is for 3 years, these were my wife’s favorite things on the refrigerator because they held. They held anything and it didn’t drop it and allowed her to organize all of things on the refrigerator with these. Imagine now you get those refrigerator magnet clips and you get them branded with your name, photo and phone number on it. You spend the money one time and year over year it stays on the refrigerator because it adds value. That’s the key with all of these. If the touch adds value, then it’s going to drive business to you. So, that would be Number 9, I think if my list is correct. Fantastic. We’re going to be able to get through this entire list on this call and then we’ll be able to move into our next session on this on next week’s call. I have 3 more things. They’re all pretty quick. One is a cool idea. I think it has its place, but you can take this idea and make it work in almost any place. I picked up this one from one of the real estate coaches and it’s a branded ice cream scoop. This coach was sharing how popular it was. They did it for a real estate agent that sold lake property. They would come to buy a vacation home at the lake, they would come down, you know at the lake you’re always down there on the Fourth of July, you’re always down there on Memorial Day. You’re always out and you’re having crowds of people and you’re having party food of which ice cream is part of it. She created a branded ice cream scoop for her agent who is over there and people loved it. They held onto it year over year because it was a good scoop but every time they’re scooping out ice cream, they’re seeing that agent’s information. Maybe it’s an ice cream scoop for you. Maybe it’s something else that you put in the kitchen. Maybe it’s a great cutting board. Maybe it’s a great knife holder. Maybe it’s anything like that. Where you can make it really nice and not look too commercially so where that homeowner is going to love it and use it and when they love and use it, you’re always there. Does that make sense? If you were to think off the top of your head, Caroline, what things in your kitchen do you think would be low cost that someone could brand and if they gave you something for your kitchen you’d probably hold onto it? Any ideas? Caroline: I was just trying to think because I don’t know the cost of some of those things, but I’m sure these days, especially if you’re mass ordering, you could get pretty low cost. Maybe like a pizza cutter, or an ice cream scoop or a knife or a lemon zester. Just something that people use frequently but not to where they might have their favorite knife. This would be something that they would still keep. They wouldn’t just toss it because they already have one they love. Beatty: Right. Caroline: I think that would be a good idea. Maybe if you cook or your wife cooks or husband cooks, whoever, just ask them what’s something quick and easy that you think could be a good idea that people use frequently, but wouldn’t mind having a second one. Those are my first thoughts. Beatty: I think all of those are great ideas. The whole idea is think of what you can do and you can find these things online all over the place that are inexpensive, that you can buy a bunch in volume, get branded to you. Whether you hand them out en mass or you hand them out periodically as you’re door knocking or anything like that, it’s another touch that adds value. The last 2 things and then we’ll be able to wrap this up. By the way, I don’t know if you heard all the crickets in the background. I was outside on our deck. I just came back inside because the noise actually got kind of deafening. It’s kind of fun but deafening, nonetheless. These are more things you do within the community. You will recognize that a lot of these low cost things to touch your farm are going to be community things where you’re part of the community and people recognize you as being part of that community. The Number 10 or 11 or 12 because we added a couple along the way that wasn’t on my list, would be a neighborhood garage sale. This is something where you promote it. Find a location or 2 houses next to each other or maybe where their driveways are connected and say, let’s do a garage sale. Let’s make it a party. Come over. We’re going to have a garage sale. We’re going to invite folks. Now, you’re helping people get rid of the junk in their house. You might even say, hey, if you’re thinking about selling your home, this is a perfect time to get rid of a lot of clutter that you need to get rid of so the home is going to show well. This might mean that you schedule the garage sale at the beginning of the listing season, before people actually get their homes on the market. Schedule it as an easy way for people to clean out their home and get it ready for going on the market. As people come and want to participate in the garage sale, just ask them, hey, are you wanting to get rid of stuff or are you guys thinking about putting your home on the market? You can inquire at that point and find out what’s going on and pick up some extra listings fairly easily. The final one is similar, but do something that shows your compassion, like maybe a clothes drive for homeless people. Right now, homelessness is increasing dramatically and it’s becoming more and more of an issue in a lot of communities. Why not do something compassionate and put out a clothing drive. Just say, hey, we’re going to do a clothing drive. Here’s all you need to do. If you want to participate in it, then simply, maybe give them a yellow flag or yellow sticker that they stick on their front door, put the clothes in a bag and we’ll come by and pick them up. They’ll be tax deductible because they’re all going to be picked up by, let’s call it The Salvation Army, or anything like that. You’re coordinating this special drive specifically for the homeless, it becomes a tax deduction. It becomes another touch that you can maybe hire a bunch of teenagers to go out and put door hangers and stuff in a community. It’s all branded to you. You’re involved with it. If you’ve done the Facebook community page that we talked about, you’re promoting it on that. Now, what they see is they see you as a compassionate leader within the community, really helping people out and people love to do business with those that they feel they can really trust and that really has their heart in the right place. Those are the different things that you can do, low cost ways, to touch your farm. Isn’t it cool? Caroline: I love all of those ideas. I’m not a realtor and I kind of want to just go do some of those because they sound just like good ideas like a neighborhood garage sale and a clothes drive for the homeless and a big get together. I love them all. It’s definitely not something common. It’s not something people run into every day and they will definitely remember and tuck that realtors name away after they’ve participated in something like that. Those are great ideas. I think we are about out of time. I’m glad we made it through those. We made it through our 10 plus low cost ways to touch a geographic farm. We’re about out of time and need to wrap up. Beatty, thank you so much for your time and expertise. I think this really was a great call. I know I already feel all warm and fuzzy thinking about all of these ideas so I’m sure our listeners do to. Before we close out the call, do you have anything else you’d like to share, Beatty? Beatty: Well, of course, I like to put an unabashed plug for what we do which is AgentDominator.net. If you want help building your business and doing geographic farming, targeting your personal list and we actually guarantee your sales or we refund your money, then check us out over at AgentDominator.net and we’d love to talk with you. Caroline: Thank you Beatty, again. For those of you that are on the live call, if you have questions that you’d like to ask Beatty, just hold on and as soon as we wrap up our recording, we’ll go into a short question and answers time. That’s all we have for today. Thank again and thank you, Beatty, for sharing. Beatty: Well, thank you, Caroline. Have a great day. P021
Transcript Beatty: This is the Get Sellers Calling You marketing podcast for real estate agents and I’m Beatty Carmichael. For simple to do proven marketing strategies focus exclusively on finding sellers and getting more listings, visit our website at GetSellersCallingYou.com. And now, let’s begin our next session of Get Sellers Calling You. Caroline: Hi everyone, this is Caroline Springer and welcome to the next session of Get Sellers Calling You with Beatty Carmichael. Beatty is the CEO of MasterGrabber, the creator of AgentDominator and one of the top marketing experts in the Real Estate field. Today, we’re going to be talking about the topic of geographic farming. We’ve been going through a little bit of the series and today we are going to focusing in on the 10 best low cost ways to touch your geographic farm. Just a reminder for those of you that are on our live call, we will have the lines muted, but we will open for questions and answers at the end of the call. Welcome Beatty. I’m excited to continue on in our series. Beatty: I am too but I feel a little offended. Caller: Uh oh, why? Beatty: You said I’m one of the best marketing experts. I thought I was “the” best marketing expert. What is this one? Caller: Well, in my opinion, subjectively, of course you are the best. But, you know, I guess that’s just what you have to say, I guess, not to be too pompous I guess. I’m trying to be fair to any other market expert out there. Beatty: Trying to be humble? Caller: Yes. Are you going to give us a quick little run-through of what we’ve talked about previously? I know we’ve had a lot of great content about geographic farming and there is so much more that goes into it than most agents realize. If you want to give a quick refresher for anyone who maybe hasn’t heard previous calls and could maybe learn or have an interest in those they could listen. Then you could to jump right in to these low cost ways to do a geographic farm. Beatty: Okay, perfect. Also, for those of us who are joining us on the podcast version, which means we’ve released this as a podcast, all of the previous calls are available on our website at: GetSellersCallingYou.com or in the podcast, wherever you are listening to it from. So, if we take a high level overview and say where are we now and where are we going in geographic farming? You did make a moment and yes there is a whole lot more in doing geographic farming right if you want to make a whole lot of money with it than most agents really realize. And so over the previous sessions we talked about a step-by-step proven process to select the right farm. It’s not just a pick an area where you want to target if you want to make money. There is actually a due diligence process that will actually help you very specifically and accurately which area is going to produce the most money for you in the shortest amount of time and the most money long term. We talked about that. That was call number two. Our first call was just an overview. Then, on our third call, we talked about how to select the right lists because there are lots of options and choices depending on what you are trying to do. Okay? And we talked about you can get everything from the entire list of the farm all the way down to a segmented list that may be a higher concentration of just those homes most likely to actually move and go on the market in the near future. And then, last week on our fourth call, we were talking about how quickly can you earn money? It’s sort of like the attorney, it depends. Okay? It all depends on what it is that you are doing outside of just the automated type of touches. What type of touches you are doing. How many of those touches are personal and things of that sort. So that is kind of brings us up to where we are. Today, I want to cover, if time allows, about 10 different things that you can do that are low cost ways that you can touch your farm and get a good impact. And then, after today’s call, if we complete all of that today, then starting on the subsequent call or calls (I don’t know how long they will last), we are going to go very specifically into things you can do in postcard marketing. Because typically, in geographic farming, the most effective and consistent way that most agents do it is with postcards. I don’t think your touches need to be all of one type only, so it’s a breadth of different things that you do. The postcard mailing is definitely a real cornerstone of effectiveness with geographic farming. So that’s kind of the big picture overview of where we’ve come from, where we are and where we are heading. Caroline: Perfect. Thank you so much. I think that is always good to do, a little refresher and give background and foundation to what we have done and I know today we are going to talk about some low cost ways to touch the farm. I think that is probably something too that may be a little bit out of the norm for some of our realtors. I know from even realtors I’ve spoken with that a lot of times they think that mailing to the geographic farm that they will see some warm leads come out of that and really, this is the game changer call to set yourself apart by introducing yourself or adding a personal touch, especially the world we live in today. It’s definitely out of the norm to do those things. So, I’m really interested too to hear what you’ve heard from realtors. I know you haves stories that will maybe inspire everyone on what you’ve heard and seen be successful. I’ll let you take it away and start us off on these low cost ways. Beatty: Great. Let’s start with a story. I think I shared this story last time. I shared it because I think it’s a text book example of how to do geographic farming. It’s a client of ours and he’s targeting a 1500 home farm and within this farm, there is a Facebook community page that they have. At the time he started the farm, the community page only had 200 people tied to it. It was almost nonexistent. Our client’s is name, Nelson. Nelson was a nobody in the farm in terms of if you were to look at all the homes sold and how many of those did Nelson represent the seller on, it’s like he’s one of a whole bunch of agents. Maybe he had one listing or maybe two, but that was about it. He was essentially non-existent. We started to do some farming with him and he started to do some of these things I’m going to share with you today, the low cost things and as a combination of the 2, what we were doing in the mail, what he was doing with low cost touches, in 18 months, actually in the first year, he made over $150,000 in commissions from that farm in the first year. $100,000 was directly attributed to the unique style of postcard marketing that we were doing. I will talk about that on the next calls. $50,000 was generated through his low cost touches. Six months later, now 18 months into the game, Nelson controlled 22% of all of the listings in that farm, outselling the number 2 agent by over 7 times. Then another 18 months later, he controls 50% of all of the listings going on in that farm. He is doing it right. He’s a text book case example of what can happen when you do everything right. So, starting with a story, that’s where this thing can go and I promise you, he has no interest in buying leads. He has no interest in driving all over the city to try to sell houses because what he’s found is he can focus on his farm and he can make an amazing lifestyle just doing that one thing. That’s where I’d like to go today. Caroline: Wow, I think that’s definitely inspiring seeing the results like that. Beatty: Let’s breakdown what he did. He did only 2 of the 10 low cost touches I’m going to talk about. That’s it. He only did 2 of them. He did postcard mailings with us and did 2 of these other things and that put his business into overdrive in that farm. The first thing that he did was door knocking. 1500 homes so that’s a lot of houses. His goal was to door knock the entire community 3 times every year. That’s once every 4 months. When he first got started before he had a lot of business, he did that. Then it slowed down to door knocking 2 times a year because he didn’t have time to do it 3 times and then I think that slowed down to probably 1-1/2 times. With busyness comes lack of ability. We’ve talked about different things and one of those things is door knocking. Let’s test your memory for a moment, Caroline. What is the value of door knocking in a geographic farm? If you could say the highest value is what, what would that highest value be? Caroline: I would think that door knocking would be the top value. I don’t know if that’s the way you’re asking the question. Beatty: No, I want to know why. What is it about door knocking that makes it a top value? Caroline: Just that personal connection, face-to-face. I know when you talked about door knocking in the past, you recommended to be wearing your name tag, adding that personal connection so they see your name, they see your face. In addition to receiving the marketing in the mail, it solidifies keeping that realtor top of mind, that they’re the realtor they think of. Like I’ve said before, I think that you can’t put a price on a personal connection. Beatty: Absolutely. Let’s go back to some fundamentals. You hit the nail on the head. The fundamental is this. You can take all the people you do business with and put them into 2 categories. Those that you have met and those that you have not met. If you look at the results in terms of how responsive they are to your marketing, how likely they are to do business with you, it becomes really polarized because those that you have met and they now put a face, a name, a personality to you are 8 to 10 times more likely to do business with you than if you haven’t met them. The reason the door knocking is probably the most important thing you can do when doing a geographic farm is simply you take that person from being a stranger that they’ve never met and now they know you personally. Once they know you personally, they begin to trust you. They begin to form a relationship. Real estate is a relationship business. The more you can build and establish and foster that relationship, the more like you are to get that business. That’s the value of door knocking. It takes time, but let me ask you kind of a loaded question. Do you think the door knocking was worth it time wise for Nelson to go from 1% of the market to 22% in 18 months and 50% 18 months later. Do you think door knocking was worth it? Caroline: Absolutely. I’m sure Nelson, even if he tallied up the amount of time that it took to do that door knocking, I’m sure there’s no way that he would say that it wasn’t worth the monumental increases in the percentage of the market. I would think, absolutely, it is. Beatty: He makes a lot of money right now and has the great lifestyle. Keep in mind, he earned, just in that farm alone, $150,000 in his first 12 months. That’s right at 5 million in sales volume. It’s worth the time and effort. I say that only because what I hear from so many agents is I don’t have time to do that. That’s below me. I’ve got other things I need to do. You have to look at your time and say, what is the most important thing you can do for the long term success of your business. Are you willing to sacrifice a lot of the busy work that you feel to do now so that you can gain the long term superiority and dominance in that farm that you can get over time. It becomes a choice of today versus tomorrow. Are you building your business only for today? Are you building it for the long term? If you’re doing it long term, then take the long term approach and door knocking is one of the most important things because it gets you in front of all those homeowners. That’s the first thing. It’s low cost dollar wise, but it does take time. The second thing is the Facebook community page. I want to talk about this for a little bit. I can tell you right now, this call is going to go into second call, at least, to cover all 10 low cost ways of touching your farm. Just be prepared. We’ll be continuing this topic next week. The Facebook community page, let’s talk about this because this was incredibly instrumental with Nelson and with other agents I’ve talked to. It plays a huge part because if we take a step back and look at what causes someone to choose an agent. If a homeowner is going to choose an agent, what are the reasons he or she chooses that agent? It boils down to only 2 things, trust and top of mind. Trust is do they trust you to sell their most valuable asset and trust that you will get the best deal for them. Top of mind is simply when it comes time to think of an agent, are you on the top of their minds so that they end of up calling you. It’s a convergence of those 2 things. If we were just to take a real quick snapshot so that you understand how door knocking and how Facebook community page, and how all these other touches that we’re going to be talking about, and then postcard marketing and actually the touches, how all these converge. It converges on the concepts of trust and top of mind. You can actually multiply trust by top of mind and come up with a relatively accurate number of how likely are you to get the deal when that deal is ready to come on the market. Let’s say we put both of them on a scale of 1 to 10. Your trust on a 1 to 10 and top of mind on a 1 to 10. If your trust is a 3 and your top of mind is a 3, then that means that you multiply them together. That means that it’s 3x3, you’ve got about a 9% change that when that homeowner is thinking about a real estate agent, they’re going to call you. If you can build your trust to a 5 and build your top of mind to a 6, then you’ve got about a 30% likelihood. If you can get your trust to a 9 and your top of mind to a 10, you’ve got about a 90% likelihood. Now, this is very rough numbers. It’s not accurate specifically but it gets you in the general direction of at least an understanding of the influence of trust and top of mind. What the door knocking does, is it increases trust because now they’ve been able to meet you and know you as an individual. The first step in trusting someone is having met them. Am I making sense on this so far? Caroline: Absolutely. I think like I said on this call, that personal connection is obviously going to go a long way, but also just to trust you versus what somebody says random. A lot of people may have had a bad experience with a sales person in their life, so adding that personal touch so that they feel safe, they can trust you. Like you said also, this is the most valuable asset they own, so this is likely the most important thing that they will ever sell or go into a transaction with. I think that personal touch of where they feel they like you, they enjoy being around you. It kind of makes them feel like they can trust you. Absolutely, I’m following. That’s right on the money. Beatty: Okay, great. Now, let’s talk about top of mind because Facebook starts to be more top of mind than trust. There’s some trust element there, but what Facebook allows is for you to always be there. What happened with Nelson in this area is there was this Facebook community page that had already been set up but no one was really engaging on it. He recognized it as an untapped asset. If you’re going into a geographic farm yourself, one of the things that you want to look at is there a Facebook community page set up for that area that people are participating in. If there’s not, create one. If there is, participate in it. Find out where the people are congregating. If they’re not there and they’re not congregating, then you can promote it. That’s what happened with Nelson. They were not congregating in the Facebook community page because they did not know about it. As Nelson was getting started, the first thing that he did as part of his door knocking is he went door knocking with a purpose to then introduce them to the Facebook community page. After he finished door knocking, it went from 200 people to 800 people on the Facebook community page entirely because of his door knocking. He would leave a door hanger, if he missed them. It was branded to him and directed them to join the Facebook community page. It said, things like, learn what’s going on in Horse Thief Canyon, learn about buy and sell things, like if you’re looking for something and someone has posted it for sale. Whatever it may be, but he got the attendance from 200 to 800 initially. The last time I talked to him, I think it was like 1200 out of 1500 homes. He continues to push on it. Then, what happened is he actually became one of the administrators of the Facebook community page because the guy who was administering it was getting tired of it and Nelson said, well, I’ll help you out. Wouldn’t you love to be the realtor who is managing the Facebook community page for the entire community? Caroline: Oh, absolutely. Beatty: Now, he didn’t overstep his bounds at all. What he did is he ensured that it was going to be a valuable asset because it was part of his marketing pillar. Then, what happened is anytime people would sign up for the Facebook community page and join, he would then get their information, copy it to his personal Facebook page and then message them and say, welcome to the Facebook community page. My name is Nelson. I’m actually a realtor in the area and look forward to having you on the community page. So, he would introduce himself, identify who he is and now they’re on his personal Facebook page and on the community page. That sets the groundwork. What do you do from there? Obviously, Nelson is active on his personal Facebook account he’s posting things out there so people are always seeing him. That’s important. Top of mind, Nelson’s always there. He also made a point that every week or two, he would respond to someone’s post on the community page. He would always make some sort of reply or a comment or love the photo or anything like that simply so he could get his name out there again and they would see that he’s still there. Now, any agent could promote on the Facebook community page. He didn’t cut anyone out. Most agents never took advantage of it, but he did. Any time he got a new listings, he would post a coming soon message on the Facebook community page and then he would post just listed and he would then post open house, then he would post under contract, then he would post just sold. For every home he listed in the community, he was getting 4 and 5 touches into that community through the Facebook community page, touching again and what that was showing was activity. By the time coming soon and then open house and then under contract, by the time each of them came out, people don’t always recognize that it’s the same house, but what they see if Nelson is an active agent in this area. One of the pillars of trust, back to trust and top of mind, one of the pillars of trust that we’ve been able to verify and validate is do they trust that you are actively selling real estate. Just because you’re a realtor doesn’t mean that you’re actively selling. You have to let them know and remind them. Let me ask you a crazy question. You’ve been married for how long, Caroline? Caroline: Five and a half years. Beatty: Five and a half year, okay. Did your husband tell you I love you when you got married? Caroline: Yes Beatty: Alright. Does he show his love to you by his actions? Caroline: Absolutely. Beatty: If he never told you again except that one time at marriage, I love you, would you feel something’s wrong? Caroline: Maybe, but no at the same time because he shows his love through that, but yeah, I would wonder why. Beatty: Most women want to hear it all the time. Even though they know, they want to hear it again. Does that make sense? Caroline: Absolutely. Beatty: The same thing happens with homeowners. Even though they know you’re probably selling homes, you’ve got to keep reminding them. You’ve got to keep showing them. Here’s another sale. Here’s another listing. Here’s another under contract. Here’s another open house. The more you keep reminding them, the more it reinforces that you’re actively selling. That’s a huge pillar of trust. If other people in the community are trusting you to sell their home, now you have that social validation that they so desperately need to make a decision. By using the Facebook community page, he’s out there all the time. Every home that he personally manages on in their community, he’s now posting this message. People are seeing him all the time as an active agent. They’re seeing him periodically as an active neighbor commenting on people’s posts. They see him in the neighborhood. He still door knocks. They get to meet him. He still does postcard mailings. They see him in the mailbox. Three years after starting, he’s got 50% of the market share. Does all of this make sense? Do you see how everything is converging to the same point? Caroline: Absolutely. Beatty: That’s two out of 10. Let’s go with Number 3, let me find a short one because we’re going to run out of time on Number 3. Caroline: Oh, no, I’ve been trying to edit my commentary to give you more time. Beatty: Yeah, I get it. Let’s talk about the cupcake give way. Ice cream or cupcake give away. This is something you can do when you have a community that operates as a community especially if they have a common area like a park. Maybe a local school that everyone congregates at. It’s difficult if you don’t have any green space. There are some other ways to do it and we’ll about it later. If you have a green space, a common area, a part or an elementary school where you can go meet on the football field or anything like that, then the idea is to have a social. Invite the whole neighborhood. Make sure that you give enough opportunity to announce it ahead of time so people can work their schedule around it. Maybe hire a DJ. Maybe get some of those blow up activities like slides and things like that, bouncy rooms and have an ice cream truck or a cupcake truck come over to give away free ice cream and free cupcakes. Now, what we’re doing is we’re going to create a community wide, social event on a Saturday morning. All the people are going to come. They’re going to bring their kids. You’re going to promote it and as you promote it, obviously, it’s got your branding on it. You promote it through Every Door Direct, you promote it through the Facebook community page, you go door knocking, and you put out flyers. You hire high school kids to go put flyers on every door. Whatever it takes, you make a big deal out of it and people come to the park. The whole reason for this is now you get to meet them individually. What you do is you stand by the free give away. You stand by the ice cream truck or you stand by the cupcake truck as they’re handing it all out for free. You’re smiling and you’re shaking hands. You’ve got your name tag on so they can see your name and recognize instantly who you are. You put your same face on that you have branded on all your other stuff. Don’t use a photo from 20 years ago as a lot of agents may do and you don’t look anything like the photo. Make sure the photo in all your branding looks like you in real person so when they meet you in real person, they go, ah, yeah, I keep seeing you. I wondered who you are. Now, they get to meet you and you’re shaking hands. You’re saying, it’s been a while since I’ve seen you, it’s so good to see you and it comes to the event that they get to meet you and talk with you personally. If they know you, they trust you and they’ll do business with you 8 to 10 times more likely than if they don’t. This is a great way, low cost on a per home basis, but immense return on investment on that. That’s going to be the third out of 10 things, so we’ll see how much we get through on the next call. I think we’ll get through a little bit more because I tried to lay more of a foundation on this call as how these all interact. Let me turn it back over to you because I know we need to start wrapping up the call. Caroline: Yeah. I think it’s good to take the time to lay that foundation and explain and show the statistics and percentages and successes you’ve shared, like for Nelson. It’s so important for realtors to hear that it’s not a waste of their time because we know it takes time to go and door knock. We know that might be the reason it seems daunting but when you hear results like that, it’s hard to argue with it. I think this is great and I think we will push through those last 7 on the next call. We are just about out of time, so we need to wrap up. Beatty, thank you so much for your time and expertise. I think it really was a great call. Before we close out of the call, do you have anything else that you’d like to share? Beatty: I would. As always, I like to unabashedly plug our service for those that want help in what you do in marketing. What we’ve learned in marketing and how to do it right, we’ve learned by helping other agents do it and providing service to them in that regards. If you find yourself overwhelmed and you say, I really want to outsource something. Now, I can’t outsource door knocking. I can’t outsource for you the Facebook community page or standing in line and greeting people, but what we can do is do a lot of the other stuff. Like the postcard marketing and some of the online sort of stuff. If you have interest in that, just go to our website, AgentDominator.net. You will see some information about us but the most important thing over there is you’ll find our form where you can request information from us on that. Let me encourage you to do that, and that’s my plug. Caroline: Perfect, so we’re out of time. What we’re going to do is for those that are on the live call with us, if you have questions that you’d like to ask Beatty, just hold on and as soon as we wrap up, we’ll go into a short questions and answers time. That’s all we have for today. Thanks again and thank you, Beatty for sharing. Beatty: Thank you P020
Transcript Beatty: This is the Get Sellers Calling You marketing podcast for real estate agents and I’m Beatty Carmichael. For simple to do proven marketing strategies focus exclusively on finding sellers and getting more listings, visit our website at GetSellersCallingYou.com. And now, let’s begin our next session of Get Sellers Calling You. Caroline: Hi everyone, this is Caroline Springer and welcome to the next session of Get Sellers Calling You with Beatty Carmichael. Beatty is the CEO of MasterGrabber, the creator of AgentDominator and one of the top marketing experts in the Real Estate field. Today, we’re going to be talking about the topic of geographic farming. We’ve been in a series and this is our fourth session within this series. Today, we’re going to be talking about expectations and how quickly you can earn money in geographic farming. Just a reminder for those of you that are on our live call, we will have the lines muted, but we will open for questions and answers at the end of the call. Welcome Beatty. I’m excited to continue on in our series. I think it’s been great so far and I’m excited to see where we’ll go. Beatty: Thank you. I’m excited as well. Geographic farming is so much fun because there’s so many things you can do. For those who know me, I’m really process driven and so geographic farming is all process driven. So this is fun. I’m excited to share about what’s going on with geographic farming with today’s call. Caroline: Yes, you are very process driven. Your processes are actually inspiring. I love how you always boil everything down to a science. You give formulas and if you’ll just follow these steps you will be successful. So I think that’s great and I love to hear you say geographic farming is fun because I don’t know for all of our realtors listening if it’s been fun for them. I think it will be good for them to hear that it can be fun. It can be a fun and successful thing that they can get excited about. Beatty: Well, always remember, if you’re making money with it, it’s fun. If you’re losing money with it, it’s never fun. So the whole idea is doing it right so you make money with it. That’s how you make it fun. Caroline: Absolutely. Well, we want to do a quick little refresher over the past three calls just to get everybody up to speed if they haven’t been able to listen and then we can just jump right in. Beatty: Yeah, let’s do. I think that’s a great idea. We probably have some folks that are on this call that may not have been on some of the other calls. If you’re listening in on a podcast version then you may have missed some of the other ones. Or, if you’ve listened to them, maybe it’s been a while. Let’s do a quick overview. Obviously, we’re talking about geographic farming and obviously geographic farming has very methodical processes that you do if you want to be successful with it. There are several steps. We are actually in our third step. The first step is choosing where do you farm because most agents just want to go “eenie meenie miney mo, pick a farm by its toe.” That doesn’t work real well. I shared this story the other day. One of our clients had picked up this area she wanted to farm and then I had a call with her and said, well, how did you pick it out? She said, well, I just live over here and I want to farm here. I said, do you want to make money or do you just want to farm there? She said, well, I want to make money. We walked through a process on how you pick out a farm. She spent a little bit of time and she came back the next day and said, okay, I’ve changed my mind. I want to farm this area and based on all the numbers, she’s going to make at least double the income in the new area than she would’ve on the first one. All that is by following the process on making it happen. That’s the first thing we talked about. Then, we talked about how you select a list. There are different ways to get a list and depending on what you’re trying to accomplish, the list makes a big impact. In fact, we go back for just a brief moment and talk at a purely thirty-thousand foot level in marketing. It’s not just geographic farming marketing but marketing as a whole. Any time you do marketing where you’re trying to generate a sale or generate seller leads, there’s three components that comprise everything. The list, the offer and the copy. In the list, who you target, where you’re targeting and all that is forty percent of all your results. So, if you get the list wrong, you just did everything wrong. So that’s where we spent a lot of time. Forty percent of your results outside of the list is the offer that you make. As it relates to a real estate agent, the offer that you make is why they should choose you over someone else. What are the reasons behind it? We’re actually going to get into that part in about two more calls. We’re probably very specifically going to go a call or two into what it is that you need to be doing in your marketing to get the sellers out. So, you have the list, you have the offer and then the copy. The copy is simply how you write that information. How do you actually put it in words? What do you do with it? That part is probably only about twenty percent. So that’s the overview of where we’ve come from. We’ve talked about how do you pick an area, how do you get the list and today we’re going to talk about what are the expectations in terms of how quickly you will earn money. Next week’s call we will then start talking about ten different things you can do that are low cost or no cost to really start to ramp this up and then we’ll move into the heart of the marketing aspect in the call afterwards. That will give you the big package of geographic farming. So, back to you. Caroline: Well, great. Thank you for that quick, little refresher, Beatty. Today, I know you’re very process driven and we’ve given everybody a great formula of the first steps between selecting your farm to how to create the right offer and how to select the right mailing list, so once you have all of that set up, the next step is now what? Now, what where does my effort come in to touch on these potential leads and how quickly can I turn around any of those things to make money. That’s what we have set up today is how quickly can you earn money in geographic farming and what is our part in playing with the expectation of what we can do to make that happen. I’ve heard you speak on this before and I think a really great call to action for all of our realtors to listen to. It’s more than just a postcard showing up in their mailbox. To see a great turn around and great results, there are expectations on our part in what we can do to make that money come in quickly. I know that’s what we’re jumping into today. Where ever you want to start with expectations or how quickly we can make that, let’s go. Beatty: Let’s talk about expectations and first off, why are they so important. I remember one of the great marketers out there, and he’s marketed a lot of products through infomercials and things of that sort. He’s known in the modern day in terms of those who are out there actively marketing right now as probably one of the best. His name is Joe Sugerman. He was telling a story about expectations and the cool thing about expectation are they really determine a lot in terms of the results you get. It’s really interesting because people will say, how can you expect to happen determine what’s going to happen? Well, because what you expect to happen means whether or not you stay in there long enough to make it or for it to have time to happen. Joe was talking about a product that he was, he had some physical ailment and I don’t know what it was, but he was talking to a friend of his who had this nutritional supplement. His friend said, “Ah, you ought to take my supplement because in about four months, you should see tremendous results and you should start getting rid of that.” So, Joe starts buying the product and guess what happens in four months. Any idea? Caroline: No, why don’t you, you always put me on the spot like that. Beatty: So, in four months, not much happened physically. Caroline: Yeah. Beatty: So what do you think Joe did? Did he stay on the product or did he quit? Caroline: He probably quit. Beatty: And why do you think he quit? He did, but why do you think he did? Caroline: I guess he didn’t think it was working and he thought maybe there was a better route to take. Beatty: That’s right. He didn’t think it was working because his friend had set the expectation that in about four months he should see results. Because he didn’t see results in those four months, he said, it must not be working just like you concluded. However, if his friend had said, it will take a while, so give it at least a year or longer and in that timeframe you should see results. Do you think he would’ve been more likely to see results after taking it for a year instead of four months? Caroline: Absolutely. I think, from my experience and understanding with geographic farming, I think a year is a great timeline to give yourself. Beatty: Okay, but we’re still talking about the nutritional supplement. So, the point is this. Caroline: Sorry. My brain’s connecting to geographic farming. Beatty: Yeah, you’re connecting the dots a little too quickly, but you’re moving the right direction. The point is this, the expectations will help determine your results because they will determine if you stay in the game long enough to get those results. What happens is as it relates to expectations for geographic farming, most agents have wrong expectations and because they have wrong expectations, they don’t get the results they want. Either they don’t do the level of activity, they don’t do the quality of activity, or they don’t do the longevity of activity because their expectations are wrong. So the most important thing, once you find out where you’re going to be farming, is to figure out what is it really going to take and be willing to sit in the seat long enough to make it happen. I’ve got one last analogy on this because it’s really kind of fun. To take a ten hour car trip with kids and in your mind is that a short trip or a long trip? Caroline: A long trip. We just went to the beach with our son and it was four hours and it was a long trip. So ten hours, I can’t imagine. Beatty: Okay, so, we put all of kids In the car and this was years ago when they were young elementary school and probably kindergarten, and we hop on a trip and it was ten hours to get to St. Louis, Missouri and you start to see the arch. You know our comment? Wow, this is really fast. I didn’t realize it was this close. Why do you think we thought it was a very fast trip and it was really that close and after ten hours in the car? Caroline: Maybe, like you said, your expectation, your thought of how long the trip would take was going to be even longer. But when you got there in only ten hours, you’re not really thinking about ten hours, you’re thinking that wow, that was quicker than I realized. Beatty: That’s right. Caroline: I think it’s just that expectation like you said. Beatty: Because we were actually headed to Colorado which is thirty-six hours. Our horizon was so far out in the future that by the time we hit St. Louis, it was such a small part of the trip and we didn’t realize it was that close. But, however, if we’d set out to go to Memphis, which is four hours from here, and then we had to go on to St. Louis, that ten hours would’ve been a huge time commitment. So, you’re perspective on your expectations is what’s going to drive what you end up doing and how you do it that gives you there results. So, as we talk about expectations here, the expectations when you do geographic farming is you are not going to make money immediately. Now let me add a little caveat. We do have a way with our geographic clients that we’ve had a number of them make as much as $100,000 in the first year. But that is doing it completely out-of-the-box thinking. So let’s talk about what typically you expect and then we will talk about some things that you can do that modify those expectations. Generally speaking, when you talk to realtors who do geographic farming, here is the general consensus. It’s going to take somewhere between the first and second year or maybe into the third year before you get your first listing. Typically, you will do it for a year of two years before you get your first listing. Then you’ll continue to do it at that same level of activity for about three and five years before you get real consistent listings all of the time. That is the expectations of what should and most likely will occur when you do it the normal way. There is a coach out there named Tom Ferry and he has a quote. Someone was asking him about postcard marketing (because typically you do postcard marketing with geographic farming) and his comment about that was, “If you are going to do postcard marketing, you have to do nonstop marketing for at least three years before you can expect those homeowners to even remember your name enough that they will pick up the phone and call you. So that is the expectation. Geographic Farming, as we talked about earlier, is a long-term investment in your brand. It’s a long-term investment because it takes a while to get there. Are you following me so far? Caroline: Absolutely. I can attest to that. All the testimonies that I’ve seen and heard are kind of right along with that, if you can’t stick it out for at least one full year, you aren’t going to see results, especially the big, turnaround results that we know are possible. You’ve got to be able to stick it out at least one year, and like you said, up to five years and even beyond that to see a really big turnaround. Beatty: Yes, so that’s going to be taking it the standard approach in geographic farming. Now I’m going to talk in just a moment on some things at a high level that you can do to dramatically improve those numbers. Next week, we are going to start talking about some of the specific things that we will kind of allude to on today’s call and we will kind of dig deeper into it. But that is the expectation you need to come in with. It is going to take two to three years before you really get results. You can fast track those results by doing better touches and more touches. So those initial expectations is the general population, people doing the normal touches that they normally do. If you look at marketing, and especially in regard to geographic farming, your marketing is a layered effect. Every touch that you do adds another layer in that prospect’s mind. So does it make sense, Caroline, that if I am going to mail 1 postcard every two months, which is six a year, that in three years, I’m going to have 18 touches. Does it make sense that if I were to mail all 18 postcards in the first year, then I’m probably going to get to the same level of production 3X faster by doing 3X as many mailings. Are you following the logic? Caroline: I am. I would think so because I think so because I think with postcard marketing, the whole goal is to keep you top of mind and in front of them so you are the realtor that they think of. It would depend on the turnover rate of the homes that were selling in that neighborhood. I would think that increasing that mailing in that time period you would definitely increase the chances of finding more prospects that way. Beatty: One simple concept that we can pull out of this is the more touches you do in the shorter amount of time, the more results you’ll get within that same timeframe because it’s all about how many times are you touching them. This is why the expectation is normally two to three years to get any real traction because most realtors only touch them twelve times a year, once a month. Sometimes they may only touch them four times a year or once a quarter. But if you will increase the frequency of your touches, so you get more touches within the same time frame, then you’re going to increase the speed in which you start to get results. So that’s one thing you can do in terms of improving your expectations. Now, with increased touches comes increased costs. If I’m spending $1,000 a year mailing twelve times a year, then in three years, that’s $3,000. If I were to mail all thirty-six of those in one year, I’m going to spend the same amount of money, but I’m going to spend it in one year. Your touches are going to increase your costs. It just means that you will get more results faster. There’s one other element, though, that comes with increased touches. It’s not as simple as a straight-line addition. If I’m touching someone every two months, that’s six times a year, in three years that’s eighteen times, I will get farther down the road in shifting those homeowners’ mindset if I can touch them eighteen times in one year versus eighteen times over three years. In other words, the concentration of your touches will increase the efficiency of those touches as well. Are you following me on that? Does that make sense? Caroline: That absolutely makes sense. Beatty: We want to, as much as possible, concentrate the number of touches into a shorter time frame because you’ll get more punch out of each one and that’s going to move you along. The second thing you can do is you can increase the quality of your touch. Let me give you just a high level example. You could send out a postcard if we just keep it as a postcard concept right now. You can send out a postcard and say, “Hi. I’m a real estate agent in your area. Call me if you want to sell your home.” Or, you can send out a postcard that says, “Just sold this home in your area.” Which of those two touches do you think would be more responsive in getting any sort of a mind shift in your prospects? Caroline: Well, obviously, the second one. One, it’s proof of a sale, but then it’s also proof of a sale in my area so they could be more familiar with my neighborhood and my house, so that would definitely garner a higher response. Beatty: What we now get out of that is all touches are not equal. By changing what you do with the touch, even it’s a postcard by changing the content, you can improve the effectiveness of your touch by improving the quality of the content that you’re putting out. So, changing your frequency, changing the quality of the content is going to then concentrate the amount of results you get more quickly. This is why when we’ve done a lot of work with our clients, and I will give you one example, I may have mentioned this last week, I don’t recall. One of our clients wanted to start targeting a golf community. The number one agent in that community had ten percent of the sales, this is like an 1100 home golf community. The number two agent had seven or eight percent and my client had never marketed there before. We started to do a number of different things and in the first year, he was the number one selling agent. In fact, in his first seven months, he had fourteen listing appointments. It was dramatic and you can do that if you get your process right. That’s where we’re headed. So the expectation is be there for a long time. If you’re willing to modify what most agents do, then you can get results a lot quicker. Now, let’s talk about quantity of touches and what’s really being expected. If you talk to the agents and you read the interviews or listen to the interviews that are all over the place, because a lot of agents have been interviewed about geographic farming, what you’ll find is the follow metrics. A minimum of twelve postcards a year. That’s the absolute minimum. Everyone who is successful in geographic farming, they say that’s the absolute minimum. Don’t even attempt geographic farming if you’re going to do less than twelve postcards a year. The average that they that you should be doing is eighteen a year, which is once every three weeks and the maximum that most of them will say is probably twenty-four a year. Once a month, every three weeks versus twice a month. I think the best number is going to be about eighteen times. Another thing that was real interesting, a couple of agents that were interviewed on this made this comment, and it makes sense. That is, if you have a selling season, like in most places selling season starts to ramp up in Spring and Summer and then it cools down at the end of Fall and Winter. What they recommend doing is doing twenty-four mailings a year, but it’s not equally spaced. Out of those twenty-four mailings, they will ramp it up about two months before the selling season starts so that they can start to prime the pump and they keep it running full speed all the way through the selling season and then once that they are out of the selling season, they pull it back to maybe once a month. They will increase frequency in that period of time that there’s more activity and then they pull it back but not so far back that they’re non-existent. Does that make sense what I’m saying? Caroline: Absolutely. Beatty: That is the frequency of postcards. So then postcards are not the only thing you do. They’re a significant part. You want to be looking at, at least, probably twenty additional touches in some capacity every year. You’ve got twelve plus twenty, that’s thirty-two total touches on the low end or twelve plus twenty-four, that’s forty-four total touches on the higher end. It’s these other touches that you do that we’re going to talk about more in depth next week on this. Of those touches, the things that stand out the most as I talk about it real briefly, is door knocking and social media. A lot of other things, but door knocking and social media tend to be the strongest things out there. I remember one of our clients we were mailing only eight times a year, or maybe it was twelve times a year. I can’t remember, but it was really early on before we learned a lot about geographic farming. We had a client that was targeting a 1500 home community. Had like an eight percent turnover rate, so like 120 to 140 type of homes every year were selling. He was a nobody there. We started targeting it and he door knocked and got involved with the Facebook community page. So, three things, postcard mailing, door knocking, Facebook community page. In the first year, he earned about $100,000 directly related to us, but you can’t say it was directly related to us as much as it was influenced by his door knocking and other stuff because it increased the responses from the postcards. He made another $50,000 from what he could measure directly from his Facebook community page activity because he was constantly posting. Here’s the point I wanted to share, in eighteen months from going from a nobody in terms of a listing agent, within eighteen months, he was controlling twenty-two percent of all of the listings going on in that 1500 home farm. Within another year or year and a half, he was at fifty percent. At twenty-two percent, he was outselling the number two agent by seven times. This is the impact when you start to add multiple touches all focused on the common thing and staying in front of and top of mind of all the folks in that farm. It’s just amazing the type of lift that you do. In the last moment that we have, I want to underscore one thing on this. It would not have happened without door knocking in my personal opinion. Studies have shown that once someone has met you, then they are seven or eight or ten times more likely to do business with you than someone who has not met you. The fact that he went out and actually door knocked that community three times a year and he met a lot of the folks, it created an immense amount of trust that then paid huge dividends. He was willing to invest time and money into that farm and it’s made a small fortune for him on an ongoing basis. That’s where you want to be focused on with expectations. If you do it that way, you’ll make money the first year. If you do it the normal way most agents do it, then you to wait a year or two to get your first listing and that won’t quite pay for your entire investment in that farm by that time, but at least it gets you going and three to five years down the road, you’ll actually start making some good money. It’s just a matter of how you want to structure yourself and that determines how quickly you’ll make money. So, back to you. Caroline: Wow, well, thank you, Beatty, for walking us through that. I’m excited to hear next week continuing your great ideas and then you’ve got some low cost ways to do those additional touches. I think that really is where we see it’s a game changer and making it profitable. For those of you listening, tune in next week while we continue on this conversation. I think we are just about out of time and need to wrap up. Beatty, thank you so much for your time and expertise today. I think it was a great call and great continuation of our series. Before we close out the call, do you have anything else that you’d like to share, Beatty. Beatty: I would. As always, I like to put a little unabashed plug for what we do. We’ve learned a lot in working with our clients. You can get everything we know for free at Get Sellers Calling You and these calls, but knowing versus executing expertly are two different things. If you want help in doing this, if you want to outsource geographic farming or even following up with your own personal list, then check out the service we offer for pay. We call it AgentDominator.net and you can learn more about that. Fill out a form and we’ll contact you and set up a demo. So, if you love the learning, but want someone else to do it, that’s where AgentDominator.net will come in. Caroline: Great. Well, perfect. So, thank you, Beatty. We’re going to wrap up the call and for those of you that are live with us, if you have questions that you’d like to ask Beatty, just hold on and as soon as we’re wrapped up we’ll go into a short question and answer time. That’s all we have for today’s call. Thanks again, and thank you, Beatty for sharing. Beatty: Well, thank you. I’ve enjoyed it. P018
Have Questions or Comments? Please ask your questions in the comments section below. We attempt to respond to ALL questions or comments. Transcript: Radical Faith – What is Faith – Part 2 Caroline: Hi everyone. I’m Caroline Springer. Welcome to this next session of Get Sellers Calling You with Beatty Carmichael. This is actually one of our Radical Faith calls and these are little bit different. A quick little intro about Beatty and I will let him explain our Radical Faith calls are. Beatty is the CEO of MasterGrabber, the creator of Agent Dominator and he’s one of the top marketing experts in the real estate field. He also is a Christian and loves the Lord and really has walked out his faith in an inspiring way in the business world. Beatty, I’m going to pass it over to you if you’d like to share just a little bit about what these Radical Faith calls are and how they are different than our typical marketing calls. Beatty: Sure, well, you know in California they have a law that’s passed that says anything that’s sold in California that has any ingredients or chemicals that could cause cancer, you have to put a warning label on it. What’s really funny is my children and I were at Bass Pro Shops or Cabela’s years back and one of my sons bought one of these really sharp military grade knifes. These were meant to hurt people and to hurt animals or cut wood or whatever, and there’s this warning label on it: Warning. This knife contains chemicals that are known to cause cancer and I’m thinking here we have a weapon and they’re putting this warning sign on it. I want to give my little warning for those out there that this may be your first time with a Radical Faith call. This has nothing to do with marketing a real estate business, this particular call. The Radical Faith call has everything to do with how do you live your life for Christ? So, if you’re not interested in my Christianity, if you’re not interested in Christianity at all, you are fairly warned and you can press delete on your podcast or you can hang up on the call. Otherwise, I’m not trying to push my belief onto you, but I’m trying to share my beliefs with those who want to hear them. That’s our little disclaimer up front. So, I’ll turn it back over to you now. Caroline: I love it. It’s a little less scary than cancer-causing…. Beatty: But this is cancer free. This will be cancer free. Caroline: This will be cancer free. This is a cancer free zone. Only things that will benefit you, benefit your health. Beatty: Can I share a quick story? I’ve got to share this story. So, I get out and I pray for people. That’s just part of what I do. I remember I was over at Walmart and I had seen this 50 something year old lady, and she caught my eye as I was talking to someone at the entrance to Walmart, but I didn’t do anything about it. About 30 minutes later, I see her again in an isle on the other side of the store and I just felt the Holy Spirit saying, I need to go pray for her. So, literally, I walked over to her and said, excuse me ma’am. The Holy Spirit just kind of highlighted you and I think there’s something I need to pray for you about. “Is there anything I can pray for you?” She looks at me with this blank stare, almost with the expression like, who are you. She then kind of broke a little bit and said, “Yes.” I said, “How can I pray for you?” She says, “I have really bad back pain. I have degenerative discs in my back and I have neuropathy in my legs.” I was asking about the neuropathy and if there was a real tight constriction on her legs. The feeling was a real tight constriction and a lot of pain up in the thigh area on both of her legs. So, I said, “Let me pray for you.” So, I prayed for her healing and I said, “Do you feel anything?” I literally prayed 10 seconds or less and she goes, “Yeah, all the pain in my back is gone.” I said, “Great, but how about your legs?” She said, “I feel release. I feel release. They don’t feel quite as tight.” I said, “Well, good.” Let’s pray again. And so we prayed again and five or ten seconds later after praying, I said, “Do you feel anything?” She said, “Yes, I feel heat in my back.” I said, “That’s great. That’s the Holy Spirit healing your back and let’s just give it time. Tell me what you feel now.” She says, “Well, that heat is now in my legs. All through my legs.” I said, “That’s great. The Holy Spirit is healing you there.” I said, “Now tell me what’s going on.” She said, “The heat is now up in my stomach area.” “Okay, let’s just keep giving it some time.” Now, all this is over maybe like two minutes, maybe three at most. Then I said, “Now tell me what you feel.” She said, “The heat is going away.” I said, “That’s perfect.” I said, “Tell me about your back.” “No pain.” I said, “Do something that you could not have done without a lot of pain.” She bends all the way over and touches her toes. Degenerative discs could never have done that. Then, I said, “What about your legs and she said, all of the pain is gone. I said, “Fantastic.” I said, “Now, is there anything going on in your stomach area?” She said, “Yes, I’ve had an ovarian cyst for about a year and I don’t feel that either.” Caroline: Wow. Beatty: Yeah and it’s really cool talking about these warning labels that can cause cancer, but the reality is Warning: This stuff with the Lord can cause the healing of cancer. It can cause healing of all kinds of things and restoring of our lives. As Jesus said that He came that we might have life and have life to the fullest. To the fullest is not to be bound by sickness and disease. Some of us are and sometimes God doesn’t heal, but I’ve seen such a consistency in that, that I’ve got to believe that the heart of the Father is truly what Jesus said. That we would have life in its fullness in all areas. So, I’m excited to share a little bit more about what we’ve started on the last Radical Faith call and continue that process in understanding this thing called faith and kind of what it all is. So, can we kind of jump on in now that we’ve spent about five minutes here. Caroline: Yes, I love it. Let’s go. Beatty: Let me give a real quick review of where we were last time. We’re going through a step-by-step process in understanding what faith really is, understanding it from a Biblical perspective. What does the scripture say that faith is and what do the scriptures show how the faith is lived out and manifests itself in everyday life? What we’ve found is that faith is, from Jesus’ perspective, one of the most important things. Not only is it one of the very few things, as a matter of fact, there’s only three things I know that Jesus ever rebuked his disciples for. One was when the disciples wanted to call fire down from Heaven and consume the people like Elijah did. One when he rebuked Peter and said, get behind me Satan. Every other rebuke that Jesus gave his disciples, which was over and over again, was oh you of little faith. Why did you doubt? So, he makes a big deal out of faith. The other thing Jesus did is He prays and says, when the Son of man comes, will He find faith on the Earth. It’s such a big deal that He’s asking will He find faith. We find that faith. We’ve talked about Hebrews 1. That faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. It is a title deed, meaning it’s the evidence of things being real that you cannot see. It’s the same evidence of things being real as when you’re on your cell phone. We have complete faith that there are radio waves out there and that we can talk on that cell phone. We have no idea how it works, but we have evidence that it’s real. Therefore, that’s what the Bible is talking about. The faith that we do not see, but we have the evidence that it is real. What we started to do is we started to talk about how faith manifests itself. We talked about Moses parting the Red Sea. God told him to basically stop whining. Tell the people to move forward. Forward was directly into the Red Sea and we find that Moses acted by God’s direction before he saw and God performed. Then we talked about Elijah and the widow during the drought during the reign of Kind Ahab and how that happened. Now I want to pick up on a couple of more stories as we continue to talk about how faith gets manifested into our lives. I want to talk about Biblical stories and some current day stories, sort of like the healing. That’s actually an expression of faith that I was sharing. If we go back to the Bible, there’s a passage. I’m not going to ask you where that passage is and put you on the spot, Caroline. But there’s a passage where Peter is walking on the water and it’s in Matthew 14 and I just want to read you part of this passage and then ask you a couple of questions. Let me set the stage. They have, just the day before, fed the 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish and that was 5,000 men, so we know there’s probably ten or fifteen thousand people by the time you add women and children. Then, Jesus goes up to the top of the mountain to pray, and as he goes up to pray, he sends the apostles and disciples back across the lake in the boat. So, they’re out there and it says that they’re straining at the oars all night because there’s a headwind against them and then Jesus, during the early dawn hours of the morning, He now walks across the lake and they see him dimly and they think He’s a ghost and everyone gets afraid. Are you familiar with this passage? Caroline: Yes, absolutely. Beatty: Okay, good. So, He says, don’t be afraid, it’s just me. What does Peter blurt out at that point, do you remember? Caroline: Lord if it’s you, tell me to come to you. Beatty: That’s right. Lord if that’s you, tell me to come walk on the water too. So, now we pick up Matthew 14 verse 22 and it says, and He, meaning Jesus, “And He said, come and Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But, when seeing the wind, he became frightened and beginning to sink, he cried out, Lord save me. Immediately, Jesus stretched out his hand and took hold of him and said, you of little faith.” Here’s one of his rebukes. You of little faith, why did you doubt? So, here’s my question to you. Who acted in this story? Caroline: Peter acted. He had the faith and the risk to step out of the boat. Beatty: There you go. Did he see before he acted? Caroline: No. Like you mean see himself successfully walking? No. That was definitely a leap of faith, if you will, just to step out onto that water. Beatty: Correct. So, why did he act? Caroline: To me, I love that Peter, to his reply to the fear of them all thinking that it’s a ghost, that he says, tell me. Like, tell me to come and your question is why? I feel like just that trust in knowing the Lord’s voice. If you tell me, I’m willing to go, I’m willing to take that step even if I can’t see. Beatty: That’s right. He acted because God told him to act. Make sense? Caroline: Absolutely, yes. Beatty: Okay, so let’s review. Peter acted before he could see, but he acted because he’s stepping out on the command or the word of the Lord, and then who performed? Caroline: Well, I guess, Peter was acting, and so it was his act, but really it was the Lord. I mean, but we, in our own flesh cannot walk on water. But with the Lord providing, I guess, he’s the one that performed in response to Peter’s faith. Beatty: And so we see this pattern. Go throughout scripture and you’ll see this all the time. Man acts before he can see, but he acts by the clearly delineated will of God, trusting that truth and God then comes in and performs. So, this is how faith is manifested all the time. Think about me healing that lady. Who acted? I did. Why did I act? Because God said, go do what I do. It says, truly, truly whoever believes in me will do the works that I do and I actually just believe Him that we’ll actually do the works that He does and so we go out. When I went out and I prayed for that lady, I couldn’t see it. I had no idea how it happens, but I expected to happen and who performed? The Holy Spirit came and performed a healing work on her body. Why? Because He loves her and He wanted to demonstrate His love to her. We see this process. Let me read a couple more stories that are more modern day. Modern day, this is back in the late 1800s, early 1900s, but there’s a guy named, George Mueller. If you’re not familiar with him, he ran an orphanage of twenty thousand children over in England back in the turn of the early 19th century and this is a story of one thing going on. I’m just going to read it to you just to make sure all the data is there. One morning, all the plates and cups and bowls on the table were empty. He was in the breakfast room and they were about to have breakfast. The plates and the cups and the bowls are empty. There is no food in the pantry and no money to buy food. The children were standing waiting for their morning meal when Mueller said, “Children, you know we must be in time for school.” Then lifting up his hands he prayed, “Dear Father, we thank you for what you are going to give us to eat.” Pretty bold, don’t you think? Nothing there. No food in the pantry and he prays and says, “Thank you for what you are going to give us to eat.” I love these stories. There is a knock at the door. The baker stood there and said, “Mr. Mueller, I couldn’t sleep last night. Somehow I felt you didn’t have bread for breakfast and I felt that the Lord wanted me to send you some. So I got up at 2:00 in the morning and baked some fresh bread and brought it.” Mr. Mueller thanked the baker and, no sooner had he left there was a second knock at the door. It was the milkman. He announced that his milk cart had broken down right in front of the orphanage and he would like to give the children his cans of fresh milk so he can empty his cart and repair it. Isn’t that cool? So here’s a question. Who acted? Caroline: George. Beatty: That’s right. He acted by praying and thanking the Lord for the food that they were about to eat. Did he see or have any knowledge of that food before he acted? Before he prayed? Caroline: No. I love that. I love that the thankfulness is the act in this too. Beatty: Yes. So why did he act? Caroline: Just trusting the Lord and His goodness and His promise to be a Father who takes care of His kids. Beatty: That’s right. He is acting on God’s promises that can never fail. And then, who performed? Caroline: The Lord, through the obedience of that baker. The Lord prompted them to provide. I think that’s the Lord acting on George’s behalf. Beatty: I think so too. Here is kind of a question we don’t fully know that answer to, but I think we can piece it together by understanding scripture. If Mueller did not pray and thank the Lord and fully expect that the Lord would provide provision for them, would God have delivered the food? Caroline: Most of me wants to say yes because God’s goodness is not contingent upon us. That’s what His grace is. But there is part of me too that has seen the Lord perform, if you will, or act in response to our faith, in response to our thankfulness. Thankfulness can open the door for something that maybe would not have happened otherwise. I don’t know if that is a direct answer because I’ve seen it both ways. I’d love to hear your examples and scripture. Beatty: I’m going to show you another example then I’m going to come back to that question. But let me ask you, based on this scriptural example. If Peter had not seen Jesus walking on the water. If Jesus has not told him to come. But if Peter just got this crazy idea to just step out of the boat and try walking on the water on his own, what do you think would have happened? Caroline: He would have drowned maybe. Beatty: Exactly. So there is something here that says, it’s not just the act of doing it but the Lord has to be involved. There has to be, what I’ll call, a level of belief. Let’s look at one more story of George Mueller. This one is cool. Let me set up the environment. In Mueller’s later life—in the 1860s and 70s—he started to speak. He lived in Bristol, England. He was invited to go speak in Quebec, Canada, I believe it was. So he gets on a steamer and comes across the Atlantic. The scheduled date is on a Saturday coming up. As they get closer to the North American continent, the steamer runs into a really thick fog. It’s so thick that they literally turn the engines off. They put them in complete idle because—and this still happens today—you can’t see through it and therefore it’s extremely dangerous to try to power through the fog in case you run into something. You are totally blind. So they can only do it when they can see. That then brings me to this story. This is a first-hand account. There is a guy named Mr. Ingles writing his interactions with the captain of that ocean liner that Mueller was on. So here’s the story. This is the captain speaking: "Mr. Inglis, the last time I crossed here, five weeks ago, one of the most extraordinary things happened which, has completely revolutionized the whole of my Christian life. Up to that time I was one of your ordinary Christians. We had a man of God on board, George Müller, of Bristol. I had been on that bridge for twenty-two hours and never left it. I was startled by someone tapping me on the shoulder. It was George Müller: "'Captain, he said, 'I have come to tell you that I must be In Quebec on Saturday afternoon.' This was Wednesday. "'It is impossible,' I said. [And watch this confidence George Mueller has.] "'Very well, if your ship can't take me, God will find some other means of locomotion to take me. I have never broken an engagement in fifty seven years.' "’I would willingly help you. How can I? I am helpless.' "'Let us go down to the chart-room and pray.' "I looked at that man of God, and I thought to myself, what lunatic asylum could that man have come from? I never heard of such a thing. "'Mr. Müller,' I said, 'do you know how dense the fog is?' "'No,' he replied, 'my eye is not on the density of the fog, but on the living God who controls every circumstance of my life.' "He got down on his knees and prayed one of the simplest prayers. I muttered to myself: 'That would suit a children's class where the children were not more than eight or nine years old.' The burden of his prayer was something like this: 'O Lord, if it is consistent with Thy will, please remove this fog in five minutes. You know the engagement you made for me in Quebec Saturday. I believe it is your will.' "When he finished. I was going to pray, but he put his hand on my shoulder and told me not to pray. "First, you do not believe He will; and second. I believe He has. And there is no need whatever for you to pray about it.' I looked at him, and George Müller said. "'Captain. I have known my Lord for forty-seven years, and there has never been a single day that I have failed to gain an audience with the King. Get up, captain, and open the door, and you will find the fog is gone.' I got up, and the fog was gone!” This is just another story of faith manifesting itself. So here is a question. Who acted in this story? Caroline: Definitely George. That kind of faith changes the world. Beatty: Right. Did he act before he saw? Caroline: No. Beatty: Why did he act? Caroline: Even at the end just there you said that he’s known the Lord for 47 years. He has seen him act before and he knows the character of the Lord. He knows that is something you can trust. That is why. That is something worthy of putting your faith in. Beatty: It is. He acted because he was confident in the truth and validity of the word and the word to him was God was going to get him there because God has done it all before. There is one other element and we’ll talk about this later but it is the level of belief. Who performed? Caroline: The Lord. It’s like that story of Jesus calming the storm. A little fog? A storm? That’s nothing. Beatty: Absolutely. Now let me put one other thing in perspective because we didn’t cover this. The captain had been on the bridge for 22 hours. These fogs last for usually ten days to two weeks before they dissipate. So this was an absolutely miracle from that perspective. So here is what we find. We also find this in scripture. Jesus says, “Pray believing that you have received and it shall be granted you.” That’s just what Mueller did. So let me go back to the question I asked you on the previous one. If Mueller did not pray for provision of the food you say, “I think God would have still provided it.” If Mueller did not pray for the lifting of the fog, would the fog have still lifted? Caroline: No, it would not have. Beatty: No, it would not, and, therefore, I believe—back to the provision of the food—had Mueller not have prayed, the food would not have arrived. I did a study on prayer throughout all the Old Testament and New Testament. God acts upon prayer, not in the absence of prayer. So let’s look at a few more things about this story on Mueller. If it be Your will. Have you heard people pray, “Well Lord if it’s Your will, please do this.” Then it doesn’t happen and someone says, “Oh, it must not be God’s will.” Have you ever heard people pray like that? Caroline: Yes, many times. Beatty: I see it a lot in healing. “Oh, thank you for your prayer but, you know, I’ve had a lot of people pray for me and God hasn’t healed me. It’s just not His will.” I say, “Well let me pray” and they get healed. This doesn’t happen all the time, but about two-thirds of the time. What is it about, “if it be Your will”? Here is what Mueller said, “If it is consistent with Your will, lift this fog in five minutes so I may make my appointment. I believe it is Your will.” So the question is, how did Mueller pray differently than most of us pray? Here is what I would to suggest. When people pray, “If it’s Your will,” for the most part, it’s a copout. “I don’t really believe you are going to do it God, but I know You are sovereign. I know You can do it. Therefore, if it is Your will, I’m going to trust You to do it.” But what they lose sight of are the other passages in the Bible. “Pray believing you have received and it will be yours.” “Say to this mountain be taken up and cast into the sea and if you believe in your heart and do not doubt, it will happen.” Command this mulberry tree to be taken up and cast into the sea and if you will do it without doubting, it will happen.” James says, “Let not a man receive anything from the Lord if he doubts.” So we have all of these passages focused on this concept of believing it to be true. I would submit to you that Mueller absolutely believed it was true. That’s why he says, “I believe it is your will.” So let me ask you one other question as we are talking about prayer. Had Mueller not prayed, but the captain did pray, would that fog have been lifted? Caroline: I would think not because he didn’t believe. It’s like what you are saying, he’s not coming before the Father with faith. He is coming begrudgingly. It’s a different heart. Beatty: Yes, with a different heart. So here we have one final element on how faith gets manifested. You have to have faith if you want God to work in your life. That faith, we are going to find in our next session, is rooted in the word of God and specifically in His promises and commands. It’s not just rooted in that, it’s rooted in those and when we believe on those. Mueller did not simply believe on his own willpower. That is not what Jesus talks about. When we believe, the only thing we can believe in is what is truth. Jesus says, “They word is truth.” The only truth that exists is His word. So the only thing we can believe in being truthful is His word. So simply trying to have the willpower of our own, “I believe, I believe”—the harder you try to believe, the less you really believe because you are trying to fool yourself. So we will talk about all of these. Is this pretty interesting? Caroline: Oh, I love this. This is definitely inspiring and kind of solidifying too, even challenging belief systems that I think are easy to float around. Even what I was saying earlier, it’s easy to think, “Well, even if I don’t pray, God is good.” But the Lord invites us to partner with him and to believe and to pray. He wants us to experience that. I think it’s a really good challenge to remember our positions as children, that He invites us to be risk takers and to have radical faith. I love this. Beatty: Cool. I know we are out of time, so let’s close out. Caroline: I love these calls, I’m sorry. Sometimes I tend to get so enthralled I’m not even looking at the clock. But yes, we are about out of time. Beatty, thank you for your time and sharing your wisdom and experience and stories and scripture. I think it’s a really great call and I hope all of our listeners really enjoyed it also and were inspired. That’s all we have for today. Thank you again Beatty for sharing. I look forward to continuing on next time. Beatty: Me too. Y’all be blessed. P016
Mail-Right: Real Estate Agents Show: About Technology & Online Marketing & Getting Seller Leads
How To Get More Quality Referrals From Your Local Farm Beatty is recognized as one of the leading experts in professional-to-consumer marketing -- from branding to lead generation to top-of-mind. A veteran marketer, branding and direct response expert, Beatty’s professional career began in 1997 when he formed a marketing company to service the booming telecommunications industry. His clientele were independent sales professionals for whom he developed proprietary marketing technologies. These technologies helped clients generate ongoing sources of pre-qualified prospects for their services. One sales manager in Ohio exclaimed her sales team had increased their sales by ten times after only five months using Beatty's technology. As other clients began hitting sales records word of their success began spreading. Beatty’s business grew and, altogether, has serviced tens of thousands of independent sales professionals. One client group increased sales revenues by $5.2 million a month within 12 to 18 months as a direct result of Beatty’s expertise. During the first 15 years Beatty successfully applied his expertise in over 15 industries including health & wellness, weight loss, legal, accounting, travel, medical benefits, nutritional supplements and more. http://www.mastergrabber.com/
Mail-Right: Real Estate Agents Show: About Technology & Online Marketing & Getting Seller Leads
How To Get More Quality Referrals From Your Local Farm Beatty is recognized as one of the leading experts in professional-to-consumer marketing -- from branding to lead generation to top-of-mind. A veteran marketer, branding and direct response expert, Beatty’s professional career began in 1997 when he formed a marketing company to service the booming telecommunications industry. His clientele were independent sales professionals for whom he developed proprietary marketing technologies. These technologies helped clients generate ongoing sources of pre-qualified prospects for their services. One sales manager in Ohio exclaimed her sales team had increased their sales by ten times after only five months using Beatty's technology. As other clients began hitting sales records word of their success began spreading. Beatty’s business grew and, altogether, has serviced tens of thousands of independent sales professionals. One client group increased sales revenues by $5.2 million a month within 12 to 18 months as a direct result of Beatty’s expertise. During the first 15 years Beatty successfully applied his expertise in over 15 industries including health & wellness, weight loss, legal, accounting, travel, medical benefits, nutritional supplements and more. http://www.mastergrabber.com/
Beatty Carmichael is a Consumer Marketer, who for the last 20 years has been targeting homeowners for all kinds of consumer services; everything from telecom, weight-loss, health and fitness, joint pain relief, travel and more. In 2012 he began focusing exclusively on the residential real estate market, and since then he's worked with many of the top producers across the country in 2 primary areas: geographic farming and past clients/sphere of influence. His expertise is helping agents nationwide get more listings through better marketing. In today's episode, we discuss what motivates a homeowner to choose one agent over another, and how it’s easy to start winning more listings by better understanding great marketing. In this episode, you'll learn.. How homeowners choose an agent … Trust vs Top of Mind "Why to choose you" postcards Top of mind touches Identify sellers before they come on the market Personal touches throughout the year Links and resources mentioned in this episode. GetSellersCallingYou.net To subscribe and rate & review visit one of the platforms below: Follow Real Estate Success Rocks on:
Mail-Right: Real Estate Agents Show: About Technology & Online Marketing & Getting Seller Leads
#158 Mail-Right Show With Special Guest Beatty Carmichael We Discuss The Power of Referral Marketing Beatty is recognized as one of the leading experts in professional-to-consumer marketing -- from branding to lead generation to top-of-mind. A veteran marketer, branding and direct response expert, Beatty’s professional career began in 1997 when he formed a marketing company to service the booming telecommunications industry. His clientele were independent sales professionals for whom he developed proprietary marketing technologies. These technologies helped clients generate ongoing sources of pre-qualified prospects for their services. One sales manager in Ohio exclaimed her sales team had increased their sales by ten times after only five months using Beatty's technology. http://www.mastergrabber.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/beattycarmichael/ Mail-Right https://www.mail-right.com/
Mail-Right: Real Estate Agents Show: About Technology & Online Marketing & Getting Seller Leads
#158 Mail-Right Show With Special Guest Beatty Carmichael We Discuss The Power of Referral Marketing Beatty is recognized as one of the leading experts in professional-to-consumer marketing -- from branding to lead generation to top-of-mind. A veteran marketer, branding and direct response expert, Beatty’s professional career began in 1997 when he formed a marketing company to service the booming telecommunications industry. His clientele were independent sales professionals for whom he developed proprietary marketing technologies. These technologies helped clients generate ongoing sources of pre-qualified prospects for their services. One sales manager in Ohio exclaimed her sales team had increased their sales by ten times after only five months using Beatty's technology. http://www.mastergrabber.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/beattycarmichael/ Mail-Right https://www.mail-right.com/
[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent="no" equal_height_columns="no" menu_anchor="" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" class="" id="" background_color="" background_image="" background_position="center center" background_repeat="no-repeat" fade="no" background_parallax="none" parallax_speed="0.3" video_mp4="" video_webm="" video_ogv="" video_url="" video_aspect_ratio="16:9" video_loop="yes" video_mute="yes" overlay_color="" video_preview_image="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" padding_top="" padding_bottom="" padding_left="" padding_right=""][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type="1_1" layout="1_1" background_position="left top" background_color="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" border_position="all" spacing="yes" background_image="" background_repeat="no-repeat" padding_top="" padding_right="" padding_bottom="" padding_left="" margin_top="0px" margin_bottom="0px" class="" id="" animation_type="" animation_speed="0.3" animation_direction="left" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" center_content="no" last="no" min_height="" hover_type="none" link=""][fusion_text] How to you ensure the BEST and FASTEST results when pursuing geographic farming? Listen to this question and answer session with marketing expert Beatty Carmichael and one of his clients. Learn the nuances that make geographic farming most profitable. Have Questions or Comments? Please ask your questions in the comments section below. We attempt to respond to ALL questions or comments. Listen to this audio via YouTube video if desired [/fusion_text][fusion_youtube id="https://youtu.be/RNgkfIyIaig" alignment="center" width="" height="" autoplay="false" api_params="&rel=0" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" class="" /][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container] Transcript Beatty: This is the Get Sellers Calling You marketing podcast for real estate agents and I’m Beatty Carmichael. For simple to do proven marketing strategies focus exclusively on finding sellers and getting more listings, visit our website at GetSellersCallingYou.com. And now, let’s begin our next session of Get Sellers Calling You. Caller: I’m very eager to start getting listings in an area and maybe make a name for myself in that area as well. Is there anything you would recommend that I do to get the ball rolling faster? Beatty: Absolutely. So, tell me which city and state you are in. Caller: I’m in Pasadena, California. Beatty: Great. The most important thing, when we do geographic farming, especially out in California and in those areas where you have a lot of transplants (people who move into the area as opposed to grew up there). Let me give you background of where I am coming from. I don’t care to bore you too much with detail but I think the more you understand why the better. Caller: Certainly. Beatty: What we found through testing and through—we actually engaged an MBA university and their marketing research class to do an analysis for us with what we were seeing. What we were seeing is that some farms produce great results right off the bat. Other farms produced poor results all the way down to no results. We were trying to understand what the difference was. What caused those farms to differ? The final analysis has to do with what we call a trusting community. A trusting community as it is defined in context of what we’ve identified and validated that is the key factor is a community that trusts the agent already. There are two ways that that happens. Either they are like, if you recall the Andy Griffith Show many years back. No one locked their doors because everyone trusted everyone. When you get into those communities where everyone grew up there, they live there, they have their kids there, and their kids grow up there and live there. Then everyone knows everyone and it’s a trusting community. What you have in California is you don’t have that feature. People didn’t grow up there; they grew up somewhere else and they moved there, even if it’s moving across town, they are still in foreign area in terms of people they grew up with. So, as a result, it creates a psychological barrier that they are not as trusting as you are in the other environment. So, they way that you have to build trust is you have to always be there and you build up, not only a name recognition, but you build up an expertise recognition. So this is the focus of what our cards do, but there are some things you can do that will dramatically impact it and make it more productive for you. The most important thing is for you to get out and actually meet those people. When we created your list, when we ran it through data analytics to identify those home most likely to sell, we should have sent you a copy of that list as well. Did we do that? Caller: I do have a list. Beatty: Okay, perfect. So what I want you to do, I want you to do a number of things. But the most important is going to be door knocking. And next week’s call on my podcast call, which is Wednesdays at 11:00 am central / 9:00 am pacific. We are actually going through 10 low cost things you can do to build up a farm, to do touches, that I would like you to start focusing on, or at least take those things out of the list that are applicable to you. But the most important thing is to door knock and actually meet people. So that means that typically it’s going to be a weekend activity, like a Saturday morning / late Sunday afternoon, when people are typically back home. You are probably going to have to do it a few times to make it work. Door knocking is going to be the most impactful thing you can do. Here is another study that has been corroborated through data points. And that is, once they have met you, the likelihood that they’ll do business with you increases between 8 and 10 times. So, if you want to get off the ground in that area and get quicker results soon and more powerful results that are consistent, the number one thing that is going to be the most impactful is that you meet them. They get to put a face and a voice and a personality. When you go out to door knock is not to try to get a listing appointment or try to get a referral, all that will come later. The most important thing is to say, “Hey, I’m out. I’m a real estate agent in the area. I’m just trying to introduce myself to people. I just want to say, hello, how are you?” Okay? Just engage in that small-talk concept. But I would also have two things, Dixie can give you the first one and it’s what we call a pre-marketing pack. A pre-marketing pack is a package of information—don’t let the page count scare you—but it’s like 43-45 pages long—but what does is it has big print and big pictures and stuff. And it walks through, and you can trim it down to things that are only specific for you, but it gives you a chance to give that homeowner something in their hand that they can read about you. And the whole thing about this premarketing pack is it sells you as an expert agent. When we’ve used this, and we’ve had clients using it for years, the typically thing that happens is two things. First, we use it when we identify seller leads, so that’s the self-selection cards. When that package is given to someone, what happens is, that agent usually gets the listing when it comes on the market and the average listing appointment goes from about 2 to 2.5 hours down to about 30 – 45 minutes because most of that listing appointment is the presentation, trying to sell why they should choose you. But this packet does such a good job, that when we are using it with seller leads, it kind of pre-sells you and they’ve already bought in so it eliminates all that. I’ve got to tell you another story because it is a powerful piece of information. Another one of our clients up in Washington state, when he started with us, had just updated his packet and he gets a phone call from one of his referral sources that says, “Julie Smith at this address is thinking about selling her home, you ought to give her a phone call.” So Ed calls her up and introduces himself. She says, “Yes, we are playing to sell. But, I am already planning to use another agent. Thanks for calling.” He said, “Are you under contract yet?” She said, “No.” He said, “Great, can I email you some information about me first.” She responds, “Sure, I’ll be happy to review it.” So he emails the information. She calls him back the next day and says, “Ed, I got your information. I read it. I want you to sell my house. I’ve already cancelled my appointment with the other agent. Can you meet me tomorrow at 2:00?” And it was a $700,000 listing. It’s real powerful. As you are door knocking, you want to have a stack of those and hand them to everyone you meet as simply a way to introduce yourself. Okay? Caller: Sure. Beatty: The second thing I want you to do is, I want you to create a free report of some sort. The focus of this free report is, if I were to ask you and say, “Stephen, what is, in your mind, if I’m going to put my home on the market, what are the most important things I need to be concentrating on right now to get it ready to go on the market so it shows its best, sells at the highest price and gets the offer as quickly as possible. Caller: Right now I have that on my website and on YouTube. Also I do a market update every single month on video as well. Will that help my cause? Beatty: Not on what I’m doing right now. It will help your cause as you continue to touch your people, touch that list in addition to our touches, but for where I’m going on this, it’s not going to be helpful because you’ll find out in my next sentence. Now that you’ve got it, put it on paper. Okay? Something that they can hold. Make sure that that paper is branded to you and keep that in your car. So then, when you are talking to that person, you door knocked, you are meeting them, you are giving them some information and you are just building a relationship. You are not asking, “Hey, are you guys thinking about selling? Do you know anyone who is? Can you refer me?” You don’t want to do anything like because that is going to be pushy. Now, if it comes out naturally in the conversation, that is okay, but build the relationship first. Then here is what I suggest. On the way out, you shake their hand and say, “It’s so nice to meet you. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your weekend.” You turn around. They haven’t closed the door yet. And you go, “One last thing” as if it was an aside. “One last thing. I don’t know if you guys are planning to sell your home anytime in the next six of twelve months, but if you are, I’ve got some information that I actually put together for another client of mine. I have an extra packet in the car of things you can do to get the most money for your home in terms of what you need to be focusing on first in terms of getting it prepared. Would you guys have any interest in that because I have an extra copy? Now, what happens is that it comes across as an aside. You built a relationship; they kind of trust you. You are not asking, “Are you planning to sell because I wanted to get your listing.” You are offering them, “Hey, if you are thinking about listing your home, I have something for you.” What that’s going to do is, if they ask for it, is let you know that they are most likely thinking about selling because that is why they are asking you for it. So you’ll go get it from the car and then you make a note when you get back into the car after you give it to them. Note who they are and any information about them. Once you give it back to them, “If you guys are thinking about selling, what type of timeframe? There may be some other strategic things you can do depending on how far out you are thinking.” So get some information that you can follow up with. And then you write them a personal note, a handwritten letter or a handwritten card that day and then you drop it into the mail. You get them on additional postcard mailings from you. Now you start to touch them more specifically. Does that make sense, what I’m doing? Caller: Yes. I should put together a “How to prepare your home to sell” mini-brochure? Beatty: That’s right. What you are looking for is anything that will guide that homeowner that you can give them as a value-added gift and you keep it in the car and you make them request it. Because by virtue of requesting it, now they are basically identifying themselves as thinking about selling. So you can start to nurture that relationship more. Caller: I do like your marketing cards because they pull on heart strings and I think that is very important. I finished my “What you may not know about me” card and I talk about my grandfather who was a broker and he molded my way of what you think of the customer and I think that will help people get to know me that way. Beatty: That’s the whole purpose of this. The whole idea is this. Trust is built on three things. If they trust you, they will do business with you. First trust is have they met you? That’s why the most important thing you can do is door know and keep door knocking until you have met up to 100% of everyone on your list. Okay? The second thing of trust is, do they know that you are constantly selling? That’s why our cards are going to show off a sale every single time. The third part of trust is, do they know that you have the expertise to get them the most money. And that is where the rest of cards come in and that is where this pre-marking pack comes in. That’s where this free report that you are going to do comes in. All of these things are you showing off your expertise so they trust you. They are all hitting the same point. Caller: Stunning. Beatty: There are some other things you can do, but these are the most important. If you can door knock, have a pre-marketing pack and have that free report that you create that you can give them upon request at the end of your visit then you pretty much have it made. Caller: You know, I’m of the opinion, wrongly, that let’s say I didn’t want to bother people. I would touch them maybe 2 – 3 times a year which is way too low. I would definitely lose business that way. I mean, I would get business but I would also lose business as well. Recently, I sent out to my top 25%, a $5.00 gift certificate to Starbucks and that turned out to be pretty good because I would say 70 – 80% of them called me or emailed me thanking me for that. So, that’s something that I think I want to do maybe once a year. What do you think about something like that? Beatty: I love it. One of the things that we request, in fact, for our guarantee, we require is that you personally touch your list twice a year. So, sending out a gift card like that, just a handwritten note, a phone call, a face visit, anything that you can do that is a personal touch is huge. Typically the large chain restaurants, like maybe Longhorn Steakhouse, I’m not sure. Caller: Like maybe IHOP. Beatty: Yeah, IHOP, anything like that. Many times you can get a 2 for 1 coupon and especially if you called their corporate office and say that I want something to promote to my list, can you send me some 2 for 1 coupons or anything like that that I can give my people value and it gives them a discount coming to your location? They jump on that. They will do anything to get business. That won’t cost you anything. Caller: Okay Beatty: So you won’t have to buy gift certificates because they will give them to you for free. Caller: 2 for 1 discounts, right? Are you saying like a discount card or a discount coupon or something like that? Beatty: Yeah, it’s probably a coupon. I don’t know if you’re familiar with coupon books. Caller: Oh, yeah. Beatty: Sometimes organizations will sell coupon books as a fund raiser. What happens is that restaurant or that store will pay money to put that coupon in the book so they can get more business. If you find one of those coupon books and literally go through it and call those stores up personally. Just say, hey, I see that you’ve got the coupon in here. I have a list of people I want to give a benefit. Can you give me a bunch of coupons that I can give out for free? They will give you the same coupons that they pay to put in that book and give it to you for free. All you want to do is make it special and personal, so it doesn’t look like you just ripped it out of a book, but do something so it sounds like I arranged for you to have a 2 for 1 dinner over at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse and here’s a card or here’s a coupon for that will bless you on it. I know that over at Fleming’s Steakhouse, I don’t know if you have Fleming’s over there. Caller: We do. Beatty: It’s a high end steakhouse and they have internally gift cards that they will give out on a birthday or because they want to reward some sort of a client. It’s like a $25 gift card. It can only be used there and typically because all of the entrées are much more expensive than $25, they know that they will make money on it. You could go to even Fleming’s and suggest, hey, here’s what I want to do. Can you give me any gift cards so I can give out and promote you to my list? A lot of these places will jump on the opportunity to do that. Caller: I love it. I never thought of it, but now I will. Beatty: Yes. Those are just some things you can do as additional touches. Back to what can you do. The most important thing in your farm is you’ve got to be there and let me also suggest you need to be there ideally more frequently that just our postcards. Okay? Caller: Sure. Beatty: If you have another thing that you can mail quarterly or every other month, then that’s going to add even more value and then if you door knock and then if you get them on an address list and then you can mail them personally a handwritten not. Hey, I enjoyed meeting you. By the way, here’s a $25 gift certificate to Fleming’s that I got for you. I hope you enjoy it. Anything like that. Now, you’re adding value and they appreciate you and you’re touching them more and that’s how you’re going to win that business. Caller: I love it. I’ll do it. We do have a Fleming’s and we do have a Ruth’s Chris in town in Pasadena. Pasadena is very restaurant heavy. Beatty: Good. Caller: There’s a lot of restaurants. Beatty: So that means that there’s a lot of competition and if you just spend a little bit of time, or get an assistant to spend some time, and tell them what’s going on. Tell them how big your list is. Just tell them that I’ve got a list of 500 people that I want to or whatever your list is, that I want to promote something special. Do you have a gift card that will give them a discount or give them any sort of benefit that I can give to them as a special gift? Caller: I will. Beatty: You will find that many of them will do it. Caller: I hit on that. Beatty: Well, on the geo farm, let me set expectations. You will get quicker results with your sphere than you will the geo farm. The geo farm, the first stages of the geo farm is simply to get them to recognize you and start to remember you and then to start to trust you. That’s where the additional touches that you do will greatly enhance it and that additional effort, the face visit, will take it through the roof. Let me share a story of another client of ours over in California. Caller: Sure Beatty: Near Los Angeles. When he started working with us, he was targeting a 1200 home farm, 1500 home, excuse me. He was a nobody there in terms of market share. In 18 months, he was controlling 22% of the listings, outselling the number 2 agent by 7 times. What happened was he door knocked that area three times a year. We were mailing, at that time, either 8 or 12 times a year, I don’t recall and that community was also, there’s a Facebook community page for it because it was a large subdivision. Caller: Uh huh. Beatty: He got involved with the Facebook community page and just became a very active participant. Every listing he did, he would market it three or four times. Coming Soon, Just Listed, Open House, Under Contract, Just Sold so people saw his activity. He would post on people’s post and comment on things. He was there as an individual and also there as a realtor. Any time someone joined the Facebook community page, he would personally welcome them. He became an Admin person on the community page. He would welcome them personally and add them to his personal Facebook page. What happened was that between our mailings, his door knocking and Facebook, he was always there and always as a professional agent. So, 18 months, 22% of the farm. 2 years later, 50% of the farm market share. I mean, he’s just killing it. So, it’s all about always being there in some form and capacity. If you keep that focus with this list that we’re doing, then you’ll win. Caller: Yeah, yeah. It certainly should. Again, Beatty, thank you for your time. This has been insightful and it’s a matter of me getting out there and implementing. Beatty: Well, very good. I wish you great success. If you have any questions, let me know. P019
Radical Faith is a set of Christian topic discussions by Beatty Carmichael, focused toward the Christian who wants to live a life more faithfully before the Lord
Bottom Line Faith is the show that bridges the gap between faith and business.
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