Podcast appearances and mentions of ty harris

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 21, 2024 35:06

SAN ANGELO, TX — The Texas Trust Credit Union Post-Game show following the April 20, 2024 Cinch Chute Out at the San Angelo Rodeo. Bareback crash, the winners, Ty & Braden Harris, saddle bronc winners, and the drama during bull riding. The most fun video you'll watch all day! Streamed live on April 21, 2024.San Angelo Stock Show and Rodeo Cinch Chute-OutApril 20, 2024Bareback riding: First round: 1. Dean Thompson, 89 points on Pete Carr Pro Rodeo's San Angelo Sam; 2. Keenan Hayes, 87; 3. Bradlee Miller, 86; 4. (tie) Tanner Aus and Kade Sonnier, 83; no other qualified rides. Championship: 1. Keenan Hayes, 91.5 points on Pickett Pro Rodeo's New Scarlet, $7,500; 2. Dean Thompson, 89, $3,000; 3. Bradlee Miller, 88.5, $2,000.Steer wrestling: First round: 1. (tie) Stephen Culling and Ty Erickson, 4.0 seconds; 3. J.D. Struxness, 4.5; 4. Walt Arnold, 4.6; 5. Jacob Talley, 4.9; 6. Tanner Brunner, 5.0. Championship: 1. (tie) Stephen Culling and Ty Erickson, 4.3 seconds, $5,250 each; 3. J.D. Struxness, 4.7, $2,000.Tie-down roping: First round: 1. 1. (tie) Ty Harris, Kincade Henry and John Douch, 7.4 seconds; 4. Quade Hiatt, 7.9; 5. Haven Meged, 8.3; 6. Will Lummus, 13.5. Championship: 1. John Douch, 7.3 seconds, $7,500; 2. Kincade Henry, 7.4, $3,000; 3. Ty Harris, 10.1, $2,000.Saddle bronc riding: First round: 1, Logan Hay, 88.5 points on J Bar J Rodeo's Painted Hawk; 2. Ryder Wright, 88; 3. Lefty Holman, 86; 4. Logan Cook, 84.5; 5. Zeke Thurston, 83.5; 6. Statler Wright, 82. Championship: 1. Ryder Wright, 88.5 points on Pete Carr Pro Rodeo's Toma Jo, $7,500; 2. Logan Hay, 87.5, $3,000; 3. Lefty Holman, 86, $2,000.Team roping: First round: 1. Kaleb Driggers/Junior Nogueira, 3.7 seconds; 2. (tie) Marcus Theriot/Cole Curry and Clint Summers/Jake Long, 3.8; 4. Cody Snow/Hunter Koch, 4.0; 5. J.C. Yeahquo/Buddy Hawkins, 5.2; 6. Dustin Egusquiza/Levi Lord, 8.3. Championship: 1. Clint Summers/Jake Long, 4.2 seconds, $8,500; 2. Marcus Theriot/Cole Curry, 5.9, $4,000; no other qualified times.Bull riding: First round: 1. No qualified rides. Championship: 1. Hayes Weight, 90.5 points on Pete Carr Pro Rodeo's Time Bomb, $12,500; no other qualified rides.

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San Angelo's Bad Company Rodeo Roots

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Play Episode Listen Later Apr 12, 2024 42:57

For Friday, April 12 right before performance 5 of the San Angelo Rodeo. Interview with Boyd Polhamus the announcer about the history of Texas rodeo and its Bad Company Rodeo roots. Paden Bray, up-and-coming team roper with Cole and Ty Harris. Barrel Racer Timber Allenbrand. Current standings.

Journey to the NFR Dives Deep into Tie-Down Roping's Toughest

Kick Your Boots Up

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 10, 2024 32:12

This week, we're joined by Cole Harris, founder of Creative By Cole and the mastermind behind the gripping documentary "Journey to the NFR," featuring top tie-down ropers Ty Harris, Tuf Cooper, Shane Hanchey, Beau Cooper, Riley Webb, Shad Mayfield, and Haven Meged. In this special episode, Cole shares his experiences filming and creating the documentary, offering behind-the-scenes insights into the intense world of rodeo. From capturing the adrenaline-pumping moments of competition to showcasing the dedication and camaraderie of the ropers, Cole's storytelling shines through. For a full episode transcript, visit our website HERE.

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Bonnie & Clyde on a Motorbike Caught

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Play Episode Listen Later Mar 20, 2024 15:15

Today on LIVE! Daily News, the modern-day "Bonney and Clyde" duo are currently in the Tom Green County Jail, Ty Harris won the Houston Rodeo, and the San Angelo Stock Show Association lost a legend. Also, we recap last night's Police Chief forum, where all three candidates answered questions from San Angelo LIVE! Publisher Joe Hyde, who moderated the forum.

An Interview with Ty Harris, CEO, Openly

The Leadership in Insurance Podcast (The LIIP)

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 30, 2023 36:34

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Hambone and Ty Harris Take Over LIVE!

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Play Episode Listen Later Oct 18, 2023 22:57

A crash near Angelo State, San Angelo ISD shows off their brightest students, and a look at the new Dog Park pavilion. Plus, Josh "Hambone" Hilton takes over LIVE! to talk with San Angelo's Ty Harris about the Cinch Roping Fiesta next weekend!

S2E2: Ty Harris of the Connecticut Sun talks WNBA vs. Overseas, her main focus in the upcoming offseason and playing for the legendary Dawn Staley at South Carolina.

Gem Sessions Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 23, 2023 66:41

Today we're joined by Ty Harris of the Connecticut Sun to discuss her journey to the WNBA -- reflecting on her rookie season in The Wubble, her draft-day experience, the growth she's had on and off the court and her professional goals as she becomes a “vet” in the WNBA. We start off with Ty's background and highly decorated high school and college career, then transition into her life in the pros -- both overseas and in the W. Ty shares stories from every step along the way and tells us how she plans to continue to make strides in her career. Ty, an UnderArmour athlete, also takes us through some of her plans and moves off the court such as a potential signature shoe line, some of her player exclusives and plans she has for this upcoming offseason! Ty is one of the most genuine and down to earth people you could ever meet. Hopefully you guys enjoy this episode getting to know her! Make sure you show love and follow her on IG and look out for her in the upcoming UnderArmour basketball drops! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/gemsessions/support

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The Simpson's Side Pieces Draft w/ Ty Harris

in the LOOP Breakaway Roping Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 22, 2023 105:21

mock draft, pop draft, fantasy draft, pop, culture, pop-culture, movies, music, tv, television, games, comics, media, toys, comedy, jabroni u, network, podcast, the draft pod

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Winning the Million at THE AMERICAN | Jackie Crawford & Paul Crain

Play Episode Play 40 sec Highlight Listen Later Aug 11, 2023 46:21

Jackie Crawford still has a smile as wide as Texas when she talks about winning The American Rodeo Breakaway in 2023, catapulting her to a million dollar cowgirl! Jackie walked away with her second American Rodeo Title, but this time she was in the contender pool, making her eligible for the million dollar sidepot, to be a co-champion, splitting the million with Tie Down Roper, Ty Harris. “When you look at your bank account and have $600,000 in there, it's surreal to know just how life changing this event truly is!” The American Rodeo, presented by Teton Ridge, has been a foundational event highlighting the breakaway ropers and a huge part of giving women in rodeo the platform to compete on an equal playing field. We talk about The American Rodeo presented by Teton Ridge, and what that format will look like in 2024. Paul Crain joins us to discuss the changes, updated format options, and walks us through the process step by step, to get your shot at roping for the million! Teton Ridge, The American RodeoGlobe Life FieldArlington, TexasJackie CrawfordEquibrandClassic EquinePaul CrainPro Fantasy RodeoKC Jonesin the LOOP Podcast hosted by Jordan Jo Hollabaugh, is inspired by the western culture and breakaway roping lifestyle. This podcast highlights the raw, real, truth behind the box of the breakaway roping industry. Bringing you behind the scenes stories of what real life looks like everyday from; breakaway ropers, cowgirls, cowboys, producers, leaders, trailblazers, and the like, all sharing stories of the western culture and lifestyle that they live daily. Get in the LOOP Podcast with Jordan Jo Get the Newsletter at https://www.thebreakawayropingpodcast.com Like us on Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/intheloopbreakaway Tag us on Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/intheloopbreakaway Follow us on TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@jordanjo.hollabaugh Watch more on our Youtube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjpVQcSSiobXsMiD89OvTvA

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Baby Bison on June 27, 2023

Pull Up with Myles and Owen

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 28, 2023 13:07

Awards for local attorneys. rodeo star Ty Harris' journey to $1 million bucks. Hailey Dunn's killer released from jail. New baby buffaloes just born.

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Episode 9: Pull Up with Ty Harris

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 6, 2023 32:05

Owen and Myles welcome the Connecticut Sun's Ty Harris to the pod. They get into her experience with the Sun -- including how she found out about the trade overseas -- and talk about her time at South Carolina (with a very special cameo from Ty Harris superfan, Muffin). ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

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Praying for Hope

Mosaic Boston

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 16, 2023 53:01

Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic BostonChurch. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston,or donate to this ministry, please visit mosaicboston.com. Good morning. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Tyler. I am the teens or youth and hospitality director here at Mosaic Boston. And whenever I get the chance to be up here, it is truly my honor and privilege to be able to deliver God's word to all of us today. So this week we're kind of in between series, and so the pastors gave me the opportunity to preach something that is on my heart and it's a message about hope. I'm calling it, Praying for Hope. We're going to be spending most of our time in the text in Ephesians. And my wife and I recently had just gone through Ephesians, and so this is something I've been thinking about, been meditating on. But even before then, this idea that we're going to see and expound upon in this text is something that God has been working in my own heart, challenging me, growing me in, and I think it's something that will benefit the church as a whole. So we're going to see what does God mean? What does God call us to pray for? But what does it mean to pray for hope in our lives and in the church in general? So before we get started, will you pray with me over the preaching of God's word? Heavenly Father, Lord, you are good. We are so thankful that we get to be here today to hear your word, to learn from you, to know you more. So Lord, we ask that in this time that you speak to us through your word, that you use me to proclaim the truth of your word for all of us. And you challenge us, you soften our hearts to see the reality of who you are and how you are working in our lives. So Lord, we thank you. We praise you. In Jesus' name. Amen. Alrighty, we will be in Ephesians 1:15-23. So if you have your Bibles, you can turn there. If not, you could follow along on the screens behind me, but I'll read the whole thing and then we'll get started. So Ephesians 1:15 says this, "For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which He has called you, what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of His power towards us who believe, according to the working of His great might, that He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at the right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named not only in this age, but also in the one to come. And He put all things under His feet and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all." This is the reading of God's holy, inherent, authoritative, infallible word. May He write these eternal truths upon our hearts. We're going to be spending our time in kind of three points today. The three points are actually one sentence and the third point of that sentence has three subpoints. So just to throw some chaos and difficulty into things. But the one sentence that I want you guys to take away from this is the church should pray for wisdom and revelation of God. And the reason why the church should do that is to have hope, to recognize riches, and to perceive power. So that's what we're going to be spending our time in today. And so if you're like, "Wow, Tyler normally goes a long time with three points, and now He has three and three subpoints," I want to encourage you points one and two are on one page. So we'll get through those real quick. We'll spend most of the time on point number three. But point number one, the church, this is verse 15. Verse 15 says, "For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints..." Who is Paul addressing here? He is addressing the church. Well, he's clarifying how he knows it's the church that he's speaking to. It's the people that have faith in the Lord Jesus and love for all the saints. This is the very basics, the very fundamental definition of the church. It's those, it's the people who have faith in the Lord Jesus and love towards all the saints. Now, a couple clarifying things. I love that it says, Lord Jesus, because I think oftentimes in my mind I focus on savior Jesus, which is good. Jesus is savior. I have faith in Jesus as my savior. Which is what we talked about last week with Easter, and we talk about every week at Mosaic, that Jesus came and died to save us from our sins and raised to life three days later to prove that He had the power to do it, to save us from our sins. We have faith in that. But He's not just savior, He's also Lord. Lord is ruler. He is Lord. He has power. He has authority over our lives today and we trust in Him as our king. We have faith in Him as our Lord and Savior. That's a Christian. And naturally, when you do that, you love the saints. So let's clarify saints. If you're like me, I grew up in a Catholic Church, and so a saint is someone who did some really incredible work and then died, and so you get to be a saint. But that's not what the word means. The word just means holy or set apart. Paul is talking about Christians. He's talking about the church. And so when we have faith in Jesus, naturally, we should love each other, we should care for each other. And so Paul is just being very clear at the start, he is addressing the church. He is talking to the church. And so everything that we're going to talk about now, he is addressing to Christians. And so if you're here today, and you're not a Christian and you're like, "Well, why am I here?" Praise God that you're here. We're very thankful that you're here. We want you to be able to see a glimpse into what we talk about when we talk about church. We're not talking about a meeting on Sundays. We're not talking about a place that we go to do the thing we're supposed to do and get on. We're talking about a faith and love of Jesus Christ and a love for each other. And what I would just ask you, humbly, in this time, if you are able to just pray and ask God, "If this is true, if you are real, if you are here, open my eyes to see you." Ask God that, "If this is true and what we are speaking about is true," ask Him to reveal himself to you. Because what we are going to see in this text is that God works powerfully in His church to help, to give hope, and to save His people. Forgot to mention real quick, we have a motto, love Jesus simple, right? That's what this text is all about. That's why we have that motto, love Jesus simple. We love God, we love His people, and we love those who do not yet recognize that they're His people. We love the church. We have love for the saints. We love God and Jesus. Specifically Jesus, not just God in general, but we love Jesus Himself. So we have faith in Jesus. We love the saints. Simple, that's all we need. That's the foundation. That's the point. That's the root of all of that. We do. End of point one, nice job, nice and easy. Point number two, the church should pray. And this is verses 16 and the beginning of 17. It says this, "I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory..." And we're going to pause there and leave you on a little bit of a cliffhanger. But Paul starts saying, "I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers..." First thing, we cannot separate thanksgiving and prayer. When we pray, thanksgiving needs to be a part of it. Whatever you are thankful for in this life, whenever something happens or you receive something or whatever, you're just reminded of something that you're thankful for, praise God for that thing. Literally, go to Him in prayer and praise Him. Thank Him for it. We cannot separate thanksgiving and prayer. But specifically what Paul is thankful for is for the church, is for other believers, brothers and sisters in Christ. Christians, we are called to be thankful for each other, so thank you. I mean that very sincerely. You don't know how much this church has been an encouragement to me, been an encouragement to the staff, been an encouragement to the pastors, to each other, been able to support and help each other throughout the many years that this church has been here. Thank you. I praise God and thank Him for you and your faithfulness to Him. And I mean that sincerely. Now, when we look at each other, do we sincerely feel that way? Let's feel that way. Let's be thankful for each other that God has blessed us with the ability to have these relationships with each other. The next thing I want to point out is that Paul is very specific in who he is praying to and why he is praying to Him. This is the beginning of verse 17, "that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory...." So he's specific. Paul's not just talking to air. He's not just throwing out prayers to someone in general. He is praying to the God of our Lord Jesus Christ. He's specific. And then he throws it in and follows up with the Father of glory. Is this just some fancy phrasing that really religious people like to do so they sound nice when they pray in the letters read out loud to the church? No. What Paul is doing here is he's clarifying why He's praying and trusts this God that he's praying to. He's not just any God. He's not just any person. He's the Father of glory. I was reading a commentary on this text and it was written by a guy named Francis Foulkes, who he didn't write many commentaries, but he did on Ephesians. But most of his works were about prayer. Most of the things he wrote was like how to pray. Why do we pray? What does it look like to pray? Things like that. And I thought that he would be a very helpful person to study in these texts. And this is what he says about Paul's address of God. He says, "He is the Father to whom all glory belongs; for all the power and majesty revealed in creation, providence and redemption are His, and He the source. Such a thought of who God is gives to prayer a sense of awe and strengthens the faith in those who pray." Christians, we should strengthen our faith when we pray. It actually matters how we address God when we pray. It doesn't mean that we have to say, "The Father of glory," that's not the point. For me personally, when I prayed, I said, "Heavenly Father," that's what I usually say. You don't have to say that either. But I say that, because I'm reminding myself, yeah, I'm praying to God who is in heaven. He is above all things. He rules. He reigns. That's who He is. But He's not just in heaven. He's a father. He's relational. He knows us. He cares for us. We can have relationship with Him. And so I start, when I pray that way because I'm reminding myself, I'm speaking to the God who has a relationship with me, and He has power to do things. He has power to hear me. I trust He will hear me. I trust that He can act on what I'm asking of Him. I trust and grow in my awe and faith of Him. And so this isn't to say that's how we all need to pray, but what we all need to do is go to God in awe and reverence. Go to Him and prepare our hearts when we pray to say, yeah, I am speaking to the one true all powerful God. That matters. That makes a difference. And so when we are in times of questioning, times of doubt, times of weakness still go to God in strength, not our own strength, but we can go to Him saying, "God, I know I'm weak, but you're strong. God, I'm weak, but I'm reminding myself of who you are. I'm reminding myself of how you've been faithful to me." And so that regardless of our season in life, we can pray in strength, because it's God's strength, not our own that we pray in. And then from this point on in our text, Paul is going to launch into specifics that he prays over the church. So he's writing this letter to remind them and encourage them. He is praying for them and he's going to tell them specifically what He's praying about. And as we continue through these texts, we're going to see what are those specific things, and we're going to stop and we're going to pray for those things for this church. Why? Because Paul thought it was important to pray over the church in Ephesus. And if God thought it was important enough to canonize in scripture, I think it's something good that we should pray for ourselves as well. Plus, I know that it is something good for us to pray for ourselves as well. But real quick before we continue with that, I want to point something out, and this is something that I learned only a couple years ago and was never explicitly taught to me. And I was like, "Wow, why was this never explicitly taught? This is really important." When anyone, myself or a pastor or someone else is up here preaching and praying, or if you're in a small group and one person is praying and you're just there listening, we're all praying. And what I mean by that is it's not a time to just sit and listen and think, "Okay, do I like what he's saying?" Or, "That sounds good or nice? I like that wording." That's not the point. But it's the time of Christians to be led by one person to pray to God together about the same things. That's why the word amen matters. If you don't know the word, amen means truly. You're saying that you agree with everything that was said and you're praying it. So we've all done this, I'm guilty of this as well, but if you've ever been in a prayer group and someone's praying and it's late and you're tired and your mind starts drifting and you don't really hear anything that they're saying, and then the end comes and everyone's like, "Amen," you're like, "Amen. Amen." You just lied and you're guilty of lying. So what I'm saying is that as we talk about these things, I'm asking that we as a church pray together for God to bless His church with these things. It's not about me standing up here praying these things. It's about us as the body of Christ praying together in unity and seeking God for His help. So with that, that's the end of point two, on to point three. Wow, we're flying through this. Point three, the church should pray for wisdom and revelation of God. This is verses 17 through the end. I'm just going to read the first part of it for us. But "that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened." We'll stop there for now. So Paul's first request to God in prayer for the church is for us, for that church, but applicable to us as well, to have a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. Everything else that we're going to talk about, all of the rest of the requests of Paul are summarized in this point. He gets more specific as to why it matters as he goes along, but this is the heart of it. What Paul really wants for the church is to have a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the knowledge of God. So what does that mean? What is the spirit of wisdom in the knowledge of God? Well, wisdom is knowledge applied, right? Wisdom is about how we act based on information that we have. So you can classify it as a spirit to know God's will. The ability to know what God wants for us, for His people, for His church, for us to do. And then what is the spirit of a revelation in the knowledge of him? This is a spirit to know God, to see God. Well, Paul, you're writing to Christians, don't they already know God? Why are you asking for a spirit of revelation in the knowledge of him? Because we all can know God deeper, better, and more personal. Again, Francis Foulkes in His commentary on this section says this, "Such wisdom and revelation, moreover, come, not simply as such higher intelligence is given from God, but by the knowledge of Him, the personal knowledge of God Himself, which in the Bible always connotes the experience of life in union and fellowship with Him. Paul put the prayer for wisdom first, because to him the gospel was so wonderful that it was impossible for people to see the glory of it unless they were taught by God, and also because he knew that the knowledge of God was life itself." So when put that way, does it make sense to pray for a spirit, to pray for more revelation of God so that we can have greater unity with Him in this life, that we can have greater fellowship with Him in life? Yes, of course, it does. Well, how does that happen? How do we receive the spirit of wisdom and the spirit of revelation and the knowledge of him? It's the next verse that says, "having the eyes of your hearts enlightened that you may know," right? It's not that God is suddenly going to be someone more of Himself than He was so you could recognize it. He's always there. He's always there. We need to recognize Him there. We need to see how He is working. See who He is. We need to have the eyes of our hearts enlightened. What does that phrase mean, eyes of our hearts? Our hearts don't have eyes, that just doesn't make sense. Well, the only way you think of your heart is as a beating organ, you're probably the first person in all of history. Because every single culture talks about the heart, not just as a beating organ, but also as more than that, as part of who you are about emotions and desires. But what Paul is saying with the eyes of your heart, it's saying, "Let all of who you are, the truest part of you, your soul, everything that you are, have that open, your eyes open to see who God is, to see who He is, and how He is working His will and His revelation in your life." And we need to have our eyes opened, because we can't do it ourselves, right? We all know this experientially that we can see things and not actually understand what they are, or we can hear things and not understand what you're supposed to take away from it. During first service, it came to me that there's a really good example of this in art for me. I can look at art, I could see there's painting and brushes and whatever, and I just don't get it. It's art. Cool, that's nice. But I understand that there is beauty in it and that some people do get it. And so I need to have the eyes of my heart enlightened. There's a painting or a picture in our office space that Raquel, God bless, who God has used powerfully in this church and has blessed her, but Raquel loves this painting and I look at it, I'm like, "I don't get it." It makes me angry that I don't... Anyway, but she gets it. So I just need to have the eyes of my heart enlightened to the truth of the beauty of that painting. But anyway, I bring that up to say we all know what it means to see something and not get it. And what Paul is praying for the church is that we're not that way with God, that we can see Him and we can get Him, and we can see the fullness of Him and grow in our relationship with Him. And we need God to do that for us. We see this idea also in Isaiah 6:9-10, it says, "'Keep on hearing but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed." It's a very difficult text, but what it's saying is that God is the one who has the power to open people's eyes. And so if we need our eyes open to the reality of God, let's go to Him. Let's ask him. Let's ask Him to reveal Himself to us. And if you're here today and you're not a Christian, this is what I urge you, ask God, open your eyes. Ask God to reveal himself to you, to show you to reveal His love, His grace, His mercy, and His power through the work of Christ for you. And he ends this part by saying, "that you may know..." And then he continues with what He's praying for. We need the eyes of our hearts opened and enlightened, not so that we could have an idea about what God is like, so that we can know Him, that we can know the hope that He gives us, that we can know what the inheritance is, that we can have confidence in Him. It's not a wishy-washy thing, but we could have confidence in Him. That's what God wants for us, and we need Him to open our eyes to it. So as the first thing that Paul is praying for the church, let's now spend some time praying for us, this body, this church here to receive wisdom, a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of God. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we need you. We need more of you, and we need to see you. Open the eyes of our hearts to wherever we are blind to you and who you are and the way you are working in our lives. Give us eyes to see you. Lord, wherever we are blind, wherever we are stubborn, where wherever we are hardhearted, soften us and open our eyes to know you more. Grow our relationship with you. Lord, we know you desire the deepest relationship with us. Give us hearts that desire the deepest relationship with you to know you personally, to love you personally. Bless this body of believers, your church here with the deepest growth in relationship and love for you. Thank you. In Jesus' name, amen. So now He's going to get into three subpoints for why we should have a spirit of wisdom and revelation of God. So the church should pray for wisdom and revelation of God, subpoint number one, to have hope. To have hope. And each of the subpoints is going to get a little bit more specific, but they're all relating back to this idea of hope. And they're going to be ways that Paul shows that we as the body, we as Christians, can have hope. So this is in verse 18 where it says, "having the eyes of your hearts enlightened that you may know what is the hope to which He has called you..." Have you ever thought about hope that way, as you're calling? Christians, you are called to have hope. We are not called to despair. We are not called to anxiety. We are called to hope. And not just any kind of hope, a living hope. Pastor Shane referenced this in his prayer as he started the service. But 1 Peter 1:3 says this, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." Christians, we are called to have hope because we have a living hope. Christ did not stay dead. This is what we celebrated last week at Easter, that Christ raised from the dead. He is alive. We have a living hope, and it is practical to us in day-to-day life. It's not just a hope that we can have one day in the future. It's a hope we can have now. And I want to pause here for a second and recognize that life's not always easy. It's not always easy to have hope. I recognize that there are many brothers and sisters in this church who have gone through struggles and difficulty and are in the middle of that even right now. I know people in this body that have suffered from illness, have been diagnosed with cancer or disease. I know people in this church that have suffered from mental illness or anxiety or eating disorders. I know people in this church who have this desire for God to answer their prayers, and they've been waiting and waiting for an answer. I know people who have lost their jobs and are wondering when they're going to be able to pay the bills. I know people who are looking for housing, and like, "Don't know where I'm going to live, but I'm going to do something, I guess. I don't know." I know people who are suffering and I know many of you are. And what I am saying is God is calling us to have hope, even in that. It's not a call to suck it up and get tough. That's not what I'm saying. It's a call to recognize that we are weak and that in those moments we need help, and that God is the one who can provide it. And that God is the one who can give us hope, even when we don't see the reasons for hope. Because we are called to it through the life of Christ. We can look at Christ. We could look at what He willingly suffered for us. We could look at the way He lived for us, died for us, rose for us, and say, "You know what? Regardless of my circumstances, I could look to Christ and have hope." And as I mentioned, we're going to see in the further points of Paul's prayer, more specifically, more powerfully the thrust of why we can have hope. But Paul starts generally, we are called to it. We are called to have hope. So with that, let's pray for this church to have hope. Heavenly Father, Lord, we need you. We live in a fallen, broken world where we see the effects of sin, and where we see the pain and suffering and bitterness that comes from our own sin and from the sin in the world around us, and just from the brokenness of creation apart from Christ. Give us eyes to see the hope in those situations that only you provide. Give us eyes to see that you are with us. You love us, you are there. You have endured and suffered for us. And you are our reason for hope. Our hope is not in the solving of all the problems. Our hope is in you alone. Give us hope. We thank you. We praise you. In Jesus' name. Subpoint number two, why the church should pray for wisdom and revelation of God is to recognize riches. This is the rest of verse 18. I'll just read the first part to remind us, "having the eyes of your heart enlightened," to what? "To what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints..." This made me pause and think, what is the inheritance that he is talking about here? The inheritance that Christians have is the kingdom of God. Yes, we can see it fully in eternity in heaven with eternal life with God in His presence, in His kingdom forever. That is the inheritance that Paul is talking about here. And he clarifies what he means, actually, earlier, he had already talked about, it in verses 11 through 14 of this chapter. He says this, "In him," in Christ, "we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the council of His will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of His glory. In him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit who was the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise and glory of God." We are not in heaven right now. We have not acquired possession of the kingdom of God, of this inheritance that we are given yet. But in verse 11, he says that we have obtained it. How have we obtained it if we haven't taken possession of it? Yes, we have the Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of it. But how have we obtained it? Three small words at the end of verse 18 of our text, "in the saints." In the saints, right? There's this idea with the kingdom of God, it's a idea that we talk about as an already and not yet. And the day that Jesus was raised from the dead, He already conquered sin and death. He did it, definitively, done. He already ushered in the kingdom of God here on earth. Done. But we don't see the fullness of it yet. We're waiting. We're looking forward to that day. But as we wait, what do we look for the hope and to recognize what that inheritance is? We look to each other. We look to His church, His people, the saints. Because when we look at the way the body of Christ, the church, is supposed to interact with each other, the way they love each other, support each other, pray for each other, build each other up, use their gifts for each other's good for the upbuilding of the church, we just get a little taste, get a little glimpse of what the kingdom of heaven is like. And I want to be clear. The word glimpse is my word. That's not what Paul uses. What does Paul say? Paul says, "What are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints." What Paul is saying, "Don't downplay the power that the body of believers have to be able to reveal the love of God, the kingdom of God to each other." I said glimpse because I recognize the ultimate, infinite glory of the kingdom of God in heaven whenever we get there. But Paul is saying, "The church here now is still rich and glorious. It's still able to fully reveal the kingdom of God to those who are in it and who see it." So Christians, does this describe us? Are we the riches of His glorious inheritance to each other? The way I think about it is what do we want most or long for most when we get to heaven? The right Sunday school answer, which is true and good, is that we desire the presence of God. That that's what we want when we get to heaven, is just to be in the presence of God. Good, praise God. We need that. Do we bring the presence of God with us where we go? Do we bring the characteristics, the love, the nature, who He is to each other when we interact with each other? Or are we more of our own sinful self than Christ? But if we're honest with ourselves, maybe it's a little bit more specific than just the presence of God. Maybe it's the peace of God that we're longing for in heaven. Now, there's so much uncertainty in the world around us, so much going on that we don't have peace. We're not settled here. We just can't wait for the day that we have peace in heaven. Well, if that's the case, are we bringing peace wherever we go? And when you need peace and you're struggling to see that, do you look to the other believers, the brothers and sisters in the church, who you see, you've been walking with, you know are faithful, and say, "You know what? I need peace. I don't have it. Can you help me? Can you encourage me? Can you strengthen me?" Can we be the church for each other? Maybe it's hope. Maybe you're like, "There's so much that I have going on that's suffering, that's hard, it's difficult. I can't even imagine how to have hope for the next season. And in heaven one day we won't have to worry about any of that, so I'm belonging for that." Well, do we bring hope to each other? If what you need is hope, do you have the ability to share hope with other people? And if not, do you have the humility to ask for help? Do you have the humility to go to members of your community group, to go to brothers and sisters in Christ, and say, "I'm struggling. I need hope. Can you help me?" And are we willing to help when that happens? What Paul is saying is that we need to have the eyes of our hearts open to see how great it is to be the church. It is a blessing. It is an honor, and that we can reveal all of who God is through the church. And we need to be that for each other. So with that, let's pray that we could have the eyes of our hearts opened to see the riches of God's inheritance here and now through His church, and that we can be that for each other. Heavenly Father, we need you. This is what this all comes down to, Lord, is that we need you. Open the eyes of our hearts to see how you are working in our brothers and sisters here in this church. Strengthen us, convict us on how we are called to live to exemplify the fullness of the inheritance of your kingdom in heaven while we are here on earth. Let us to live joyfully and fully in that reality that we are in your kingdom even now. Give us that hope. Give us that boldness to live that way, to be your church here and now. Open our eyes to see that, to rejoice in the riches, the fullness of it, to not look at it as something light and not view it as merely a glimpse. And then just hope for that day when we get to be with you, even though we do. Help us to see the blessing, the richness of the blessing that is your church, even here at Mosaic. We thank you. We praise you. In Jesus' name. And the last subpoint that we have is that the church should pray for wisdom and revelation of God to perceive power. This is verses 19 through the rest of the chapter. I'll read just verse 19 first. It says, verse 18, "having the eyes of your heart enlightened," why? Verse 19, "to what is the immeasurable greatness of His power towards us who believe according to the working of His great might..." I love this verse. I love this verse. Paul is using as much human language as possible in this text to try and give us a sense of God's power, even though he knows no human words can ever describe the power of God. But he uses these phrases, immeasurable greatness, power, working great might in this verse to try and stoke in us an understanding of how great the power of God is. The word for immeasurable is huperballo, which is where we get the word hyperbolic from. And what it's saying is use all the hyperbolic language you want. Think as lofty and as high as you could think of anyone, any type of power, and it's not even accurate enough to describe God's power. That's not how, it's not even close to how great He is. It's immeasurable His power. But it's His greatness as well. And the word for greatness is exceeding a standard of excellence. So God is a standard of excellence, so much greater than we could ever imagine. That is who He is. That is His nature, His character. He is more excellent than we could ever measure or imagine. Then he uses the word power to describe God's working. And this word is what I characterize as gym strength, or you could think of it as potential energy. For those of you who are smarter than me and like science, it's potential energy. It's that God has the power, the ability to do, He has the ability to get things done. That's gym strength through me, right? You're not physically doing the thing, but you're preparing to be able to do whatever you need to do. You're lifting weights so that way you're prepared to do something with it whenever you need to. I'm not trying to dis gym strength. I need more gym strength myself. Pray for me for that. It's a good thing, but it's about being prepared to do something. Church, do we recognize the immeasurable excellence of God's ability to work to who? It says, "towards us who believe." God wants to work for His church, He wants to use His power to benefit Christians, to use His church to usher in the kingdom here. So when we look at the immeasurable, ultimate excellence of God's power, do we ask Him for help in times of need and recognize that He has the power to do it and that He wants to do it? And that that's the reason why He is using this power is for the benefit of those who believe in Him. But He doesn't just want to do it, He does it, that's the word working. This is kinetic energy. This is, it's happening. It's active. I call this manual labor strength. The strongest people I've ever known in my life never went to the gym. My friend Ty Harris, praise God for him. Love him. You look at him, you wouldn't think He's strong. He loves musicals. He loves singing and dancing. Great guy. I love him. He had to help someone move and lifted a pool table by himself. Now, for those of you who don't know, pool tables are solid stone. They weigh almost a ton. No, not quite a... They weigh a lot. I'm not using ton literally. They weigh a lot. It usually takes four or five people to install them. And if you have to move them up or downstairs, you usually you need to use machinery. He's just like, "Okay, go lift it up, and help people move." He has working strength. Never once in the gym, working strength. My friend Rich, his father, also Rich, Stovakin, had all of the brute ruggedness of German and Russian heritage combined. So think of the toughest German and the toughest Russian, put them together, that's him. He's like 6'7. And Rich and I would work out in his basement in high school, and we were like there curling our 20 pounds, feeling good about ourselves. And then he comes in, and is like, "what are you guys doing?" "Oh, we're lifting. Well, how much can you do?" And He's like, "I don't work out, but I'll do whatever I need to." And he starts curling a 100 pounds just for reps, just like, "I'm good." What he did for a living, he lifted bales of paper and just moved it and did it. And He was faithful in his job and he just worked for his job. God has working power. He doesn't just sit and say, "I have the ability to, I could do it if you want me to. We'll see if I do." No, He works. He does. He uses His power to help His church, His people bring His kingdom here. And the last one in the sentence is great might. The word for great is just focusing on the intensity, the magnitude of the might, of God's might. But the word for might is focusing on the ability to execute something. So God doesn't just have power to work, and then He keeps working and working and working. If you've done home projects yourself, you probably know what this is like. It takes a lot longer than you thought. And you just feel like I'm just working and working and it's never going to end. No, God executes. He completes. He does what He sets out to do. He finishes it. He finishes the work He promises to do it. He has promised to save His people. He has given us that assurance. He has promised to protect His church. He has given us that assurance. So we can trust that He will do and complete what He says. And Paul says, "You know what? Maybe you still don't understand the power of God." So He goes on to try and even more hyperbolically, explain the power of God. And we're just going to fly through verses 20 through 23. I'm just going to read the snippets of it real quick. But the next thing he says is that... Well, sorry, this is the most important thing in verse 20, "that He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at the right hand in the heavenly places..." When we look at Easter, when we look at the power that God used to raise Christ from the dead, that's the power He uses for His church. When we're talking about working power, when we're talking about Him completing and His ability, He shows us that He does it. He doesn't just tell you He's going to do it and hope that... He proves it through the resurrection of Christ. And now He's going to point out all the power of Christ to again stoke in us a desire and understanding of the ultimate supreme power of God, because Christ is seated at the right hand of the throne in heaven. The right hand is the hand of power. Whoever sits at the right hand of the king has all the power, all the authority of the king himself. So what it's saying is that Jesus Christ has the full power, full authority of our heavenly Father. Is that not enough power? Well, it's far above all rule and authority and power and dominion. I think we, like I do often, clump these together and just run through them and it's like it's a bunch of things that are powerful. God's more powerful than that. But Paul is calling out specific things here, and he clarifies what He means by them in Ephesians 6:12. He says, "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers, over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." So rule and authority are specific positions that are being addressed, there are rules of people who rule and have authority, but then power and dominion is the force, is the power behind them. But Paul's saying, "We're not talking about flesh and blood here. We're not talking about physical earthly kings and rulers and authorities. What we can summarize all of this by is the kingdom of Satan," is what Paul is addressing here. Whether it's those who are working for the kingdom of Satan and the force behind them, whether it's demons or Satan himself. The sin and brokenness we see in this world, you compile all of that power together, and it's nothing compared to Jesus Christ. I think we often fall into thinking Satan is just the equal opposite of Christ, and that is so far from the truth. He is nothing compared to Christ. Jesus Himself alone is even more powerful than all of the kingdom of Satan could throw at Him, so much so, He's so far above and beyond that. In terms of power looking at it, He can barely even see the power of Satan, because He has none in comparison to Christ. Not only that, that not enough power for us, Jesus has the name that is above every name. The name of Satan has no power. He's not Lord Voldemort, or he who shall not be named. No, his name has no power. The name of Christ does have power. We see that in the New Testament, that the name of Christ has power to cast out demons. It has real, tangible power for those who believe. This is all in the context of those who believe. Don't want to say like you could just throw out Jesus' name and everything's going to go your way. That's not what it's about. It's about for those who believe and for the will of God. We see in the New Testament that the disciples see these people running around casting demons out in the name of Christ. And they go to Jesus and they're like, "Should we tell them to stop?" And He's like, "No, no, they're fine." Why? Well, because apparently, even though they weren't known, they had some sort of faith or trust or relationship with Christ. But then there's a time when we see people who don't have a relationship with Christ try and cast out demons in the name of Christ, and the demon says, "I do not know you," and attacks them. So study the book of Acts. It's a fun one. There's a lot that happens. But the point of all this is being is the name is not just the name you throw out and it's just like, "Okay, whatever I want is going to happen." It's that it has power for the church. It's powerful for God's people to work the will of God. To help, to protect, to bring hope, to perceive power, to understand our role in the church. The name of Christ has power unlike any other name. All things are under His feet, not just the kingdom of Satan, but everything you could think of in all of creation. Compile all the power, all the greatness, all the honor of anything in all of creation that you can think of, and it's barely even a footstool for him. Culturally, at the time when this was written, if they heard the word feet, the initial response would've been, "That's disgusting. Feet are gross." It's very similar to today. Not much has changed. I think of when my wife and I were dating, and if my feet went anywhere near, she would slap me, and jump and run away. And it's like, my feet are gross. I get it. Feet are gross. But back then, they were walking in sandals, barefoot. The dust of the road, the filth and grime that are on the streets that they're walking are just covering their feet. And that's why washing of feet was such a big deal when someone like Jesus did it for others. But what it's saying is if there was a less honorable part of Christ, which there's not, all of Christ is fully honorable, fully glorious, fully beautiful, all of the greatness of the things of this world, they barely are even able to get to His feet. They're barely even worthy of that. That's how great is the honor and power of Christ. And He's not just powerful sitting there on His throne. He is head over all things. He leads. He guides. He is in control. He is sovereign. He is working and leading and guiding His people. We can trust in His power because it's not just there and doing whatever He wants, but He is leading, guiding us in His will. And then verse 22 and 23, 23 is my actual favorite verse of this text. It says, "And He put all things under His feet and gave Him," Christ, "as head over all things to the church, the church is His body, the church, which is the fullness of Him who fills all in all." Church, do we recognize that we are called to be the fullness of Christ. Like I said, not just a glimpse. We are called to be the fullness of Him, to bring all of His power, all of His working, all of His love, His characteristics to the world. Why? Because it's not about us. He is the one who fills. We are dependent on Him. Again, going back, bringing it full circle. We are dependent on the relationship we have with Him, our love and trust for Him, to trust Him, to fill us, to open our eyes to what we need to see, to help us see where we are weak and need to be strengthened, to let Him fill us, so that the way we live can fully exemplify Him to all who see Him. Are we the fullness of God to each other? Are we the fullness of God to those who see us? We need to have the eyes of our hearts opened to see our need for His power, but also to see how His power can help us be the church today. So we'll close with prayer for that. We'll close with prayer, for us to have the eyes of our hearts open to the power of God, that fulfills us and enables us to be His church. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, you are powerful. You are mighty. You are working. And you desire to do good for your church. Open the eyes of our hearts to see the greatness of the ways you are working in our lives. Lord, individually where we need to see you, open our eyes to see how you are working in our lives. Lord, corporately, with this body, your church, here, open our eyes to see how you are working powerfully for your kingdom here and now. Lord, open our eyes to see that we are called to exemplify fully you to those who see us. Fill us with your power. Fill us with your strength, not for ourselves, not for our own good, but so that we can truly be your church. We can be your people. We can bring your kingdom here and now. And that those who see it turn to you and love you. Fill us with your spirit. Fill us with your hope. Fill us with your power. We praise you, and thank you. In Jesus' name, amen.

Praying for Hope

Mosaic Boston

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 16, 2023 53:01

Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic BostonChurch. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston,or donate to this ministry, please visit mosaicboston.com. Good morning. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Tyler. I am the teens or youth and hospitality director here at Mosaic Boston. And whenever I get the chance to be up here, it is truly my honor and privilege to be able to deliver God's word to all of us today. So this week we're kind of in between series, and so the pastors gave me the opportunity to preach something that is on my heart and it's a message about hope. I'm calling it, Praying for Hope. We're going to be spending most of our time in the text in Ephesians. And my wife and I recently had just gone through Ephesians, and so this is something I've been thinking about, been meditating on. But even before then, this idea that we're going to see and expound upon in this text is something that God has been working in my own heart, challenging me, growing me in, and I think it's something that will benefit the church as a whole. So we're going to see what does God mean? What does God call us to pray for? But what does it mean to pray for hope in our lives and in the church in general? So before we get started, will you pray with me over the preaching of God's word? Heavenly Father, Lord, you are good. We are so thankful that we get to be here today to hear your word, to learn from you, to know you more. So Lord, we ask that in this time that you speak to us through your word, that you use me to proclaim the truth of your word for all of us. And you challenge us, you soften our hearts to see the reality of who you are and how you are working in our lives. So Lord, we thank you. We praise you. In Jesus' name. Amen. Alrighty, we will be in Ephesians 1:15-23. So if you have your Bibles, you can turn there. If not, you could follow along on the screens behind me, but I'll read the whole thing and then we'll get started. So Ephesians 1:15 says this, "For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which He has called you, what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of His power towards us who believe, according to the working of His great might, that He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at the right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named not only in this age, but also in the one to come. And He put all things under His feet and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all." This is the reading of God's holy, inherent, authoritative, infallible word. May He write these eternal truths upon our hearts. We're going to be spending our time in kind of three points today. The three points are actually one sentence and the third point of that sentence has three subpoints. So just to throw some chaos and difficulty into things. But the one sentence that I want you guys to take away from this is the church should pray for wisdom and revelation of God. And the reason why the church should do that is to have hope, to recognize riches, and to perceive power. So that's what we're going to be spending our time in today. And so if you're like, "Wow, Tyler normally goes a long time with three points, and now He has three and three subpoints," I want to encourage you points one and two are on one page. So we'll get through those real quick. We'll spend most of the time on point number three. But point number one, the church, this is verse 15. Verse 15 says, "For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints..." Who is Paul addressing here? He is addressing the church. Well, he's clarifying how he knows it's the church that he's speaking to. It's the people that have faith in the Lord Jesus and love for all the saints. This is the very basics, the very fundamental definition of the church. It's those, it's the people who have faith in the Lord Jesus and love towards all the saints. Now, a couple clarifying things. I love that it says, Lord Jesus, because I think oftentimes in my mind I focus on savior Jesus, which is good. Jesus is savior. I have faith in Jesus as my savior. Which is what we talked about last week with Easter, and we talk about every week at Mosaic, that Jesus came and died to save us from our sins and raised to life three days later to prove that He had the power to do it, to save us from our sins. We have faith in that. But He's not just savior, He's also Lord. Lord is ruler. He is Lord. He has power. He has authority over our lives today and we trust in Him as our king. We have faith in Him as our Lord and Savior. That's a Christian. And naturally, when you do that, you love the saints. So let's clarify saints. If you're like me, I grew up in a Catholic Church, and so a saint is someone who did some really incredible work and then died, and so you get to be a saint. But that's not what the word means. The word just means holy or set apart. Paul is talking about Christians. He's talking about the church. And so when we have faith in Jesus, naturally, we should love each other, we should care for each other. And so Paul is just being very clear at the start, he is addressing the church. He is talking to the church. And so everything that we're going to talk about now, he is addressing to Christians. And so if you're here today, and you're not a Christian and you're like, "Well, why am I here?" Praise God that you're here. We're very thankful that you're here. We want you to be able to see a glimpse into what we talk about when we talk about church. We're not talking about a meeting on Sundays. We're not talking about a place that we go to do the thing we're supposed to do and get on. We're talking about a faith and love of Jesus Christ and a love for each other. And what I would just ask you, humbly, in this time, if you are able to just pray and ask God, "If this is true, if you are real, if you are here, open my eyes to see you." Ask God that, "If this is true and what we are speaking about is true," ask Him to reveal himself to you. Because what we are going to see in this text is that God works powerfully in His church to help, to give hope, and to save His people. Forgot to mention real quick, we have a motto, love Jesus simple, right? That's what this text is all about. That's why we have that motto, love Jesus simple. We love God, we love His people, and we love those who do not yet recognize that they're His people. We love the church. We have love for the saints. We love God and Jesus. Specifically Jesus, not just God in general, but we love Jesus Himself. So we have faith in Jesus. We love the saints. Simple, that's all we need. That's the foundation. That's the point. That's the root of all of that. We do. End of point one, nice job, nice and easy. Point number two, the church should pray. And this is verses 16 and the beginning of 17. It says this, "I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory..." And we're going to pause there and leave you on a little bit of a cliffhanger. But Paul starts saying, "I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers..." First thing, we cannot separate thanksgiving and prayer. When we pray, thanksgiving needs to be a part of it. Whatever you are thankful for in this life, whenever something happens or you receive something or whatever, you're just reminded of something that you're thankful for, praise God for that thing. Literally, go to Him in prayer and praise Him. Thank Him for it. We cannot separate thanksgiving and prayer. But specifically what Paul is thankful for is for the church, is for other believers, brothers and sisters in Christ. Christians, we are called to be thankful for each other, so thank you. I mean that very sincerely. You don't know how much this church has been an encouragement to me, been an encouragement to the staff, been an encouragement to the pastors, to each other, been able to support and help each other throughout the many years that this church has been here. Thank you. I praise God and thank Him for you and your faithfulness to Him. And I mean that sincerely. Now, when we look at each other, do we sincerely feel that way? Let's feel that way. Let's be thankful for each other that God has blessed us with the ability to have these relationships with each other. The next thing I want to point out is that Paul is very specific in who he is praying to and why he is praying to Him. This is the beginning of verse 17, "that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory...." So he's specific. Paul's not just talking to air. He's not just throwing out prayers to someone in general. He is praying to the God of our Lord Jesus Christ. He's specific. And then he throws it in and follows up with the Father of glory. Is this just some fancy phrasing that really religious people like to do so they sound nice when they pray in the letters read out loud to the church? No. What Paul is doing here is he's clarifying why He's praying and trusts this God that he's praying to. He's not just any God. He's not just any person. He's the Father of glory. I was reading a commentary on this text and it was written by a guy named Francis Foulkes, who he didn't write many commentaries, but he did on Ephesians. But most of his works were about prayer. Most of the things he wrote was like how to pray. Why do we pray? What does it look like to pray? Things like that. And I thought that he would be a very helpful person to study in these texts. And this is what he says about Paul's address of God. He says, "He is the Father to whom all glory belongs; for all the power and majesty revealed in creation, providence and redemption are His, and He the source. Such a thought of who God is gives to prayer a sense of awe and strengthens the faith in those who pray." Christians, we should strengthen our faith when we pray. It actually matters how we address God when we pray. It doesn't mean that we have to say, "The Father of glory," that's not the point. For me personally, when I prayed, I said, "Heavenly Father," that's what I usually say. You don't have to say that either. But I say that, because I'm reminding myself, yeah, I'm praying to God who is in heaven. He is above all things. He rules. He reigns. That's who He is. But He's not just in heaven. He's a father. He's relational. He knows us. He cares for us. We can have relationship with Him. And so I start, when I pray that way because I'm reminding myself, I'm speaking to the God who has a relationship with me, and He has power to do things. He has power to hear me. I trust He will hear me. I trust that He can act on what I'm asking of Him. I trust and grow in my awe and faith of Him. And so this isn't to say that's how we all need to pray, but what we all need to do is go to God in awe and reverence. Go to Him and prepare our hearts when we pray to say, yeah, I am speaking to the one true all powerful God. That matters. That makes a difference. And so when we are in times of questioning, times of doubt, times of weakness still go to God in strength, not our own strength, but we can go to Him saying, "God, I know I'm weak, but you're strong. God, I'm weak, but I'm reminding myself of who you are. I'm reminding myself of how you've been faithful to me." And so that regardless of our season in life, we can pray in strength, because it's God's strength, not our own that we pray in. And then from this point on in our text, Paul is going to launch into specifics that he prays over the church. So he's writing this letter to remind them and encourage them. He is praying for them and he's going to tell them specifically what He's praying about. And as we continue through these texts, we're going to see what are those specific things, and we're going to stop and we're going to pray for those things for this church. Why? Because Paul thought it was important to pray over the church in Ephesus. And if God thought it was important enough to canonize in scripture, I think it's something good that we should pray for ourselves as well. Plus, I know that it is something good for us to pray for ourselves as well. But real quick before we continue with that, I want to point something out, and this is something that I learned only a couple years ago and was never explicitly taught to me. And I was like, "Wow, why was this never explicitly taught? This is really important." When anyone, myself or a pastor or someone else is up here preaching and praying, or if you're in a small group and one person is praying and you're just there listening, we're all praying. And what I mean by that is it's not a time to just sit and listen and think, "Okay, do I like what he's saying?" Or, "That sounds good or nice? I like that wording." That's not the point. But it's the time of Christians to be led by one person to pray to God together about the same things. That's why the word amen matters. If you don't know the word, amen means truly. You're saying that you agree with everything that was said and you're praying it. So we've all done this, I'm guilty of this as well, but if you've ever been in a prayer group and someone's praying and it's late and you're tired and your mind starts drifting and you don't really hear anything that they're saying, and then the end comes and everyone's like, "Amen," you're like, "Amen. Amen." You just lied and you're guilty of lying. So what I'm saying is that as we talk about these things, I'm asking that we as a church pray together for God to bless His church with these things. It's not about me standing up here praying these things. It's about us as the body of Christ praying together in unity and seeking God for His help. So with that, that's the end of point two, on to point three. Wow, we're flying through this. Point three, the church should pray for wisdom and revelation of God. This is verses 17 through the end. I'm just going to read the first part of it for us. But "that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened." We'll stop there for now. So Paul's first request to God in prayer for the church is for us, for that church, but applicable to us as well, to have a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. Everything else that we're going to talk about, all of the rest of the requests of Paul are summarized in this point. He gets more specific as to why it matters as he goes along, but this is the heart of it. What Paul really wants for the church is to have a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the knowledge of God. So what does that mean? What is the spirit of wisdom in the knowledge of God? Well, wisdom is knowledge applied, right? Wisdom is about how we act based on information that we have. So you can classify it as a spirit to know God's will. The ability to know what God wants for us, for His people, for His church, for us to do. And then what is the spirit of a revelation in the knowledge of him? This is a spirit to know God, to see God. Well, Paul, you're writing to Christians, don't they already know God? Why are you asking for a spirit of revelation in the knowledge of him? Because we all can know God deeper, better, and more personal. Again, Francis Foulkes in His commentary on this section says this, "Such wisdom and revelation, moreover, come, not simply as such higher intelligence is given from God, but by the knowledge of Him, the personal knowledge of God Himself, which in the Bible always connotes the experience of life in union and fellowship with Him. Paul put the prayer for wisdom first, because to him the gospel was so wonderful that it was impossible for people to see the glory of it unless they were taught by God, and also because he knew that the knowledge of God was life itself." So when put that way, does it make sense to pray for a spirit, to pray for more revelation of God so that we can have greater unity with Him in this life, that we can have greater fellowship with Him in life? Yes, of course, it does. Well, how does that happen? How do we receive the spirit of wisdom and the spirit of revelation and the knowledge of him? It's the next verse that says, "having the eyes of your hearts enlightened that you may know," right? It's not that God is suddenly going to be someone more of Himself than He was so you could recognize it. He's always there. He's always there. We need to recognize Him there. We need to see how He is working. See who He is. We need to have the eyes of our hearts enlightened. What does that phrase mean, eyes of our hearts? Our hearts don't have eyes, that just doesn't make sense. Well, the only way you think of your heart is as a beating organ, you're probably the first person in all of history. Because every single culture talks about the heart, not just as a beating organ, but also as more than that, as part of who you are about emotions and desires. But what Paul is saying with the eyes of your heart, it's saying, "Let all of who you are, the truest part of you, your soul, everything that you are, have that open, your eyes open to see who God is, to see who He is, and how He is working His will and His revelation in your life." And we need to have our eyes opened, because we can't do it ourselves, right? We all know this experientially that we can see things and not actually understand what they are, or we can hear things and not understand what you're supposed to take away from it. During first service, it came to me that there's a really good example of this in art for me. I can look at art, I could see there's painting and brushes and whatever, and I just don't get it. It's art. Cool, that's nice. But I understand that there is beauty in it and that some people do get it. And so I need to have the eyes of my heart enlightened. There's a painting or a picture in our office space that Raquel, God bless, who God has used powerfully in this church and has blessed her, but Raquel loves this painting and I look at it, I'm like, "I don't get it." It makes me angry that I don't... Anyway, but she gets it. So I just need to have the eyes of my heart enlightened to the truth of the beauty of that painting. But anyway, I bring that up to say we all know what it means to see something and not get it. And what Paul is praying for the church is that we're not that way with God, that we can see Him and we can get Him, and we can see the fullness of Him and grow in our relationship with Him. And we need God to do that for us. We see this idea also in Isaiah 6:9-10, it says, "'Keep on hearing but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed." It's a very difficult text, but what it's saying is that God is the one who has the power to open people's eyes. And so if we need our eyes open to the reality of God, let's go to Him. Let's ask him. Let's ask Him to reveal Himself to us. And if you're here today and you're not a Christian, this is what I urge you, ask God, open your eyes. Ask God to reveal himself to you, to show you to reveal His love, His grace, His mercy, and His power through the work of Christ for you. And he ends this part by saying, "that you may know..." And then he continues with what He's praying for. We need the eyes of our hearts opened and enlightened, not so that we could have an idea about what God is like, so that we can know Him, that we can know the hope that He gives us, that we can know what the inheritance is, that we can have confidence in Him. It's not a wishy-washy thing, but we could have confidence in Him. That's what God wants for us, and we need Him to open our eyes to it. So as the first thing that Paul is praying for the church, let's now spend some time praying for us, this body, this church here to receive wisdom, a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of God. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we need you. We need more of you, and we need to see you. Open the eyes of our hearts to wherever we are blind to you and who you are and the way you are working in our lives. Give us eyes to see you. Lord, wherever we are blind, wherever we are stubborn, where wherever we are hardhearted, soften us and open our eyes to know you more. Grow our relationship with you. Lord, we know you desire the deepest relationship with us. Give us hearts that desire the deepest relationship with you to know you personally, to love you personally. Bless this body of believers, your church here with the deepest growth in relationship and love for you. Thank you. In Jesus' name, amen. So now He's going to get into three subpoints for why we should have a spirit of wisdom and revelation of God. So the church should pray for wisdom and revelation of God, subpoint number one, to have hope. To have hope. And each of the subpoints is going to get a little bit more specific, but they're all relating back to this idea of hope. And they're going to be ways that Paul shows that we as the body, we as Christians, can have hope. So this is in verse 18 where it says, "having the eyes of your hearts enlightened that you may know what is the hope to which He has called you..." Have you ever thought about hope that way, as you're calling? Christians, you are called to have hope. We are not called to despair. We are not called to anxiety. We are called to hope. And not just any kind of hope, a living hope. Pastor Shane referenced this in his prayer as he started the service. But 1 Peter 1:3 says this, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." Christians, we are called to have hope because we have a living hope. Christ did not stay dead. This is what we celebrated last week at Easter, that Christ raised from the dead. He is alive. We have a living hope, and it is practical to us in day-to-day life. It's not just a hope that we can have one day in the future. It's a hope we can have now. And I want to pause here for a second and recognize that life's not always easy. It's not always easy to have hope. I recognize that there are many brothers and sisters in this church who have gone through struggles and difficulty and are in the middle of that even right now. I know people in this body that have suffered from illness, have been diagnosed with cancer or disease. I know people in this church that have suffered from mental illness or anxiety or eating disorders. I know people in this church who have this desire for God to answer their prayers, and they've been waiting and waiting for an answer. I know people who have lost their jobs and are wondering when they're going to be able to pay the bills. I know people who are looking for housing, and like, "Don't know where I'm going to live, but I'm going to do something, I guess. I don't know." I know people who are suffering and I know many of you are. And what I am saying is God is calling us to have hope, even in that. It's not a call to suck it up and get tough. That's not what I'm saying. It's a call to recognize that we are weak and that in those moments we need help, and that God is the one who can provide it. And that God is the one who can give us hope, even when we don't see the reasons for hope. Because we are called to it through the life of Christ. We can look at Christ. We could look at what He willingly suffered for us. We could look at the way He lived for us, died for us, rose for us, and say, "You know what? Regardless of my circumstances, I could look to Christ and have hope." And as I mentioned, we're going to see in the further points of Paul's prayer, more specifically, more powerfully the thrust of why we can have hope. But Paul starts generally, we are called to it. We are called to have hope. So with that, let's pray for this church to have hope. Heavenly Father, Lord, we need you. We live in a fallen, broken world where we see the effects of sin, and where we see the pain and suffering and bitterness that comes from our own sin and from the sin in the world around us, and just from the brokenness of creation apart from Christ. Give us eyes to see the hope in those situations that only you provide. Give us eyes to see that you are with us. You love us, you are there. You have endured and suffered for us. And you are our reason for hope. Our hope is not in the solving of all the problems. Our hope is in you alone. Give us hope. We thank you. We praise you. In Jesus' name. Subpoint number two, why the church should pray for wisdom and revelation of God is to recognize riches. This is the rest of verse 18. I'll just read the first part to remind us, "having the eyes of your heart enlightened," to what? "To what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints..." This made me pause and think, what is the inheritance that he is talking about here? The inheritance that Christians have is the kingdom of God. Yes, we can see it fully in eternity in heaven with eternal life with God in His presence, in His kingdom forever. That is the inheritance that Paul is talking about here. And he clarifies what he means, actually, earlier, he had already talked about, it in verses 11 through 14 of this chapter. He says this, "In him," in Christ, "we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the council of His will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of His glory. In him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit who was the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise and glory of God." We are not in heaven right now. We have not acquired possession of the kingdom of God, of this inheritance that we are given yet. But in verse 11, he says that we have obtained it. How have we obtained it if we haven't taken possession of it? Yes, we have the Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of it. But how have we obtained it? Three small words at the end of verse 18 of our text, "in the saints." In the saints, right? There's this idea with the kingdom of God, it's a idea that we talk about as an already and not yet. And the day that Jesus was raised from the dead, He already conquered sin and death. He did it, definitively, done. He already ushered in the kingdom of God here on earth. Done. But we don't see the fullness of it yet. We're waiting. We're looking forward to that day. But as we wait, what do we look for the hope and to recognize what that inheritance is? We look to each other. We look to His church, His people, the saints. Because when we look at the way the body of Christ, the church, is supposed to interact with each other, the way they love each other, support each other, pray for each other, build each other up, use their gifts for each other's good for the upbuilding of the church, we just get a little taste, get a little glimpse of what the kingdom of heaven is like. And I want to be clear. The word glimpse is my word. That's not what Paul uses. What does Paul say? Paul says, "What are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints." What Paul is saying, "Don't downplay the power that the body of believers have to be able to reveal the love of God, the kingdom of God to each other." I said glimpse because I recognize the ultimate, infinite glory of the kingdom of God in heaven whenever we get there. But Paul is saying, "The church here now is still rich and glorious. It's still able to fully reveal the kingdom of God to those who are in it and who see it." So Christians, does this describe us? Are we the riches of His glorious inheritance to each other? The way I think about it is what do we want most or long for most when we get to heaven? The right Sunday school answer, which is true and good, is that we desire the presence of God. That that's what we want when we get to heaven, is just to be in the presence of God. Good, praise God. We need that. Do we bring the presence of God with us where we go? Do we bring the characteristics, the love, the nature, who He is to each other when we interact with each other? Or are we more of our own sinful self than Christ? But if we're honest with ourselves, maybe it's a little bit more specific than just the presence of God. Maybe it's the peace of God that we're longing for in heaven. Now, there's so much uncertainty in the world around us, so much going on that we don't have peace. We're not settled here. We just can't wait for the day that we have peace in heaven. Well, if that's the case, are we bringing peace wherever we go? And when you need peace and you're struggling to see that, do you look to the other believers, the brothers and sisters in the church, who you see, you've been walking with, you know are faithful, and say, "You know what? I need peace. I don't have it. Can you help me? Can you encourage me? Can you strengthen me?" Can we be the church for each other? Maybe it's hope. Maybe you're like, "There's so much that I have going on that's suffering, that's hard, it's difficult. I can't even imagine how to have hope for the next season. And in heaven one day we won't have to worry about any of that, so I'm belonging for that." Well, do we bring hope to each other? If what you need is hope, do you have the ability to share hope with other people? And if not, do you have the humility to ask for help? Do you have the humility to go to members of your community group, to go to brothers and sisters in Christ, and say, "I'm struggling. I need hope. Can you help me?" And are we willing to help when that happens? What Paul is saying is that we need to have the eyes of our hearts open to see how great it is to be the church. It is a blessing. It is an honor, and that we can reveal all of who God is through the church. And we need to be that for each other. So with that, let's pray that we could have the eyes of our hearts opened to see the riches of God's inheritance here and now through His church, and that we can be that for each other. Heavenly Father, we need you. This is what this all comes down to, Lord, is that we need you. Open the eyes of our hearts to see how you are working in our brothers and sisters here in this church. Strengthen us, convict us on how we are called to live to exemplify the fullness of the inheritance of your kingdom in heaven while we are here on earth. Let us to live joyfully and fully in that reality that we are in your kingdom even now. Give us that hope. Give us that boldness to live that way, to be your church here and now. Open our eyes to see that, to rejoice in the riches, the fullness of it, to not look at it as something light and not view it as merely a glimpse. And then just hope for that day when we get to be with you, even though we do. Help us to see the blessing, the richness of the blessing that is your church, even here at Mosaic. We thank you. We praise you. In Jesus' name. And the last subpoint that we have is that the church should pray for wisdom and revelation of God to perceive power. This is verses 19 through the rest of the chapter. I'll read just verse 19 first. It says, verse 18, "having the eyes of your heart enlightened," why? Verse 19, "to what is the immeasurable greatness of His power towards us who believe according to the working of His great might..." I love this verse. I love this verse. Paul is using as much human language as possible in this text to try and give us a sense of God's power, even though he knows no human words can ever describe the power of God. But he uses these phrases, immeasurable greatness, power, working great might in this verse to try and stoke in us an understanding of how great the power of God is. The word for immeasurable is huperballo, which is where we get the word hyperbolic from. And what it's saying is use all the hyperbolic language you want. Think as lofty and as high as you could think of anyone, any type of power, and it's not even accurate enough to describe God's power. That's not how, it's not even close to how great He is. It's immeasurable His power. But it's His greatness as well. And the word for greatness is exceeding a standard of excellence. So God is a standard of excellence, so much greater than we could ever imagine. That is who He is. That is His nature, His character. He is more excellent than we could ever measure or imagine. Then he uses the word power to describe God's working. And this word is what I characterize as gym strength, or you could think of it as potential energy. For those of you who are smarter than me and like science, it's potential energy. It's that God has the power, the ability to do, He has the ability to get things done. That's gym strength through me, right? You're not physically doing the thing, but you're preparing to be able to do whatever you need to do. You're lifting weights so that way you're prepared to do something with it whenever you need to. I'm not trying to dis gym strength. I need more gym strength myself. Pray for me for that. It's a good thing, but it's about being prepared to do something. Church, do we recognize the immeasurable excellence of God's ability to work to who? It says, "towards us who believe." God wants to work for His church, He wants to use His power to benefit Christians, to use His church to usher in the kingdom here. So when we look at the immeasurable, ultimate excellence of God's power, do we ask Him for help in times of need and recognize that He has the power to do it and that He wants to do it? And that that's the reason why He is using this power is for the benefit of those who believe in Him. But He doesn't just want to do it, He does it, that's the word working. This is kinetic energy. This is, it's happening. It's active. I call this manual labor strength. The strongest people I've ever known in my life never went to the gym. My friend Ty Harris, praise God for him. Love him. You look at him, you wouldn't think He's strong. He loves musicals. He loves singing and dancing. Great guy. I love him. He had to help someone move and lifted a pool table by himself. Now, for those of you who don't know, pool tables are solid stone. They weigh almost a ton. No, not quite a... They weigh a lot. I'm not using ton literally. They weigh a lot. It usually takes four or five people to install them. And if you have to move them up or downstairs, you usually you need to use machinery. He's just like, "Okay, go lift it up, and help people move." He has working strength. Never once in the gym, working strength. My friend Rich, his father, also Rich, Stovakin, had all of the brute ruggedness of German and Russian heritage combined. So think of the toughest German and the toughest Russian, put them together, that's him. He's like 6'7. And Rich and I would work out in his basement in high school, and we were like there curling our 20 pounds, feeling good about ourselves. And then he comes in, and is like, "what are you guys doing?" "Oh, we're lifting. Well, how much can you do?" And He's like, "I don't work out, but I'll do whatever I need to." And he starts curling a 100 pounds just for reps, just like, "I'm good." What he did for a living, he lifted bales of paper and just moved it and did it. And He was faithful in his job and he just worked for his job. God has working power. He doesn't just sit and say, "I have the ability to, I could do it if you want me to. We'll see if I do." No, He works. He does. He uses His power to help His church, His people bring His kingdom here. And the last one in the sentence is great might. The word for great is just focusing on the intensity, the magnitude of the might, of God's might. But the word for might is focusing on the ability to execute something. So God doesn't just have power to work, and then He keeps working and working and working. If you've done home projects yourself, you probably know what this is like. It takes a lot longer than you thought. And you just feel like I'm just working and working and it's never going to end. No, God executes. He completes. He does what He sets out to do. He finishes it. He finishes the work He promises to do it. He has promised to save His people. He has given us that assurance. He has promised to protect His church. He has given us that assurance. So we can trust that He will do and complete what He says. And Paul says, "You know what? Maybe you still don't understand the power of God." So He goes on to try and even more hyperbolically, explain the power of God. And we're just going to fly through verses 20 through 23. I'm just going to read the snippets of it real quick. But the next thing he says is that... Well, sorry, this is the most important thing in verse 20, "that He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at the right hand in the heavenly places..." When we look at Easter, when we look at the power that God used to raise Christ from the dead, that's the power He uses for His church. When we're talking about working power, when we're talking about Him completing and His ability, He shows us that He does it. He doesn't just tell you He's going to do it and hope that... He proves it through the resurrection of Christ. And now He's going to point out all the power of Christ to again stoke in us a desire and understanding of the ultimate supreme power of God, because Christ is seated at the right hand of the throne in heaven. The right hand is the hand of power. Whoever sits at the right hand of the king has all the power, all the authority of the king himself. So what it's saying is that Jesus Christ has the full power, full authority of our heavenly Father. Is that not enough power? Well, it's far above all rule and authority and power and dominion. I think we, like I do often, clump these together and just run through them and it's like it's a bunch of things that are powerful. God's more powerful than that. But Paul is calling out specific things here, and he clarifies what He means by them in Ephesians 6:12. He says, "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers, over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." So rule and authority are specific positions that are being addressed, there are rules of people who rule and have authority, but then power and dominion is the force, is the power behind them. But Paul's saying, "We're not talking about flesh and blood here. We're not talking about physical earthly kings and rulers and authorities. What we can summarize all of this by is the kingdom of Satan," is what Paul is addressing here. Whether it's those who are working for the kingdom of Satan and the force behind them, whether it's demons or Satan himself. The sin and brokenness we see in this world, you compile all of that power together, and it's nothing compared to Jesus Christ. I think we often fall into thinking Satan is just the equal opposite of Christ, and that is so far from the truth. He is nothing compared to Christ. Jesus Himself alone is even more powerful than all of the kingdom of Satan could throw at Him, so much so, He's so far above and beyond that. In terms of power looking at it, He can barely even see the power of Satan, because He has none in comparison to Christ. Not only that, that not enough power for us, Jesus has the name that is above every name. The name of Satan has no power. He's not Lord Voldemort, or he who shall not be named. No, his name has no power. The name of Christ does have power. We see that in the New Testament, that the name of Christ has power to cast out demons. It has real, tangible power for those who believe. This is all in the context of those who believe. Don't want to say like you could just throw out Jesus' name and everything's going to go your way. That's not what it's about. It's about for those who believe and for the will of God. We see in the New Testament that the disciples see these people running around casting demons out in the name of Christ. And they go to Jesus and they're like, "Should we tell them to stop?" And He's like, "No, no, they're fine." Why? Well, because apparently, even though they weren't known, they had some sort of faith or trust or relationship with Christ. But then there's a time when we see people who don't have a relationship with Christ try and cast out demons in the name of Christ, and the demon says, "I do not know you," and attacks them. So study the book of Acts. It's a fun one. There's a lot that happens. But the point of all this is being is the name is not just the name you throw out and it's just like, "Okay, whatever I want is going to happen." It's that it has power for the church. It's powerful for God's people to work the will of God. To help, to protect, to bring hope, to perceive power, to understand our role in the church. The name of Christ has power unlike any other name. All things are under His feet, not just the kingdom of Satan, but everything you could think of in all of creation. Compile all the power, all the greatness, all the honor of anything in all of creation that you can think of, and it's barely even a footstool for him. Culturally, at the time when this was written, if they heard the word feet, the initial response would've been, "That's disgusting. Feet are gross." It's very similar to today. Not much has changed. I think of when my wife and I were dating, and if my feet went anywhere near, she would slap me, and jump and run away. And it's like, my feet are gross. I get it. Feet are gross. But back then, they were walking in sandals, barefoot. The dust of the road, the filth and grime that are on the streets that they're walking are just covering their feet. And that's why washing of feet was such a big deal when someone like Jesus did it for others. But what it's saying is if there was a less honorable part of Christ, which there's not, all of Christ is fully honorable, fully glorious, fully beautiful, all of the greatness of the things of this world, they barely are even able to get to His feet. They're barely even worthy of that. That's how great is the honor and power of Christ. And He's not just powerful sitting there on His throne. He is head over all things. He leads. He guides. He is in control. He is sovereign. He is working and leading and guiding His people. We can trust in His power because it's not just there and doing whatever He wants, but He is leading, guiding us in His will. And then verse 22 and 23, 23 is my actual favorite verse of this text. It says, "And He put all things under His feet and gave Him," Christ, "as head over all things to the church, the church is His body, the church, which is the fullness of Him who fills all in all." Church, do we recognize that we are called to be the fullness of Christ. Like I said, not just a glimpse. We are called to be the fullness of Him, to bring all of His power, all of His working, all of His love, His characteristics to the world. Why? Because it's not about us. He is the one who fills. We are dependent on Him. Again, going back, bringing it full circle. We are dependent on the relationship we have with Him, our love and trust for Him, to trust Him, to fill us, to open our eyes to what we need to see, to help us see where we are weak and need to be strengthened, to let Him fill us, so that the way we live can fully exemplify Him to all who see Him. Are we the fullness of God to each other? Are we the fullness of God to those who see us? We need to have the eyes of our hearts opened to see our need for His power, but also to see how His power can help us be the church today. So we'll close with prayer for that. We'll close with prayer, for us to have the eyes of our hearts open to the power of God, that fulfills us and enables us to be His church. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, you are powerful. You are mighty. You are working. And you desire to do good for your church. Open the eyes of our hearts to see the greatness of the ways you are working in our lives. Lord, individually where we need to see you, open our eyes to see how you are working in our lives. Lord, corporately, with this body, your church, here, open our eyes to see how you are working powerfully for your kingdom here and now. Lord, open our eyes to see that we are called to exemplify fully you to those who see us. Fill us with your power. Fill us with your strength, not for ourselves, not for our own good, but so that we can truly be your church. We can be your people. We can bring your kingdom here and now. And that those who see it turn to you and love you. Fill us with your spirit. Fill us with your hope. Fill us with your power. We praise you, and thank you. In Jesus' name, amen.

Ty Harris And Matt Wielbut On Raising $200 Million To Save Homeowners $100 Billion A Year

DealMakers

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 8, 2023 34:24

Ty Harris and Matt Wielbut came together around a shared problem to launch their own insurtech startup that has already raised $200M. The venture, Openly, has attracted funding from top-tier investors like MTech Capital, Gradient Ventures, Obvious Ventures, and Clocktower Technology Ventures.

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The Mary Christmas Draft w/ Ty Harris

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Play Episode Listen Later Dec 6, 2022 140:27

Tis the season to be Mary. Ty Harris of Tytan Comics joins us to draft the best Marys of all time. That's all the People, Things, and Fictional Characters named Mary! Mary Christmas! Follow Ty on Instagram: Here (https://www.instagram.com/tytancomics/) www.jabroniu.com

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Ep 188 – Openly Co-Founder & CEO, Ty Harris

FNO: InsureTech

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 19, 2022 37:21

Lee talks with Ty Harris, Co-Founder & CEO of Openly on the lastest episode of FNO: InsureTech. Openly is reshaping insurance with transparency, simplicity, and trust. Using cutting-edge data and technology, Openly provides customizable, competitive prices to protect the insured's most valuable assets. Join Ty and Lee as they discuss the origins of Openly, the importance of insurance agents, company culture, Ty's experience and growth; and more. Learn more about Openly at https://openly.com. Like what you hear on FNO: InsureTech? Know someone who would be a great guest for the podcast? Let us know: Email our Technical Producer at amuya@alacritysolutions.com.

Ep. 281: Ty Harris: A Streamlined, Digital Approach for Home Insurance

Spot On Insurance

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 9, 2022 37:44

Apple Podcasts Rate and Review for Spot On Insurance Ty Harris is the CEO & Co-Founder of Openly, an insurance company that provides premium homeowners insurance products. They have a unique, cutting-edge platform for independent agents that allows them to obtain a quote in just 15 seconds. Before starting Openly, Ty was part of Liberty Mutual Insurance for over 12 years, with eight years as Vice President of various departments. At Liberty, he led multiple pricing, product, innovation, and underwriting programs. He is also a fully-credentialed actuary. Ty joins us to describe how Openly distinguishes itself from competitors and how its system can produce quotes in 15 seconds. He shares his thoughts on flights, his passion for debates, and why he founded Openly. He explains the difficulties of finding your first investor and how it gets more accessible. He discusses how COVID-19 has shifted various industries to adopt hybrid working conditions and its effects on commercial spaces. Ty also explains why they built their platform for agents even though both consumers and agents can use it. "I want to minimize the number of times a human being has to go out and see a claim and disturb the customer as part of it." - Ty Harris Today on Spot On Insurance: Ty's thoughts on the current price of flights Ty's passion for debates and how he raises his kids When Ty gravitated toward being an entrepreneur The reason Ty started Openly Ty's career before he founded Openly What was lacking in the homeowner's market? Openly's remote-first approach to work How they managed their funding when they were starting the company How commercial spaces are being turned into residential units The future of dog insurance and claims The agent experience on the Openly platform Why they are agent-centric as a company Key Takeaways: If you're not careful, you can end up with coverage that doesn't cover certain exposures. Finding the first investor is always the hardest in starting a company. Connect with Ty Harris: Openly Ty Harris on LinkedIn This episode was brought to you by….. Insurance Licensing Services of America (ILSA), America's Premier Insurance Compliance and Licensing experts. To learn more about ILSA and their services, visit ILSAinc.com. Connect, Learn, Share Thank you for joining us on this week's episode of Spot On Insurance. For more resources and episodes, visit SpotOnInsurance.com. Subscribe so you never miss an episode. Love what you're learning, Spot Light your review on Apple Podcasts Rate and Review For SpotOn and share your favorite episodes with friends and colleagues!

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Shine 180: Ty

Shine.FM Podcasts

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 11, 2022 18:51

Shine 180…stories of lives transformed by God because of your faithfulness. We are all on a journey. We are all at different points on our journey….and that's OK. The purpose of our journey is simple, but sometimes difficult…keep moving forward becoming more like Jesus. Ty Harris served our country for over 10 years in the Air Force and overcame life-threatening situations that brought him to Jesus. He has now given his life & career to pour into the young generation as a guidance counselor, encouraging them in the way they should go. He is a walking testimony of God's grace & goodness. He loves Christian music and has it playing on his phone constantly and it changes the atmosphere of the room wherever he goes … listen to his story to be encouraged. This is Shine 180: Ty's story.

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Too many point guards? No such thing, Dallas Wings president Greg Bibb says

Play Episode Listen Later May 5, 2022 26:46

Host Howard Megdal had a chance to speak to Dallas Wings president Greg Bibb on Thursday following Dallas setting its final roster. Bibb weighs in on the relative roles of guards Veronica Burton, Moriah Jefferson, Ty Harris and Marina Mabrey, explains how he expects Charli Collier will fit with Teaira McCowan, and details the plans to handle playing time as players like McCowan and Satou Sabally finish their overseas seasons. Plus: you won't want to miss his goals for the team in 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Too many point guards? No such thing, Dallas Wings president Greg Bibb says

The Insurance Coffee House

Play Episode Listen Later May 5, 2022 28:31

Host Howard Megdal had a chance to speak to Dallas Wings president Greg Bibb on Thursday following Dallas setting its final roster. Bibb weighs in on the relative roles of guards Veronica Burton, Moriah Jefferson, Ty Harris and Marina Mabrey, explains how he expects Charli Collier will fit with Teaira McCowan, and details the plans to handle playing time as players like McCowan and Satou Sabally finish their overseas seasons. Plus: you won't want to miss his goals for the team in 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

point guards dallas wings bibb mccowan marina mabrey ty harris moriah jefferson teaira mccowan

Balancing the scale – with Ty Harris, CEO & Co-Founder & Marcella Butler, Chief People Officer, Openly

Play Episode Listen Later May 3, 2022 28:54

“You can't let one part of the business get too far ahead of others”, says Ty as he shares his journey to co-founding Openly after a 12 year spell with Liberty Mutual. A full-stack home insurance company - founded in 2017 and launched in 2019 – Openly sells through independent agents in 17 US States. Outlining the benefits to customers and agents, Openly offers better coverage, more accurate pricing and is drastically faster and easier to use. When it comes to home insurance, Ty maintains, “A lot of people, their data is stale. On average people are 10-20% under-insured.” With a current headcount of 170, the business is looking to add 100 people over the next 12 months. “We wait for the great”, says Marcella, who emphasises the higher cost a poor hire can have against waiting for the right cultural fit. Maintaining culture is a key part of scaling. “It starts from the top”, explains Marcella. “Culture is going to happen, you need to be intentional about it.” Ty and Marcella discuss remote-working, the value of an insurance career to an insurtech and the advice they would give to founders and leaders looking to scale. “Make sure you are balanced as insurance and tech. You need both types of expertise. And build with long-term relationships in mind”, concludes Ty. Connect with https://www.linkedin.com/in/ty-harris-73a40816/ (Ty Harris) or https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcella-butler/ (Marcella Butler) on LinkedIn or find out more about https://openly.com/ (Openly). The Insurance Coffee House Podcast is hosted by Nick Hoadley, CEO, https://my.captivate.fm/www.insurance-search.com (Insurance Search), the Executive Search Consultancy for growing Insurance and Insurtech businesses across the globe. To discuss identifying & attracting the very best talent to your team or being a podcast guest, reach out to Nick via nick.hoadley@insurance-search.com or connect on https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-hoadley-78a498143/ (LinkedIn) Copyright https://insurance-search.com/ (Insurance) https://insurance-search.com/ (Search) 2022 – All Rights Reserved.

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Veronica Burton and the Dallas Wings' 2022 WNBA Draft with Arie Graham

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 18, 2022 23:55

The Dallas Wings selected Veronica Burton of Northwestern with the seventh pick, a two-way point guard. But wait: don't the Wings already have Moriah Jefferson, Marina Mabrey and Ty Harris? What gives? Don't worry, The Next Dallas Wings beat reporter Arie Graham is here to fill you in and explain it all. Plus, Graham talks other picks Jasmine Dickey and Jazz Bond with host Howard Megdal, along with extended conversation about how Charli Collier and Teaira McCowan fit together and much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Veronica Burton and the Dallas Wings' 2022 WNBA Draft with Arie Graham

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Play Episode Listen Later Apr 18, 2022 25:40

The Dallas Wings selected Veronica Burton of Northwestern with the seventh pick, a two-way point guard. But wait: don't the Wings already have Moriah Jefferson, Marina Mabrey and Ty Harris? What gives? Don't worry, The Next Dallas Wings beat reporter Arie Graham is here to fill you in and explain it all. Plus, Graham talks other picks Jasmine Dickey and Jazz Bond with host Howard Megdal, along with extended conversation about how Charli Collier and Teaira McCowan fit together and much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

wings burton northwestern arie wnba draft dallas wings howard megdal ty harris marina mabrey moriah jefferson teaira mccowan

"Dad, I Hope I Can Be Half the Dad You've Been to Me" | ep. 05/50 with Ty Harris

That's My Dad Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 28, 2022 27:08

Ty Harris has done it all - raised Tigers, Bears, & Rattlesnakes, founded a cabinet business, launched a ministry on the Amazon River, among other things. But more than all of that, Ty leads his family in a special way. He's a father to 2 girls and, in ep. 05/50, he shares about his upbringing, why his dad is his "hero," and what he's learned in his fatherhood journey. enjoy!

414: Sagewell Financial with Sam Zimmerman

Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 10, 2022 39:22

Sam Zimmerman is CEO and Co-founder of Sagewell Financial. Sagewell is building a banking platform for the needs of folks who are trying to retire and live off their savings and income as intelligently and as well as possible. Chad talks with Sam about deciding what their first product should be and what they would be bringing to market, finding the right partners, and minimizing risk to make a business and a product that works. Sagewell Financial (https://www.sagewellfinancial.com/) Follow Sam on Twitter (https://twitter.com/Ferrum_of_omega) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-zimmerman-35152a22/). Follow thoughtbot on Twitter (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of Giant Robots! Transcript: CHAD: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Chad Pytel. And with me today is Sam Zimmerman, CEO and Co-founder of Sagewell Financial. Sam, thanks for joining me. SAM: Thanks so much for having me, Chad. CHAD: I've been following along with Sagewell Financial for a little while now, given our cross-histories and the fact that we worked with a few companies that you've worked at in the past. So I'm aware of what Sagewell Financial is, but I'm not sure that all of our audience is. So I think a good place to start would be by giving folks a little bit of an intro into what Sagewell Financial is, and then we'll touch on the founding story and go from there. SAM: Awesome. So, in a sentence, Sagewell is building the digital banking that our parents deserve. To expand on that even more, America's retirees are a really interesting and important and powerful demo in American culture at large. There are 56 million Americans on a fixed income. And last year in venture capital, nearly $100 billion went to fund financial technology companies rewriting all of finance. And of that 100 billion or a little under, less than a fraction of a percent went to America's seniors. And so we are trying to build banking from the ground up for the needs of folks who are living on a fixed income who are in their golden years and aren't thinking about that new job or making new money. We're building a bank for folks who are trying to retire and live off their savings and their income as intelligently and as well as possible. And that looks really different than the bank that a millennial or a Gen Z user might have. CHAD: So that's really interesting. Right or wrong, what are the reasons that this historically hasn't been a target demographic for investment? SAM: So the prevailing assumption among venture capitalists was (We're changing that and hopefully changing that quite quickly.) was that retirees aren't open to changing. Beyond that, they're also not technically sophisticated. These folks don't know how to use a phone or aren't open to a bank that might not have any physical branch. They are set in their ways. They're not going to move branch, or they're barely going to watch a new TV show. A lot of folks who are trying to talk...imagining a grandma or a grandpa was really what the venture capitalists are drawing on often when they're thinking about why a senior wouldn't expect to have a bank with all the new features that the millennial might. CHAD: Well, that one is certainly changing, especially as the venture capitalists get older themselves. They probably realize that that's an outdated notion in terms of the technical aptitude or familiarity of that audience, right? SAM: Exactly. And it's a fascinating moment. There are 10,000 boomers who turn 65 each day in America, about 4 million folks each year. And those folks were about 40 whenever the.com boom passed. They've been using email. They have XE and PayPal. And importantly, why we're building this company now is that COVID changed seniors' digital lives more than anyone else. ARP reports how 70% of all American retirees know how to use Zoom and video conferencing software nowadays. Across the stack of digital goods and services, seniors were actually the group that was most moved online. And so, from where we sit as entrepreneurs, we saw a massive market, an exogenous effect creating a disproportionate opportunity. And so we began designing and iterating on and understanding our user to build a product that met those needs with this massive and growing market. CHAD: Banking is a highly regulated complex space. And I imagine from day one you're looking at that and saying, "Well, we might want to do everything eventually, but doing everything is going to be difficult." So what was the process you and your co-founder and the team around you used to decide what the first product should be and what you were going to bring to market? SAM: Our founding team spent almost nine months in user interviews and user research across what one director of finance at Capital One called geriatric finance. We talked to hundreds of folks, and a lot of our assumptions about what the simplest or most low-trust or quickest to use service might be were actually totally turned on their head in a really interesting way. Another reason why venture capitalists aren't so confident you can reach this demo is a couple of companies have come before us, and a lot of them followed, in financial technology, a Mint-like model where you log in, and you share your various bank credentials. They pull your credit card transactions and bank transactions. And one of the really surprising things in our hours of user interviews was that that model was really unpalatable to this demo. They actually thought it was a lot higher trust to share bank credentials than it was to actually open an account. And so we began thinking, what's the highest engagement, most common accessible feature that our demo is familiar with? And that's already broadly online. And let's start there. And the original insight came with a woman she was from Pennsylvania, and we were talking. We built this kind of mint.com-type prototype to try to help imagine banking for her needs without this high trust checking account. And she was like, "Oh." She was aghast that we were even considering asking for her bank credentials. We heard that, and then we said, "All right, no worries, no need to do this product demo." And then she was like, "But I really love Chime, and I really love Chime's checking account." And we were like, "Wait, you have a digital bank account?" And she's like, "Yeah, I love Chime." And it was this moment where thinking about our user, what trust meant to them, what was familiar to them, and what being online meant to them opened the floodgates and helped us really understand this user and what that first product needed to be. And so our initial product is a checking account. It's got a variety of senior-specific features around and enabling it. And it's built incredibly excessively to be available to folks who use technology in all sorts of ways. But we started with the basics because that's what our members are most familiar to and most expect. CHAD: So you say in the fine print on the website that Sagewell is a financial technology company and not a bank, and your banking services are provided by a partner. What was involved in actually bringing that online, finding the right partner, implementing the features? What did that look like? SAM: Yeah, it is an incredible time to be building any sort of banking in America around the world. So to that point earlier, $100 billion was pumped into financial technology companies. And so as a result, there are so many companies and so much innovation happening in banking and fintech broadly. And so starting and figuring out what vendor to work with was actually what our strategy from a banking and regulatory perspective was. And in turn, what vendors and in-house technology we needed to build was one of the hardest initial challenges that I've ever had to face in building a company. It is still, despite what many...you'll see a lot of ads, you know, "Have a card online in minutes." It is still in today's day and age quite an achievement to build banking and get it online, and servicing your customers in a scalable and sustainable way. And so we spent a lot of time early on in the architecture and vendor selection process and product strategy process thinking about what vendors to go with; what we were going to build in-house. And before ultimately breaking ground about three months after we began, we set the product itself, which was going to be a checking account for retirees. CHAD: What were the factors that went into choosing the partner that you ultimately chose? SAM: Beyond your standard enterprise vendor selection, we wanted to make sure that it was secure, and we wanted a specific set of features. In our space, there are about six different companies that provide what's called Banking as a Service technology. And so that was one of our key vendors is the technology company that works with the bank to allow us to open checking accounts, fund accounts. And most of those companies have been around for only a few years. And so their products themselves are hardening and being built. And about $200 million I would say has been invested in those companies last year. And so we wanted one that was well-capitalized. We wanted one that had not had any IT security issues. We wanted the underlying bank to be aligned in our mission. Retirees have a variety of specific financial needs. A lot of our product development involves working very closely with the bank. And so, we needed to make sure that the bank itself that they worked with was on board. And lastly, we talked to other customers, and that was ultimately the most valuable thing in our experience and not just the customers that they refer you to but the customers who have left for one reason or another. Those were the major factors that we chose in our Banking as a Service provider. And then, beyond that, that's one piece of the puzzle. In our bank tech stack, we're looking at around 15 different partners across all parts of banking. And that's the largest and most important one. And those were the criteria we used to select. CHAD: I often say when I'm looking at building a product or service, and we look at those integration points with external vendors, it is one of the riskiest parts of building a product because you're not in control of it. So from a business perspective, it's risky. But also, from a technology perspective, that's where estimates can get out of whack. And things can work not like you're expecting or like the documentation said or just surprises crop up along the way. Or when something goes down, your product is broken. And your entire product [laughs] basically is built on those vendor relationships. So, how do you minimize that risk and work in that environment to make a business that works and a product that works? SAM: [chuckles] I suppose the answer is with a lot of prudence, thoughtfulness, and care at a high level. CHAD: [laughs] SAM: I was actually just talking with a CTO friend of mine just talking about how in a lot of startups, one of the skills that I most ask of engineers and engineering leaders early on is vendor selection and how I hadn't seen an interview process that really helped get at that. It's a core part of a lot of technologists' jobs and particularly a lot of engineering folks' jobs. The API docs looked good but did he test it or evaluate it? Was there a third-party tool you could have used instead of building in-house? Those are the sort of questions that a lot of times early-stage startups are answering all the time. And I had yet to see an interview that got at that. So it's a really shrewd point and one that I hope that as technologists and particularly early-stage startups become more about really going deep in one area and then leveraging third parties elsewhere, I hope that we start actually hiring and developing criteria to do that with the people that we assemble. I think the first part what I would say is we described a little bit about the risks. We went through a risk mitigation exercise, which smells very enterprise-y. It's kind of the sort of thing that you would expect exists in some massive waterfall with a Jira board mainframe computer but just listing like, here's this integration. If this were to happen, what would we do? If the API went down, what control do we have, or how could we minimize the impact on our customers? That exercise across some of our biggest integrations helped us select and take on the risks we wanted and avoid the ones we couldn't. So there was a lot of conversation about the sorts of failures we could put up with and how we could put up with them, and the sorts of failures we couldn't. And then really testing for the ones we couldn't to make sure that we were making as good a choice as possible. Despite that thoughtful answer, it was the best we could do. I would say that, particularly in a space that's as fast-moving as Banking as a Service, I would say that a lot of it is still that soft skill, that relational conversations with other teams and folks and whether you trust the team that you're trusting to execute and build what they said they're going to build and that hiring skill but also a good bit of luck as well. CHAD: So correct me if I'm wrong, but up until Sagewell, where you're CEO, you had been CTO of the other companies that you founded and worked at. Is that right? SAM: Yeah, that's correct. CHAD: So, what has the change to being CEO instead of CTO been like for you personally? And was that choice clear from the beginning with Sagewell? SAM: So far, it's been incredibly rewarding. I would say in between startups; I actually volunteered at an organization called PathCheck. And while my title was CTO, the scope of that included partnerships, vendor negotiations, CISO exercises, product. It was a pretty expansive CTO role. And I found myself really energized by the breadth and the ability to work with even more really talented, thoughtful experts in their own domain and empower them to do more. And so I knew in my next role, I wanted more of that breadth. There's an essay that classifies folks as foxes who can do a little bit of everything or hedgehogs who can do one thing really well. And I'm a super fox. [laughter] I love doing lots of things. And so CEO to me is just like an opportunity to...it's maximizing breadth and maximizing difference of experience. And I transitioned, I'd say, from a normal CTO role to a beefy CTO role to making CEO a pretty natural step from there. CHAD: And your co-founder is named Jeff Wright, and he's the COO. How did you meet him and get started with Sagewell? SAM: Jeff and I, it's been wonderful. I was trying to figure out how I was going to get engaged in pandemic work in April of 2020 after leaving my last startup while it was being sold to Capital One. And I was talking with a founder friend of mine, a guy named Ty Harris, who is the CEO of an Insurtech company called Openly. And he was previously the CTO at Liberty Mutual. And Ty and I had a couple of lunches and conversations, and I was talking to him about how it is getting involved in COVID stuff and how I was ultimately my species as an entrepreneur, and I was going to be building something again. And he connected me with Jeff, and Jeff and I touched base quickly in April. And it was a little bit like a frog in the pot sort of situation where it started like, yeah, maybe we could build a company. Let's riff on some ideas and see what's out there. And it was a really, really natural progression from August to a couple of evenings, maybe a Saturday call or two, to most evenings and definitely a Saturday to oh, man, when should we transition? CHAD: You were both working full time on other things at the time. You were working with PathCheck. SAM: Yep, exactly. And so he was the CPO at a company called Plymouth Rock, and I was working at PathCheck. And not to go into PathCheck's story too much, but PathCheck was largely deploying a research technology, the Google and Apple Exposure Notification protocol. And it became clear that most of the states that were going to do anything were already going to do it. And so, it was natural to start thinking about what was next in August and September. And so, as my species does, that then became the night and weekend project to figure out what's next. CHAD: So you mentioned that this is a space that is typically not strongly funded. So was that a challenge for you as you were getting started? How did you get that initial, you know, where did your initial funding come from? And I know you recently raised, at least it was announced, 5.3 million in January. So what was the transition from those early days? Where did the funding come from to ultimately getting the investment in this last round? SAM: Jeff and I worked in the fall of 2020, met our CTO, Chris Toomey, in November actually from connection through a friend. Early on, we were a team with a demo. We really knew that we cared about seniors, and our background is in financial services. We were trying to think of a new product for seniors and so a financial product for seniors. And so, around January, we sharpened our pencils on the user research side of things and the product side of things. And once we had a clearer sense of the product direction we wanted to take, ultimately building banking for retirees, we began the fundraising process. CHAD: So were you essentially self-funding at that point? SAM: Yep. So we were self-funding from January-ish till May. I find that skin in the game to be… I wish I was the sort of founder who could think about flawless ideas without a little pressure. But in my experience, it's actually been where unless I jump in, unless I can have a little bit of pressure, my ideas aren't often as refined as I'd like. And so Jeff joined it full-time in February. And then we fundraised through April, closing a 1 million pre-seed, which is pretty common in fintech. Most financial technology companies the banks won't talk to you until you have at least a million dollars in funding. And so we raised the money we needed from...and who did the money come from? It came from Point Judith Capital, who actually had invested in Ty, the guy who connected us, with his company Openly. So we had our initial conversation with David, who's been absolutely wonderful at Point Judith Capital. And also, Jeff and I knew that innovating for a vulnerable population, ultimately retirees, meant that we wanted to have folks from the beginning who represented the seniority and seriousness with which we are taking our work. And so the second investor who in between the two of them took most of that million was Crossbeam and Raj Date at Crossbeam, who's the former Deputy Director of the U.S. Consumer Protection Bureau. We really wanted folks around the table who knew what innovation looked like and fintech innovation like David, as well as folks who understood the world of government and finance like someone like Raj to innovate thoughtfully with this demo. CHAD: Was it difficult to get those funding rounds? SAM: The first one? Yeah, the first one was about two months. I thought it would have taken about a month. The second one the market is pretty crazy right now. And I would say between my first company and my second, it used to be that you'd set aside six months to fundraise, and so I'd prepared for a six-month fundraise. Started kind of in early October two weeks in, and they were like, "Wow, you've already been in the market for two weeks?" [laughter] And I was like, what? I was totally off base in terms of what was the new normal. Ultimately, that round came together in about a month and a half as well. And so we had a lot of interest. The second round that 5.3 million went from not a ton of interest to tons of interest and lots of folks around the table and having to push folks out or turn folks down pretty quickly. The first round, I would say for a pre-seed, one to two months given that the idea was hardening, sounds about right. The second one was about one to two months but was a little...a lot of people would get excited by the market; they'd get excited by the team. And then they'd say, "You can't get a senior to open up a bank account," and then they'd come back. And then we found one believer alongside David and Raj, who had been with us. And once we got the folks at 25Madison and Merrill, especially, the rest of the round came together really quickly. Mid-roll Ad I wanted to tell you all about something I've been working on quietly for the past year or so, and that's AgencyU. AgencyU is a membership-based program where I work one-on-one with a small group of agency founders and leaders toward their business goals. We do one-on-one coaching sessions and also monthly group meetings. We start with goal setting, advice, and problem-solving based on my experiences over the last 18 years of running thoughtbot. As we progress as a group, we all get to know each other more. And many of the AgencyU members are now working on client projects together and even referring work to each other. Whether you're struggling to grow an agency, taking it to the next level and having growing pains, or a solo founder who just needs someone to talk to, in my 18 years of leading and growing thoughtbot, I've seen and learned from a lot of different situations, and I'd be happy to work with you. Learn more and sign up today at thoughtbot.com/agencyu. That's A-G-E-N-C-Y, the letter U. CHAD: Given that you were able to put together a round quickly, how do you decide ultimately not to take even more money? What are the factors that go into deciding how much you're trying to fundraise and how big the round is going to be? And is there pressure as you're doing that to maybe go even bigger? SAM: Yeah, we had, I would say maybe seven and a half million dollars interested. And ever since we've closed, we've had multiple firms who are interested in a new round of capital. The market is really, really quite founder-friendly right now. I think ultimately, for any founder, what you're trying to do is create as much value with as little capital as possible. That's ultimately the game that you're trying to play now. For a little baby company, it's often really hard to figure out how much money or how much value you'll be able to create over what amount of time. There's so much to figure out. There are so many bets and learnings and risks that it's often very hard for a company to say, with $5 million, I'll create $20 million in value. So ultimately, if you're a founder, you're incented to give away as little of the company as possible and create as much value from that. And so when we were doing our modeling, we actually thought that it was somewhere closer to four of what we needed to create the amount of value needed to raise our A. And we ultimately bumped it up to 5.3. And there's a good bit of advice you hear a lot among founders that raising a bit more than you think is prudent, and anyone who has managed a budget knows how that can go. So we ultimately did go up to 5.3. But taking more would have meant that we were paying a premium where we could get that million dollars maybe in a year's time, and we'd be giving away a quarter-point or a half a point of the company for that million where we might be giving away 1% or 1.5% of the company now. So it's all about creating as much value with as little money as possible. And it's easy to get lost in the big rounds and the big numbers. But ultimately, it's pretty simple math. CHAD: And correct me if I'm wrong, and this is a question as much as a statement. So to reiterate, the rounds you're talking about are seed rounds. And so traditionally, what that means is that the majority of work that you have to do is just making the product. But in the space you're in, there is a point in time where you've made the product, and you've shown the traction, so what you have becomes more valuable. And so it might be that the next round, which is maybe a Series A, a significant portion of that capital would be spent on something else like marketing or sales teams and that kind of thing. And you're growing beyond just the product development at that point. Is that how you're thinking about this, or am I wrong? SAM: So it's funny that it's really changed the names. The round size what they mean has changed more in the last two years than ever before, and I would say that, particularly in fintech, because fintech has a number of unique challenges. So I would say that that $1 million round that we raised in May that was really about building a very basic product, a very truly minimally viable acceptable product. And then the seed round in fintechs is often about getting to product-market fit or just demonstrating you can reach your end consumer or target user. In fintech, it's often not quite as much tied to a certain amount of revenue at that stage. It's often about just demonstrating that you can get to that user, and that's because, in financial technology, the cost to acquire is often quite high. And so for a company that only has raised, say, a $5 million pre-seed because of the gravity, because it often costs hundreds sometimes thousands of dollars depending upon the market to acquire a specific user, the math is such that you're just not going to have that many users, and you're not going to be able to get to a certain amount revenue. And so often in fintechs, 1 million gets you...that pre-seed gets you that initial product. The seed is about demonstrating that you can scalably get to that end user. And then the series A is really about blowing that out and starting to exploit that marketing and acquisition machine that you've been building to start creating revenue. That's a little bit industry-specific. Other industries will have similar or different terms. And depending upon what sort of branding a firm might want for the round, you also might hear $100 million pre-seed. You hear those things as well. It's a crazy time to be building a company. CHAD: So you mentioned Chris Toomey, who's the CTO of Sagewell, and he was previously at thoughtbot. As a prior CTO, what were some of the things you looked at in terms of finding Chris and deciding he was the right one to join your team as CTO? I imagine your standards were pretty high. SAM: Yeah, and Chris met them quite happily. As a CTO transitioning to CEO, I think you have to understand your strengths and weaknesses as a CTO as well as the learning curve that you might have stepping into your new role as a CEO. And I would say that one of the fortunate things is that Jeff, my co-founder and COO, we actually have a pretty unique set of skills that can span a lot of different domains. And so I would say that looking at Jeff, Chris, and myself, we really had to make sure we had our bases covered to build the financial and technology product we needed. I would encourage folks building a company early on to really think about your strengths and weaknesses, your founding team's strengths and weaknesses. And as I was getting to know Chris, kind of the initial handshake agreement starting to build and prototype various solutions, I think that I was particularly impressed and looking for someone who was willing to have a deeply experimental and MVP mindset while managing the risks of working with a vulnerable population. And so over the course of December through March or April, in dealing with and spinning up a couple of different prototypes with radically different product strategies and end products, I was able to see how Chris was able to be mature and shrewd about where he could cut corners, where he couldn't cut corners and then execute accordingly. It's funny, Chris and I were talking at our one on one a week or two ago. As a CTO, I know a little more of what's possible. I know if I come in and say, "I want the Taj Mahal," I know you'll get walked back down. Chris and I over the past year...I often come to Chris, having already teared down my Taj Mahal. And I'm like, "Well, Chris, what I really need is one little specific problem." And Chris and I actually set a goal between us that I actually kind of come to him asking for the Taj Mahal next time [laughter] or not next time but sometime in the next year. Because I think one of the things I've had to check or do in CEO is let Chris do CTO's job and not internalize all the time his voice and concerns but actually put forth a vision and not be afraid about the fact that it isn't something that we can get to market in a week or that we can't ship in three or four weeks' time, which is an interesting contract that I think we've developed and an interesting growth area. And it's my job to throw out bigger ideas, not to be the one who tears them down all the time, which is fun, and I enjoy doing that with Chris. CHAD: Yeah, that's an interesting perspective. And I often even working with clients and consulting want that because if you're only getting the small pieces all the time, you cannot be privy to the big picture of what we're aiming for. And that will often lead you to maybe not taking everything into account, either that's on the roadmap or down the road. Or realizing, oh, you're disappointed now, but that's because I didn't know that you wanted to do this. If I had known, then we could have done this in a different way or something like that. And so, getting a sense of that big picture is often important. SAM: Yeah. And it's a fun, I'd say...yeah, and growing with Chris and figuring out that he's the right person for the role as a CTO turned CEO means kicking off the ladder and actually just stepping into my role and letting him do his, which has been a fun contract to establish. CHAD: So, did you work with Chris as a contractor before committing to him as CTO? SAM: Yeah, we were in a consulting relationship. I think Chris was politely under billing. And the pretext is always that this was something that we were really aiming to build a company together, assuming everything worked out across Chris, Jeff, and I. And so, he did start in that capacity. And then I'm trying to remember the exact timelines. Sometimes the paperwork is well after the actual agreement whenever you're creating these companies. But in a few months' time, definitely by July and probably by May, we were building the company and off to the races. CHAD: Now, is that a path that you would recommend to other founding teams looking for a CTO is to not commit early to really make sure that you work well with someone, maybe through a contracting relationship first? SAM: Yeah, I think ultimately, if you're going to be going on a journey, a decade long journey, a lifetime-long journey, through highs and lows, I think the best way for everyone to know what they're getting themselves into, the excitement, and the reward, and the aches, and the pains and the sleepy [inaudible 33:31] in the morning is by working together, and I don't think there's a shortcut. In this case, it depends a lot on the situation. It depends if folks are in a position where they cannot take pay. It depends on whether nights and weekends are free or they have flexibility in their other roles. But generally speaking, I think that ultimately, you're trusting, and your founding team is going to be taking so many risks together that you want to go in as eyes wide open as possible and have removed as much founding team risk, disagreements, misaligned working styles, misaligned visions, or preferences as possible. My coach used to say that that's the number one reason why companies at the seed stage fail is management teams and founding teams. And so as you're thinking about building your company, and I can't emphasize this enough, mitigating and removing founding team risk, however possible, with consulting being one of them and navigating a tough conversation or two being another, is absolutely core to removing as much risk as possible for your startup. CHAD: That's great advice. And just like you and Jeff had a time of working together before you actually started a company together, I think it's great advice to try to find ways to do that with other early members of the team too because it's a big commitment, and you want to make sure that you get it right. SAM: Exactly. CHAD: Well, you've reached sort of the pinnacle of having now someone on your team that used to work at thoughtbot. I think I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that we have another podcast at thoughtbot; it's called The Bike Shed. And Chris started as a host on that show while he was on thoughtbot, and he continues that to this day along with Steph Viccari, who's a team lead at thoughtbot. And so if people are interested in hearing about Chris' work now at Sagewell and following along with the team and the work that he's doing there as well as the work we do at thoughtbot, people can check that out at bikeshed.fm. Sagewell is not a client of thoughtbot. But you've worked with thoughtbot before as a client twice, right? SAM: Yeah, exactly, both at my first company Freebird, which was sold to Capital One, and at PathCheck, the non-profit I worked at. CHAD: So you specifically, I assume, then made an effort to recruit from thoughtbot when you started Sagewell. [laughs] SAM: I would say I know and love the way that thoughtbot approaches building software. And I know and love the people that I've worked with from thoughtbot. And I would say that it was as much a feature of being in the same communities as it was specifying a specific group. But you guys have created a great culture. [laughs] CHAD: I'm just kidding. I didn't actually think that that was the case, but I can guess a lot of the benefits of working with someone who's worked at thoughtbot before because of the level of experience and the level of skill and communication and everything that people at thoughtbot have. But I'm curious, what if I turn that around? Is there a downside to hiring someone who worked at thoughtbot previously to your team? SAM: So one of the things that I love about, particularly early on, we have a hire that we just made recently. She worked at a senior living facility for four or five years and then worked at Wells Fargo for four or five years. And before, we had a bunch of fears, and this new employee listed five or six totally different fears than we ever would have thought of. And so now we have way more fears. And part of that can be unnerving, and part of that can be challenging. And I would say that one of the challenges of working with a team that builds software in such a clear culture is that you might not get all the fears. You might not get certain sorts of diverse perspectives or headaches because of a particular way that product and engineering are conceived. And so one risk...it's kind of the unknown-unknown sort of situation, but it's real in startups which is I think that making sure you have diverse perspectives across the domains where you need to be deeply an expert for folks who are very similar to you is a major risk. CHAD: That's great. Well, Sam, thanks for stopping by and sharing with us. I really wish you and Sagewell and the entire team all the best. SAM: Awesome. It was wonderful talking. CHAD: And if folks want to find out more about Sagewell Financial or follow along with you or get in touch with you, where are all the best places for them to do that? SAM: sagewellfinancial.com is our email. And if you or your parents are interested in what we're building as a customer or a member, you can sign up there. If you'd like to reach me, I'm mostly on Twitter following cute animals and occasionally a good tech post @Ferrumofomega. And if you'd like to contact our company, you can just go to /press and fill out the form there. CHAD: Awesome. And you can subscribe to the show and find notes for this episode along with a transcript of this episode and all past episodes of this season at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. And you can find me on Twitter @cpytel. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening and see you next time. ANNOUNCER: This podcast was brought to you by thoughtbot. thoughtbot is your expert design and development partner. Let's make your product and team a success.

The Jackass Stunts Draft w/ Ty Harris

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Play Episode Listen Later Feb 1, 2022 113:41

What's up Jackasses?!? We're Jackassing it up today with a Jackass Stunts Draft. Ty Harris of Tytan Comics Fame is helping draft the funniest, craziest, most gross-out stunts Jackass has to offer. Covering all content from the hit MTV show to all the fantastic movies. Get pumped for Jackass Forever in theaters this Friday! Go to https://www.tytancomics.com/ for more info on Ty and his awesome Comic Shop, Tytan Comics! Also, go to https://www.teepublic.com/user/tytancomics for Ty's threads! Finally, go check out the Jabroni U Network at www.jabroniu.com.

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Ty Harris- Talking Openly, from Poker and Insurtech

Insurance Town

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 30, 2021 46:55

In this episode the Mayor was got the opportunity to sit down with new friend Ty Harris fromOpenly! Openly is leading the way for so many other insurtech carriers. Ty and the Mayor talk everything from Poker to Insurtech and so many other cool topics. Ty breaks down Openly in a fun way and talks about the 50/50 blend of insurtech and traditional carrier . He talks about the cool features that Openly has and even talks a little about the future of the company and where they are going next. Episode sponsors Smart Choice Canopy connect Agency performance partners Cover Desk

Agency Freedom: E28: Ty Harris On Helping Agents Serve Their Clients More Openly

Agency Intelligence

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 12, 2021 61:19

In this episode of Agency Freedom Podcast, James talks with Ty Harris, Co-Founder, and CEO of Openly Insurance. Openly is an emerging digital native carrier currently operating in 14 states. They are positioned to be a major player in the IA channel for years to come. Learn more about Openly at https://www.openly.com. Visit our website to join our email list, sign up to be a potential guest on the show, and never miss an episode: https://www.agencyfreedompodcast.com Connect with Agency Freedom Podcast on Facebook at the Agency Freedom Podcast group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/agencyfreedom Email us at podcast@riskwell.com with ideas, questions, complaints, or your favorite grilling recipe.

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E28: Ty Harris On Helping Agents Serve Their Clients More Openly

Agency Freedom

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 12, 2021 61:19

In this episode of Agency Freedom Podcast, James talks with Ty Harris, Co-Founder and CEO of Openly Insurance. Openly is an emerging digital native carrier currently operating in 14 states. They are positioned to be a major player in the IA channel for years to come. Learn more about Openly at https://www.openly.com. Visit our website to join our email list, sign up to be a potential guest on the show and never miss an episode: https://www.agencyfreedompodcast.com Connect with Agency Freedom Podcast on Facebook at the Agency Freedom Podcast group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/agencyfreedom Email us at podcast@riskwell.com with ideas, questions, complaints or your favorite grilling recipe.

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The Grind Time Wrestling Podcast: Back To the Grind

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Play Episode Listen Later Aug 19, 2021 31:39

Jabroni U's Tugboat, J-Breezy, and A-Train discuss the upcoming ground shaking, wall trembling, bash fest that is about to take place at the GTW Grindhouse, Back To the Grind! Thanks to the new owners of Grind Time Wrestling, Handsome Dan will be sitting this podcast out, but don't frett, he's still able to do live commentary at Back To the Grind under his probational terms... and becasue we did this (WE LOVE FINANCIALLY STABLE). Make sure to come out to the GTW Grindhouse at 5644 Jason Lee Pl. in sunny Sarasota, FL and say hi to Dan, Breeze, and Tugboat/Kid Wrestler LIVE ringside at Back to the Grind! Go to GTWGRINDHOUSE.COM (https://www.gtwgrindhouse.com/) for more information and Tickets.

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Going Fast With Ty Harris

The Tyson Durfey Show

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 16, 2021 20:23

In this episode, Tyson sits down with fellow rodeo athlete Ty Harris. They talk about success, how to be fast, and how they have honed their minds to become as successful as they are today

GTW We're Still Here - 6/26/21 - Part A

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Play Episode Listen Later Jul 18, 2021 89:24

ASMR U REDY 2 RUMBL? This is Part A of the all-audio version of Grind Time Wrestling's We're Still Here event. WSH took place June 26th, 2021 at the GTW Grindhouse in Sarasota, FL. Go to gtwgrindhouse.com (https://www.gtwgrindhouse.com/) for information on the next GTW event, coming to you July 31st, 2021, The Big Payoff. As always, jabroniu.com (https://jabroniu.com/) to check out all the great shows the Jabroni U Podcast Network has to offer.

Ty Harris - Play It Cool

Your Thoughts First Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 22, 2021 42:40

This week I am joined with another one of my friends from WVU, Ty Harris. Ty and I are both advertising majors and became friends at WVU after we took some classes together for our major. Over the years we have remained friends and he always been a positive individual to be around. We both are in the creatives and both share similar views on how we look at the world and the impact we can make to it through creativity. Ty makes music in his free time to express his creativity and is always working on a project or hustle to improve his future self. He also shared some great perspective from his own life experience and how being a good person can help us all get along better and work together as a society. Ty has two new albums out now! The Chosen One and May 28th are out now and are available for streaming on all platforms! Check Out Ty's Music On: YouTube - Apple Music - Spotify

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GTW Battle for the Multiverse - 5/22/21 - Part A

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Play Episode Listen Later Jun 16, 2021 88:01

ASMR U REDY 2 RUMBL? This is Part A of the all audio version of Grind Time Wrestling's Battle for the Multiverse event. BftM took place May 22nd, 2021 at the GTW Grindhouse in Sarasota, FL. Go to gtwgrindhouse.com (https://www.gtwgrindhouse.com/) for information on the next GTW event, coming to you June 26th, 2021, We're Still Here. As always, jabroniu.com (https://jabroniu.com/) to check out all the great shows the Jabroni U Podcast Network has to offer.

GTW Battle for the Multiverse - 5/22/21 - Part B

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Play Episode Listen Later Jun 16, 2021 54:38

ASMR U REDY 2 RUMBL? This is Part B of the all audio version of Grind Time Wrestling's Battle for the Multiverse event. BftM took place May 22nd, 2021 at the GTW Grindhouse in Sarasota, FL. Go to gtwgrindhouse.com (https://www.gtwgrindhouse.com/) for information on the next GTW event, coming to you June 26th, 2021, We're Still Here. As always, jabroniu.com (https://jabroniu.com/) to check out all the great shows the Jabroni U Podcast Network has to offer.

Team Mentality with Ty Harris

UA Sweat the Details

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 1, 2021 30:50

Co-hosts Adrienne Herbert and Tamara Pridgett speak to Tyasha Harris, WNBA basketball player for the Dallas Wings and Under Armour athlete. Ty talks all about her experiences in playing as part of a team, from her start as a kid to now playing for the WNBA. Ty discusses what makes a great team perform well together and how to establish a strong team mindset. Listen to Sweat the Details every Tuesday. Follow Under Armour at @underarmourwomen and @underarmour Follow Tyasha Harris @ballher_52 Follow Tamara Pridgett @Tamsgoinham Follow Adrienne Herbert @Adrienne_LDN Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Openly CEO and Co-Founder Ty Harris - Bending the Insurance Curve

Wharton FinTech Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later May 2, 2021 29:37

Anirudh Singh sits down with Ty Harris, CEO and Co-Founder of Openly. In this episode, they discuss: - Openly's origin story - Inefficiencies in the insurance market - Openly's talent acquisitions/expansion strategy and much more! Ty Harris: Ty Harris is CEO and co-founder of Openly. Openly uses technology to provide re-imagined and beautifully simple home insurance. Backed by leading VC firms and insurance industry veterans alike, Openly is growing rapidly towards its goal of being a leading national provider of personal insurance. Before founding Openly in 2017, Ty spent 12 years at Liberty Mutual, a top 5 global insurer, where he was most recently EVP and Chief Product and Underwriting Officer. Before joining Liberty Mutual, Ty worked at the Brookings Institution and taught economics and statistics at MIT and Northeastern. Ty received his AB from Duke University, studied graduate economics at MIT, and is a Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society. Ty lives in Charleston, SC, with his wife and two children. He’s an enthusiastic runner, snowboarder, and windsurfer. For more FinTech insights, follow us below: Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/wharton-fintech-club/ WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech Anirudh's Twitter: twitter.com/avsingh_24

The Grind Time Wrestling Podcast: All Heart, No Soul

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Play Episode Listen Later Feb 17, 2021 56:52

From the GTW commentary team, it's The Grind Time Wrestling Podcast! Join host "Handsome" Dan Solorzano, "Tugboat" Drew Kistler, Andy "A-Train" Liner, and J-Breezy as they preview Grindtime Wrestling's All Heart, No Soul, which takes place February 20th in Sarasota, Florida! Matches include: Lee Roy Shogun v Tru Champ Andres Reyes, The Hell Hounds v Financially Stable, The Cheese v Budd Heavy, Ron Bass Jr. v Freddie Hudson, Tarzan Duran v Kekoa v Mr. Grim v Joey Martinez in a 4-way ladder match for the DIY Multiverse Belt (Ernest Mack the Third's "Choice Cut"), Shannon Moore, Mike Orlando, and Timothy Zbyskzo v Jake Sterling and The Graysons, Cameron MacLeod Stewart v "Darling" Daniel Starling, Sexy Angels (c) v The Gifted for the GTW Tag Team Championship, Allie Recks (c) v Reagan Fire for the GTW Women's Championship, and Kenny Bengal (c) v Bonez for the GTW Heavyweight Championship!

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Ty Harris, CEO Openly, talks building to a niche and beyond

The Insurance Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 6, 2021 35:41

Ty Harris didn't wake up with an epiphany for Openly, he actually figured out what he wanted to do and set about building it. That's what Openly is, an insurance company and products designed for a targeted segment. Ty explains why it's difficult to start out in the space and how they have targeted their growth opportunities and managed their business to be a sustainable operation. That's a rarity in the start-up space but it's also a compelling and informative story. Please rate, review and follow the podcast! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode 204: Ty Harris - CEO & Co-Founder, Openly

The VentureFizz Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 25, 2021 53:47

Imagine that you've worked your way into an executive leadership position with one of the top insurance companies where you are overseeing an organization of hundreds of people generating billions of dollars, yet you realize that you are a builder and there's an opportunity to build a company around an idea. So what do you do? Do you stay at the safety net of the Fortune 500 company or do you take the risk and start something from scratch? If Ty is a guest on our podcast, you probably know the decision he made and it is a decision that is taking off. Openly is reinventing home insurance with a different approach with an emphasis on tech, an improved customer service experience, and a very smart sales model where they are partnering with independent insurance agents. The company announced $40M in funding back in December and this is fresh off the heels of announcing $15M just 6 months prior. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Ty's experience at MIT and how he got involved in competitive ballroom dancing. * His career progression at Liberty Mutual where he was most recently EVP and Chief Product Officer. * How he thought through the decision to move on and start a company. * All of the details on Openly and how they are disrupting the insurance industry. * What the future holds for Openly, including their growth and hiring plans. * Advice for senior level executives on the decision of taking a risk to start a company. * And so much more If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

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Life isn't always how it looks - Ty Harris of The Dallas Wings

The Pathway to Your Results

Play Episode Play 30 sec Highlight Listen Later Jan 4, 2021 41:43

In this episode we walk with Ty Harris of the WNBA Dallas Wings. She walks Derick through her journey on the unbeaten path to success. Despite not being a highly touted high school player, and often looked over at the college level, Ty never lost belief in herself nor her abilities. Tune in to hear Ty explain through her own life and see that it doesn't always have to be "perfect" to achieve your goals.

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The 1990 Movies Draft

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 13, 2020 111:09

GRIND TIME CLASSIC, WITH GRIND TIME WRESTLING,THIS SATURDAY (11/14) AT GRIND FIT GYM IN SARASOTA, FL. GET TICKETS HERE (https://www.eventbrite.com/e/grind-time-classic-tickets-125050073135)! THE DRAFT POD BOYS ARE COMMENTATING, AND OUR GUEST, TY HARRIS, IS IN THE SHOW! COME SAY HI! As you may have heard, we had some technical difficulties on the day this was supposed to be recorded. We got back together and made it happen, because it's the 30th Anniversary of the films in this draft and they needed to be honored. We drafted the Best Movies of 1990 w/ the honorable Ty Harris from Tytan Comics and Fails to Astonish Radio. The Boys and Ty bring their extensive 90's know how to this incredible list of bangers and put together some very exciting teams.

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The Raven or Sheedy Draft

Kickin' It with Khristina

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 10, 2020 54:38

We had some tech issues that caused us not to be able to record our regularly scheduled program, so The Draft Pod PROS rolled with it. Here's a long ass Raven and Sheedy for you! Check back Friday for a real draft featuring one of our favorite dudes Ty Harris, of Fails to Astonish radio and Tytan Comics! Hit us up on Twitter @TheDraftPod

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"Kickin' It with Khristina" with Ty Harris

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 26, 2020 22:30

Dallas Wings rookie Ty Harris joins Girls Talk Sports TV's Khristina Williams on the podcast to talk about her college career at South Carolina under Dawn Staley, her WNBA debut, and signing to Under Armour. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/girlstalksportstv/support

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HHSP #49 - Ty Harris & Satou Sabally

The Her Hoop Stats Podcast: WNBA & Women’s College Basketball

Play Episode Listen Later May 11, 2020 37:21

As the women's college basketball season came to an unceremonious close, for the first time ever we had that “who's the best?” question left unanswered. With apologies to other great teams across the country, the majority of WBB fans think either South Carolina or Oregon were going to win the title. Two of the stars of those teams will eventually be in the same locker room, as the Dallas Wings drafted Satou #2 overall, and Ty #7. We talk with these future teammates about which team was the best, the challenges of their final seasons in college, and how they see their roles in the best league in the world.

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Episode #12: Ty Harris of Openly

The Uncovered Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 19, 2020 20:12 Transcription Available

Episode Summary: During this episode, Ty Harris sits down with our hosts to share the story behind his startup, Openly, and why, with his first kid on the way and after 12 years of success at Liberty Mutual, he decided to embark on this new adventure.Heads up: Throughout this episode you may hear Rob refer to the podcast as undercovered, instead of uncovered. Rob did not have his coffee on this day and we apologize for any confusion, but we hope you enjoy this blooper. :) What is Uncovered: How Openly is bringing more transparency into the insurance industryThe highs and lows of starting a new businessTy's TechStars experience and why it was so great for OpenlyThe challenges of starting a business in a heavily regulated industry Why Boston is a great place for insurance start-upsHow Openly has embraced a remote working cultureHow to manage employee satisfaction as your startup grows The surprising skills Ty has learned over the years in the spirit of always challenging himself The hidden power of pacing yourself and coming to terms with the fact that things are always going to take longer than you thinkList of resources mentioned and suggested reading in episode:Openly Website: https://openly.inc/About Ty: Before founding Openly in 2017, Ty spent 12 years at Liberty Mutual, a top 5 global insurer, where he was most recently EVP and Chief Product Officer. In this role, Ty led an organization responsible for product, pricing, underwriting, and innovation across all personal lines of business. Prior to Liberty Mutual, Ty did research at the Brookings Institution and taught economics and statistics at MIT and Northeastern. A Duke and MIT alum, Ty is also a fully credentialed actuary (FCAS). Ty lives in Boston's Back Bay with his wife and two kids. He's an enthusiastic runner, snowboarder, windsurfer, and dad! About Openly: Openly is proud to offer innovative, comprehensive homeowners insurance, wrapped in modern convenience. We arm agents with the tools necessary to serve up a world class customer experience.

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5 Star Matches: Ric Flair vs Terry Funk

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 8, 2020 44:22

This week, Handsome Daniel is joined by Fails to Astonish Radio host and proprieter of Tytan Comics, Ty Harris. They discuss the legendary I Quit Match between Terry Funk and Ric Flair in 1989.

The Action Figure Draft LIVE at Tytan Comics

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Play Episode Listen Later Dec 31, 2019 103:34

Happy New Year Everyone! We went out with a bang and whiz! We hooked up with Ty Harris of Fails To Astonish Radio and Tytan Comics in beautiful downtown Bradenton. We got the largest draft group together in Drat Pod history with 6 active drafters and we did it all LIVE inside Tytan Comics. We had your boys Drew, James and Andy joined by Ty of course, Jeremy Bealer and Ryan Revalino. Ty and Ryan record a bi-weekly pod, Fails To Astonish, comedically breaking down old issues of The Fantastic Four! Jeremy is a Tattoo Artists who hails from Classic Ink which is connected to Tytan Comics… Wait a Tattoo/Comic Shop? Yes, minds blown! We drafted the Best Action Figures and Taco Terror was one of them. Look him up. Hit us up on Twitter @TheDraftPod. On instagram follow Ty @TytanComics and Follow Jeremy @JBealsTattoo!

QotC Season 2: Turkey Tourney Time

Queens of the Court

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 26, 2019 45:30

Jon and Paul discuss the exciting matchups coming your way during the thanksgiving tournaments and make bold predictions for some shakeups in the top 10 for the next week. Player spotlights on South Carolina’s Ty Harris and Buffalo’s Dyaisha Fair. The Oregon Ducks get an in-depth analysis on the King sized queens new segment: Contender Showcase.

Locked On Women's Basketball Episode 143: South Carolina-Maryland; NCAAW teams/prospects to watch with Eric Nemchock