A Blessed Morning Dear Pastors, Brothers & Sisters, Esteemed guests coming from different parts of the world and fellow Christian Business Owners.
Welcome to the Second Business As Mission Asia Conference. It’s good to see so many familiar and new faces here this morning.
As I welcome all of you, let me also welcome the presence of Our Lord Jesus Christ in our midst, our most important guest, may I ask everyone to give Him your loudest clap offerings in welcoming our Lord.
The theme for this year’s BAM conference over the next two days is “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”, which is found in Joshua 24:15b, this is indeed our heart desires in wanting to serve the Lord but please allow me to put this into its context.
In Joshua 24:1 – “When Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem and summoned the elders, the heads, the judges and the officers of Israel. And they presented themselves before God.”
It’s just like us gathered today in this BAM conference, presenting ourselves before God. Joshua’s purpose was to remind the people of God’s faithfulness which we can see from verses 2 to 13.
Despite all the challenges and difficulties they had to go through, God’s presence never left them, He was with them all the time.
Dear Christian Business Owners, being in business is a divine calling from God Himself and we need to understand that we are His children, we must acknowledge that we are Christian first before we are business owners.
With this divine calling, do we recognize that God is the owner of all things or do we believe that due to our hard work, sweat and tears, the business is where it’s today because of our own efforts. True we did put in the efforts but do we acknowledge this is only possible since it comes from God Himself?
In Joshua 24:13, it gives us a good glimpse of this when we claim it’s all our own works for God says, “I gave you a land on which you had not labored and cities that you had not built, and you dwell in them. You eat the fruit of vineyards and olive orchards that you did not plant.” This is God speaking to His people, and He is still speaking to us today that the businesses which we think we own is not ours, it’s from His divine grace for He has called us for a greater purpose in business to be His stewards, to be missional in the workplace.
Business people wields great economic power and influences and at times even more powerful than governments, as businesses provide employment, livelihoods and hires the most number of people in any given country.
Just imagine when all Christian Business Owners rise up and be united for the Lord and be missional, can we imagine the impact it has for the Gospel.
Christian businesses will have far reaching impact than any church can be for we bring the church into the companies, into the workplace and we will then see lives transformed for the glory of God.
But are we cognizant of the facts that we are not to neglect to bring the Good News to people working under us. Treating them as just mere employees and not giving them the message of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Do we need to be reminded as how Joshua has reminded the Israelites of God’s presence and faithfulness in their lives and bringing them into the land of milk and honey.
Let us not get caught up in the busyness of managing God’s business that we forget to be missionaries of the company that the Lord entrusted to us.
Let us together rise up to make a difference in the lives of our people, their families and the communities, this is all in the hands of business people like you and me, we can make a difference, like what one of our speakers said during last year first Asia BAM conference,” The Philippines can change but it’s up to you” indeed it’s up to us to bring back God’s glory in the Philippines.
Let’s not the nation be called an impoverished country in a third world status, let us all rise up to make a difference for God and He will bring the glory back to the Philippines and her people and to the countries of our guests here who are attending in this BAM conference.
Our speakers in the next two days will give us insights on God’s Word on how we can depend on the Holy Spirit to make this a reality.
Thank you everyone for your presence here, we are all called to be here by the Lord Himself, it’s not an accident and we will hear from Him on how we can rise up to honor and glorify Him as His stewards.
Let us together declare “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”
Soli Deo Gloria!