Faith in a Fearful World

Now Moses was a very humble man. (people chattering) More humble than anyone else on the face of the earth. Hey, hey, listen. Next time you get on that scale, just remember, you carrying the whole arm of God. It's heavy now, it's heavy. Just remember that. But it is what it ain't. It's time to put another one in that. Living in a van down by the river. Tell y'all, with a tear in my eye. (people chattering) (upbeat music) Whoa, whoa, what it is, what it ain't, Panda Land. Welcome in, ladies and gensers. Time to put another one in that Panda Land bank, baby. My name is Trevor, and I'm a part of a small church here in Northeast Florida, who has a huge heart to reach our family and the DOC all over the United States of America, all the way from our Kansas up to Montana, up to Maine down to Florida, where I'm sitting at right now. Texas where I'll be at soon enough. But anyhow, man, so honored to be with you guys. And I hope you are part of the champion family. I hope you're subscribed to us. If you're not, what are you doing? Go ahead and do it. But anyhow, my name is Trevor.

Super glad that you would take some time out of your day to watch what we are doing here. Our heart is to help you champion every season of your life. I've got a text message already coming in, ladies and gents. Let me put my hat on too. Let me put the hat on. Oh, that's just my buddy, Sam, where he's about to be here to pick me up for work. So getting it in a little bit before work this week, earn them early hours, early hours, time change. So it's actually bright outside, but it's pretty early. And yeah, anyhow, today we're actually gonna show you stuff from our in-house gathering that we do at Champion Church on Sunday mornings. So it's one of the things I grabbed from there. But if you've never been here before, we go on a little bit of ride. Today we're doing sand dunes. I haven't done one of those before. So today we're taking a little ride on some sand dunes. Then I'll teach to you. And then I don't know what our scenic one is today. Of course we got some can-do preach that. Bring it back an oldie, a classic. And then also what else do we have? Another entrepreneur spot as well. Just for those that, hey, man, I wanna have a different idea. What could I do when I get out of here? What is something that maybe just gets your mind flowing? Creative things that you could do

when you get out, make a legitimate living if you don't already have something in place as well. I say it all the time. If you can get your GED, if you're out of place that you can get some certifications of plumbing, electrical. I don't know, just some of those things. I can't stress enough. Get those type of things now. Get those things in line now. I'm telling you the way it will help you when you get out that is tremendous. If your place has a reentry program that helps you with, I know all of them don't necessarily have that. Or have it to a degree that is, I'm trying to be respectful here, significant and can really set you up, and do what you can. And if I don't know what to do, it's okay. That's all right. Here's what you're gonna do. You're gonna ask God for wisdom. You're gonna say, Lord, give me wisdom. What's the next right step to take? One of them is for sure to be rowing with us, as always. A couple of places I'm coming this week, by the time this comes out, I've already hit a few of these, so I won't mention those again.

But, but, but let's go Wednesday, November 25th, the CFRC down there in Orlando. CFRC, I'll be there at the 2 p.m. and the 6 p.m. Tuesday, December 1st, out there in Kingman Correctional. We're just waiting on one last little clearance, all that looks good. I should be out there. Monday, December 14th, I'll be out in, Oklahoma, December 14th in Oklahoma. Howard McCloud, I'll be out there. And then the next day, December 15th, Mac Alfred out there in Oklahoma. And then Saturday, January 2nd, I'll be back in Marion, CI, baby. I'll be back in Marion, CI. And then Thursday, January 7th, I'll be a Sumter, CI right here in Florida, out there in that bush. No, out in bush. I love all of you. Thank you so much for rolling with with us. It's been one year since we've been on this platform for sure. I can't say enough, man. When we trend, we all trend. All of us do. And so thank you for sharing it. Thank you. I hear the stories all the time of man. I share this with person that just came into our dorm or a new bunkie or whatever it might be. There could be shared with somebody back home told you to go check you out on YouTube and all that kind of stuff. Man, that matters. That helps so much. That's picking up the ore and helping us all row together. All right. Everybody good. I'm good. I hope you're good. I got to get to work. I love all of you. Can't wait to see many of you on the road this week. If you want me to come out to your prison or whatever might be, have three things you need. You need the warden on board, administration on board, chaplain on board. They can reach out to the church info at champion

church.cc. If you're in the state of Florida, I am a approved volunteer for the state of Florida. Your chaplain or whatever, be able to look me up. All my contact information is on there as well. Reach out. We'll get on the schedule. See what we can do. We got several other ones working right now. Just haven't got the dates right yet. And we'll do what we can. I come out on my own dime, own penny. And I don't know why I just use dimes and pennies. I don't even think they make pennies anymore. Yeah. I don't know if y'all heard about that. They don't even make pennies anymore. But all right. Love all of you. Let's get to the rest of the show. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

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[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] All right, let me ask you something. Let me ask you something this morning. I really want you to get a good mental picture here, all right? Now, this is rhetorical, but when you think about Moses, what comes to mind? Just right there, to yourself, when you think about Moses, what comes to mind? For me, I think of like a big desert or maybe him standing in front of the burning bush. Maybe when you think about Moses, you think him standing in front of the Red Sea and his splitting. Or maybe when you think of Moses, you relate because you're like, man, this dude had anger issues. I have anger issues. And you think of Moses hitting rocks with staffs and everything else. Maybe when you think of Moses, you think of the people he had to deal with that complained all the time and you're like, Moses, I get it. Maybe when you think of Moses, you think of manor that fell from heaven. I don't know what it might be, but I want you to think about it for a moment. Maybe for you, this is how I am as well. When I was growing up, we had this two VHS set of the Troughton Heston of Moses, right? I can remember as a kid wanting to follow Jesus, and I would watch this movie, like I should be able to learn about the Lord from watching this movie, and it was the longest movie ever, ever, ever, ever. But then there was one that came out that was a lot more my speed, and maybe you'd think of this when you think of Moses, the Prince of Egypt, right? Maybe that was your generation when you remember that, the Prince of Egypt, I'm like, "Oh, man, look at this. Disney's getting saved, or whatever." That was not the case, but anyhow, so maybe you've seen the new, I think it's called the Promised Land, or whatever. How many of you have seen the Promised Land on YouTube? Okay, listen, it is sent, all right, let me back up.

How many people like the office, the show the office? Let me see who I can be friends with in here. Okay, awesome. If you like the office, these creators literally made it, like the office, but it's them in the wilderness, it is absolutely hilarious. Just go watch it It's funny just go watch it remember entertainment doesn't always have to be biblical But I will say this if you pay attention and actually draw you closer to Jesus Because you'll wonder where is that in the Bible? Let me go find that and you'll see these little things to kind of bring you in but but listen Here's what's interesting outside of all that whatever you think about Jordan House, Heston, Prince of Egypt Hit rocks. All right. Let's let's hold on all of that. Here's what I find interesting about Moses is that Before he ever stood in front of an entire nation Somebody had to stand up for Moses Before he ever stood before the Red Sea Somebody had to stand up for him Before he ever spent his season of 40 In the backside of the desert for he ever saw the burning bush any of that kind of stuff somebody had to stand up for him and today Chances are if I had to bet none of us in here that are watching are going to stand before the Red Sea and needed to split open I Don't think any of us probably will need to go before Pharaoh or any of that kind of stuff But I do believe this in a road down this way We all are going to experience moments when the world around us is frightening We're all going to have moments where we have to recognize the value of what God has placed in our life And we all are going to have moments Where it's going to like push come to shove and we're going to have to act in faith So today whether you're a parent a grandparent an aunt an uncle a guardian a teacher a coach Or someone who does you know how any of that kind of stuff? There is something in here today that can speak to all of us We're going back to Hebrews chapter 11 if you open your Bibles there and as you do so as you open your Bibles Hebrew 11 We'll start in verse 23 in just a second I want to look straight into that lens number one welcome everybody that is watching on the other side if you're watching us on YouTube There are literally a billion videos and you pick this one Thank you so much for doing that. It means a lot stay around to the end

I hope it gets better But maybe you're a family member of somebody who's incarcerated in the Department of Corrections and they said you got to go check this out They're rowing with us from behind bars or maybe even today You're watching from the Panda Wap all over the United States all the way from Alaska to Maine to Florida to our Kansas Down to Texas up to Utah wherever it might be Genuinely it means a lot that you would watch you're not a project to us You're not just something we get to do and pat ourselves on the back You are part of this family right here And I know this is going to speak to you today pay attention to it if you've never given your life to Christ Maybe today's the day to do so. We'll tell you about that more in just a minute But for right now everybody on this side of the camera. Can we welcome everybody on that side of the camera and say hey? Thank you so much All right, here we go. He was chapter 11 verse 23. It was by faith That Moses's parents hid him for three months when he was born They saw that God had given them an unusual child And they were not afraid to disobey the king's command It was by faith that Moses when he grew up refused to be called the son of Sarah Pharaoh's daughter He chose to share the oppression of God's people instead of enjoying the fleeting pleasures of sin He thought it was better to suffer for the sake of Christ and to own the treasures of Egypt For he was looking ahead to his great. What's the next word? Reward today. We're gonna focus on verse 23 more than anything But I do want to just give you a quick little hit on 24 25 and 26 And here's what you could write down of something in this way. I'm just going to read it directly from my notes for a second time On verse 20 was it 24 25 26? It was by faith Moses when he grew up refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter He chose to share in the oppression of God's people instead of enjoying the fleeting pleasures of sin Here's the thing who God says you are is far more valuable than who the world tells you you should be Who God says you are is far more valuable than who the world tells you you should be and God's ways now watch verse 26 He thought it was better to suffer for the sake of Christ than to own the treasures of Egypt for he was looking ahead to his great reward And here's what I wrote with that and God's ways really are better than anything this world has to offer

He knew with all the riches of Egypt God's ways are better than anything this world has to offer I love that Moses is choosing his identity in God and what the kingdom of God has To offer now, let me just give you a little bit of history and then we give you four points that we could take from verse 23 Moses again, we usually picture all of this great stuff. He did but it starts here. I don't know if I'll call it this on he is born into an incredibly, extraordinarily dangerous situation. To give you a little bit of history here, the Israelites were multiplying in Egypt and a new Pharaoh who did not recognize Joseph and his significance and all that God had done through Joseph in Egypt, he started viewing the increasing number of the Israelites as a threat. Here it is in Exodus chapter 1 verse 6, it says, "In time Joseph and his brothers died," ending that entire generation, but their descendants, the Israelites had many children and grandchildren. In fact, they multiplied so greatly that they became extremely powerful and filled the land, but eventually a new king came to power in Egypt who knew nothing about Joseph or what he had done. He had said to his people, "Look, the people of Israel now outnumber us and are stronger than we are, we must make a plan to keep them from growing even more." If we don't and if war breaks out, they will join our enemies and fight against us, then they will escape from our country. So the Egyptians made the Israelites their slaves. They appointed brutal slave drivers over them, hoping to wear them down with crushing labor. Now here's the thing, Pharaoh's first step in stopping the Israelites from growing in more and more power was to put them into bondage and force them into slavery. But eventually, that's not enough. Eventually, it just continues that they grow stronger and stronger. Now here's what happens now. He's going to get a little bit more vivid but track with me. Then Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, gave this order to the Hebrew midwives, Shippurah and Pua. If you're looking for a good daughter's name. When you help the Hebrew, I was going to make a joke and I was going to say, "When you help the Hebrew women," see I'm trying to be good. "When you help," this is what Pharaoh's saying. I was going to get a little gruesome but just track with me. "When you help the Hebrew women as they give birth, watch as they deliver." If the baby is a boy, I'm going to say this because certain things will get me flagged online, take his life. You see what it says though. I can't say certain words on the panda whap so just track with me here. If the baby is a boy, take their life. If it is a girl, let her live. But because the midwives feared

God, they refused to obey the king's orders. And they are like, "Thank God for people who just are God-fearing." But here's the thing. That doesn't accomplish the goal because they just keep growing and growing and growing. Verse 20 now of Exodus 1, "So God was good to the midwives and the Israelites continued to multiply, growing more and more powerful." Look at verse 21, "And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own." Do you see God's a reward? He's a reward like you get involved in God's business. He gets involved in yours. Then Pharaoh, this is where it turns even darker, gave this order to all his people, throw every newborn Hebrew boy into the Nile River. But you may let the girls live. Now here's the thing, this isn't a fable. This isn't just a story to try to teach us something. This actually happened. This was a real thing. And I even want us to feel the weight of that this morning before we move on to anything else, to feel the weight of the reality. Could you imagine? What I love is this. I love, I mean this with everything inside of me, the little babies making the noise and stuff. That is incredible. You know what that means? There's youth in this place. Thank God. Like legitimately, thank God. I love watching. Like when I'm preaching, everybody's just passing the babies around. Who can make them happy in this minute. That's who Trevor shuts up. Then you know, about 11-10, everybody's like, "I'm done." Whether he is or not. Guys, I love that about the church. Guys, if our kids' areas are not full, we are in trouble. But I want you to also think about the reality of this. Of what if we had to take these babies and throw them into the Nile? Think of the weight of that as a parent. Think of the weight of that as a nation. I don't want to get too gruesome here and try to get out of the thing but do you realize the Nile is where they would And could you imagine you're giving up the life of your child and the very thing you're sourcing life from? The way to seeing somebody that you know that's pregnant. Now, listen, I'm not very familiar with the pregnancy anatomy stuff. Haven't read a lot of charts or looked at charts any time recently and I don't plan on it. But I do understand this. They didn't have a test back then where you could see what the gender of the baby was going to be before it was born. They didn't have the sonogram.

They didn't have. I mean, could you imagine somebody in that day saying like, "Man, what's it like to be pregnant?" And in y'all's days, we throw parties when we find out the gender and they're like, "Well, what do you do with those parties?" We blow up powder and it's different colors. I mean, think about this. We bite into cupcakes and if it's blue, we're like, "That's awesome." If it's paper, like, "That's awesome." And everyone cheers and then they give gifts. It's like, "Man, what? That's crazy." And then we do a baby shower like, "What that's for?" Just another party. It's like, "Why?" Because once you become a parent, all of that is done. You're fine. It's over. You might as well kiss that goodbye, baby. What am I talking about out there you know? But think about the weight of this, of not knowing the stress, the pressure. Most of his parents would not have known whether he was a boy or a girl. And the first thing, if you're taking notes, here's what I want you to write down about verse 23. Build your faith for the storm before the storm. You've got to build your faith for the storm before the storm. It says they acted by faith. You have to build it for the storm, before the storm. I'm going to give you a little bit of, "This is opinion. This is my opinion."

But when you put yourself there, I often wonder if they were just praying for a girl. See his parents, Jockabed and Amram, Amram, Oh, A-Town is what I like to call him. Exodus chapter 6 is where you can see that. And I wonder knowing what would happen. They already had two kids at this point by the time this decree is put out. They would have Aryan and Miriam already. And now as they are pregnant with their third and the decree is in the land, that if it's a boy, he is taken from your mother's arms and put into the Nile with the current, the crocodiles, the hippos, all of that kind of stuff that would have been happening. I wonder if there was something in them, man, were they praying, "God, just let this be a girl." Because I don't know if I can deal with that. Again, that's extra biblical, I'm not, it's just something I see when I read the text. But what I see more than anything is they didn't decide to trust God the day Moses was born. You don't act in this big of a thing that would have put their own life and the rest of their family's life at risk and you just decide, "Well, I'm just going to trust God when it happens here." I would just have to believe as she is pregnant, there's a 50/50 chance and they're having the conversation, "What are we going to do if it's a boy?" So you can't just read the Bible, you have to read it. These are real people who dealt with these issues. And what we've been talking about with faith for the last 10 weeks, we know faith is something that yes, God puts within us, He is the author and the finisher of our faith. It is put within us as a seed. But how it grows is up to us and our relationship we have with Him. Not in a way to earn it, but in a way to grow it and to cultivate it. This is why it's so important to have a personal relationship with Jesus outside of right here. This is why it's important to get in your Bible. This is why it's important to read these things, to get to know the one who calls you His. Because when you do so, your faith begins to grow.

Your faith begins to grow and your faith begins to grow. What are you doing? You're building the foundation of your life, as Jesus said in Matthew chapter 7, on His words and His ways, because storms are coming to all of us. Like I know, like I hate that part of life. Any else love being comfortable? Okay come on, for a second you'll pause, like it's, come on, now talk to me in here. I love my comfortable life. Guys, when I get home, I will make sure the AC is on. I will sit in the same spot I sit on Sundays on my couch because it's comfortable and it's literally formed in this bod. Why? because it's comfortable, but here's the truth of the matter, storms come to everybody. And listen, if you're in a storm right now, that doesn't mean, well, I don't have faith. No, no, no, no. Jesus is known for speaking to storms and bringing people through them. Don't not see that. But if you're not in a storm now, this is the time you get ready for the storm before the storm. in a hurricane prone area. You can't be jumping on Instacart when it's here. And you end up like, "Well, I'm going to stay in here, but we'll risk it, we'll risk Ricky's life out there. Hope he brings me some milk." It's too late at that point. I just want to tell you, you've got to be ready to build your faith for the storm before the storm. Growing up in the church I grew up in, there's this, in the back, there's these like framed kind of quotes or whatever. This was by Philip Cochran, Sr. and it said, "Build your faith for the storm before the storm."

As a kid, I had no idea what that meant. As an adult, I'm like, "He was a thousand percent right." You got to be ready beforehand. Here's the next thing, again, verse 23, "It was by faith Moses' parents hid him for three months when he was born. They saw that God had given them an unusual child and they were not afraid to disobey the king's command." Here's the second thing, "We cannot go wrong with protecting the next generation." You cannot go wrong with protecting the next generation. Before, and I said this earlier, I want to say it again, before Moses stood in between Pharaoh and God's people, somebody stood between Moses and Pharaoh and it was his parents. You cannot go wrong protecting the next generation. Here's the thing. This isn't just for parents or grandparents or teachers or coaches. This is for all of us, that we should protect our children. Sometimes what I've learned, protecting isn't dramatic, but it is intentional. You're not going to accidentally be intentional to protect the next generation. I wrote down a few things. There's so many different things, but just to kind of get your minds thinking of ways you could do this, sometimes it's making sure a child has somebody they can talk to. Because they're going to talk to someone. Have you all seen, and forgive me, I don't have it in front of me, have you all seen the statistics of what young people starting their relationship, starting their first love relationship, won't be someone else, that it will be AI? That's a real thing in our thing, and I'm not against AI, I use AI every single day of my life. I'm not against it. But I'll tell you what, one thing is for DAGOM, sure, he ain't going to be starting a relationship with AI. That's my son up here.

I'm not just pointing to random people. Okay, I'm just, man, what kind of church is it? And you aren't either! Okay, so, sorry, someone's going to say, boy, that poor kid, here's the thing. This is simple sometimes, it's building that relationship where they know they could talk. And I'm not perfect at this, guys, I'm not up here saying, I'm some superhero parent. Let me just tell you, my son can testify to this, it's every man for himself. But here's what I'm learning, here's what I'm learning. They're going to talk to someone, and God entrusted them to us. So I don't want to defer that. It's recognizing something is wrong, even when they don't have the words to explain it, or they hit you with the forever, I'm fine. See, listen, as a parent, my mom used to say this all the time. Something would happen, and my mom says, "Oh, I know you did this." And I said, "Well, how did you know that?" As a parent, I realized, number one, you pick up on context clues way more than you would lead on. The second thing I realized this is the very Holy Spirit of God is within all of us and it's not just for big revival church service moments, that oftentimes he will speak in those moments, there's something up with them, make the connection, and how many times as a kid, my mom said, "Mom, how did you know that?" The Holy Spirit told me, and I'm like, "That dude is a snitch, man." Right. Listen, some of y'all watching on Pando, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Man, if the Holy Spirit's revealing something to you about your children, he's given them to you, act. There's nothing more important than them. We were talking after baptism last week, they told you, they're moving back to Texas, and I don't want to put all this information out there, but we're talking, we're talking, and I'll give it a kind of high level, and he's asking God about purpose and about all

this kind of stuff, and the Lord speaks to him directly, "Go pour into your grandkids." I hope this is okay, it's not, I'll take it out, I promise, but for here, it's really going well. Move to Texas, move back to Amarillo, Texas, they've set up here, they're retired, move there, why? To pour into your grandkids. [BLANK_AUDIO] because you love them too much to ignore what's happening in their heart. Sometimes I'm not good at this. Sometimes it's just being present with them. Just being present. We can't protect our children. We know this from every difficulty, and we should not. We don't need a whole bunch of crunchy granola kids coming out of this gentleman. I'm sorry. Okay, I'm trying, mom. I like granola bars. I'm not again. I'm just saying that we don't need a whole bunch of soft kids coming into this generation. So you can't protect them from everything. But at the same time, we can't just let them experience whatever. As if we don't have a role to be able to protect them. And guys, as the church, even if you're not a parent, a grandparent, an uncle, or any of that kind of stuff, man, we should be a part of some type of winning team that is protecting children. I read it like this. We can't protect them from everything, but we can make sure they're not navigating life without somebody who cares enough to stand and say, "I've got your back." I love that as we're looking at this new building, we're planning stuff for the kids. It is an intentional thing. We have talked more about how are we going to provide for the children than we have any idea of what even the main sanctuary is going to look like. I'm like, "We'll figure that out."

We got TVs and shower curtains in here. I mean, anything's an upgrade. How are we going to pour into these kids? How are we going to have these things? What can we make available outside of Sunday morning? What can we do? Why? Because the next generation matters. Let me say this. Let me say this. Because I know this. On the other side of the camera, watching on the pando app right now, there are moms and dads that this section of the sermon hurts. Because you say that's great for somebody sitting in that room, Trevor. But what about me sitting behind these bars in our Kansas? What about me sitting in North Carolina? And my kids won't speak to me anymore. What about me in South Florida that I've done everything to ruin these relationships with my kids? Or maybe you're looking at something I won't even see. I'll never get to see my daughter go to prom or I'll never get to see my son take his first driving lesson or any of that kind of stuff. Because of decisions I've made and I'm sitting behind bars. Listen, I thought about you when I was writing this and I say this one for right now. Because the greatest thing any of us could do, including you, no matter where you are sitting in a prison, in a work camp, whether you're in a detention center, a county jail, it does not matter. Whether you get out this week or you are a life or the greatest thing that we could ever do for the next generation is pray for them. And prayers don't stop at defense. They don't stop at distance.

And they don't stop because a relationship is not there. Maybe there isn't a relationship, but you still have a connection as a follower of Jesus if you are one to be able to pray and speak things over. I am sitting up here today because of two praying parents, not just when I was a kid, but even now. Because James 516 says this, "The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. And we never realize what's speaking over our children, what praying over them, speaking life. God protect them, be with them, give them the wisdom they need. I can't be there with them, Lord, would you bring the right people into their life to be able to protect them?" He still answers those prayers. I love me of my 414. I love this. He says, "Then as I looked over the situation, we shouldn't be blind to what's going on in the world today. Our children need our protection. As he looked over the situation, I call it together the nobles and the rest of the people, and here's what I said to them. Don't be afraid of the enemy." Let me speak that in our day. Don't be afraid because there's teenagers having relationships with AI, and it sounds like the world is darker than ever. I'm not saying the world isn't dark, but the church has never been subject to how dark the world is. It has been subject to how much are we going to focus on ourselves? Are we going to focus on the world around us? He says, "Don't be afraid of the darkness. Don't be afraid of the enemy.

Remember the Lord who is great and glorious and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes." I think in the description, we don't war against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, right? We speak the light of the Word of God over our children, over our families, our wives, our daughters, our sons, our brothers. This is what we're called to do, and think about this. In Jacobad and Amram, Amram, A, in Moses' parents, Jacobad and A, if they don't do this, think of the difference. Psalm 103 2, "Let all that I am praise the Lord. May I never forget the good things He's done for me. Let all that I am praise the Lord. May I never forget the good things He's done for me." I've got a few different ones on this, but here's what I love that Moses' parents did. They recognize the blessing. So I put it down like this again because not everybody in here or that's watching as kids. Do you just recognize how good God's been to you? I wrote down a few. The challenge is this, especially we're so driven as a church which I love to help and pour into people. And that doesn't happen if the people aren't like that, right? People aren't like that. The church is a direct reflection to who the congregation is. That's how it should be. I feel like that's how it is here. And so we're driven as a church because y'all are driven to make a difference in the world, right? But sometimes we can get so driven that we forget the blessings God's already done. So I just wrote these down to help your mind. Those loud, messy, expensive money mouths. Tell my kids, are a gift from God? Let me just read that again, clearly. If we're recognizing the blessings, recognize the blessing the kids are. Those loud, messy, expensive money mouths are a gift from God. That job you complain about might be the job you once prayed for.

Do you realize that's a blessing from God? The house that you're complaining? I'm talking to me. I'm not throwing any stones. Because this isn't working and that isn't right. And anybody else have stuff around the house that is just set up just perfect. If somebody comes over and they mess up, they're like, "Oh, you messed it up!" Let me give you an example. We have some faucets in our house that just decide to just let the Lord have its sovereign will and just run. So there's one in one bathroom that just runs in the drain so I'm not worried about it, right? But then there's one in our kitchen, the little sprayer thing, right? It doesn't work. And so we've got it where it just, because if you mess with it and then you turn the water on, it's like a water park. It decides welcome. And when it's 3.30 in the morning, which is what time we get up and you go to turn that sink on and that sucker hits you in the face, you think demons are real and in the house. So we've got it set now where you don't mess with that, right? Because they know what happened again. But until you get somebody to come over to the house and say, "Oh, let me help you with this." "Don't touch that!" The house you complain about, you're always having to cut the grass, always having to fix it up. The door's coming off, everything's making weird. Listen, that might have been the house. Don't forget you prayed for it one day. What's the old saying in Emma Misesa, the guy who is walking looks at the man that's on the bike and says, "Man, I wish I had that." The man on the bike stops at a red light and looks at the guy and a busted-down truck says, "Man, I wish I had that." The guy in the busted-down truck looks at somebody driving a nice car and says, "Man, I wish I had that." If you're always looking around, you're going to forget what you are blessed with. Let me do the last one. I'm going to skip a lot of this for time. Culture and fear did not stop them. Culture and fear did not stop them. What was happening around them, this is the whole key at this point. What was happening around them did not determine how they responded. I don't think it was ever that they didn't have fear. I don't know if that would even be possible. But it wasn't that they didn't maybe have it. But it was how they responded to the situation. That's the difference. It goes back to what our first point was. You've got to be ready for the storm before the storm. You start building your faith now. You start building that foundation now.

Because culture and fear, that stuff is real. It's going to happen. But it's how we respond. Even guys, even this weakness happened to me. Knowing, I had these points done this happened Friday. Knowing all of this stuff, where I was going to land the plane, all of this stuff, I see one little news report about a certain thing. Let me tell you something. I wasn't like, "Well, the Lord will provide no matter what." You know what I was doing? We're all dead. We are all dead. It's over? I don't know how to live off the grid. How long does milk like all this stuff? Anybody else? It was one little thing. And I'm like, "Well, it is over for us." Just call my family, tell them one more time. I love them. Well, what happened? I saw one written news report that stirred up fear. And I responded like I'd never seen God move before my entire life. Anybody else can relate to that? David said, "When I am afraid, I will put my trust in you." I'm praise God for what he has promised. I trust in God. So why should I be afraid? What can mere mortals do to me? What can the situations in the world do to me? What can issues that are out and about in the real-world stuff that is happening? What can you do to... I'm telling you I had this moment this Friday, how to dump myself off the ledge. Anybody else have one of those? And it's like, "Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on." That's where I was like, "I am way too soft." Because I love my comfort and way too much. And at the end of the day, God will provide for me. At the end of the day, He is faithful. At the end of the day, He will see it through no matter what happens in our world. He is not shocked. He's not up in heaven ringing His hands. He doesn't get up from the throne until Jesus, "Hey, just walk around and pace with me so I can just... You know, I just need to vent." He doesn't tell Jesus like, "Listen, I just need to get something. I don't know what we're gonna do." He is still the alpha of the Omega. He is still the beginning and the end. He still knows what's going on. He is still in charge. And He's saying this, "Is there people who will trust me? Even in the face of what culture and fear might do, is

there anybody who will trust me?" And say, "Yes, I'm gonna build that relationship." So today, I don't know what you need the most. Maybe you need to hear, get ready for the storm before the storm. Maybe you need to be intentional to build that relationship with Jesus through reading His Word. Jesus says, "The way you build the foundation is His Word." Matthew chapter 7 verse 24 through 26. Maybe it's the thing of like, "You know what? I need to realize I need to be more present with my kids. I need to be intentional with them more." Maybe it's the thing of just realizing the blessings you have. Like you know what? I'm way more blessed than maybe I let myself believe. And maybe it's just a culture and fear thing. You hear one piece of news, one headline, one deal, and you're like, "Oh, what is gonna happen? What's gonna happen?" We're just like, "I'm not gonna be controlled by that. I know God is faithful, and I know He will never, ever, ever leave me nor forsake me." Whatever it is, I think that's what Hebrews chapter 11 verses 23 through 26 teaches. Amen? That's all stand up. I'm done. Kobe, if you'll come. Well, one of us get lucky and eat the best food of our lives. Well, let's spin the wheel and find out. So on the wheel, there's six high-rated spots and six spots that are super low-rated. We each have to spin it to choose what we'll have for our first meal. Alright, let's see what I get. Alright, I hope it's something bad, bro. I'm trying to have a good day today. Subway. Subway is so trash nowadays, bro. Hopefully I get something good, bro. Come on. Come on. Give me the money. Oh, where are we gonna get? Dollar store. Dollar store. No, bro. No, I'm good. Alright, let's go grab our food. Let's go. But there is a twist. If we're going to a restaurant or a fast food place, we're gonna have to order whatever the person in front of us gets. I really hope no one ordered a tuna sandwich or anything like that. Alright, let's head to grab my first meal of the day. I'm not a big fan of Subway, so I hope the person before me ordered something good. You know, these people seem like the types of the tuna. I really hope no one ordered a tuna sandwich or anything like that. The young's family. They got a tuna. Alright, let's go. We're gonna get the same thing that the last person ordered. I know we put salt on the tuna. It's more flavor-free, really. We're gonna get the same thing you did, so. Yeah, we'll do a salt vinegar, a medium drink. They got a drink too. Alright, guys. Alright, thank you, great. I appreciate it. Thank you. Should I ask them what they got for a drink? Excuse me. That drink looks really good. What drink did you get? Coke, Joe? Okay, they're probably like, "Why did this guy ask you a drink?" Alright, Joe and are you excited for your tuna soap, bro? I'm so excited. Shout out Gray at the Subway over here in downtown St. Augustine. Do you ever hear? Stop at Subway and meet the homie. So after getting Julian's breakfast from Subway, we decided to head down to the dollar store to get myself some breakfast. So what me and Julian decided to do is a coin flip. If Julian wins, he gets to choose what I eat. And because it is the Dollar Tree, it has to be under $5. Heads, I pick. Oh, let's go, baby. I get to choose my own food. I am on a cut. And I'm seeing this bull right here with 27 grams of protein, for only $3. We got some buffalo style chicken mac and cheese. For $150, I got to say. I'm gonna have a good meal for these two for under five bucks

He paid ten dollars for a nasty tuna sound bro. I don't want to hear it. Don't blame me blame the wheel No, you gotta blame the the old man who was right in front of you. Oh, you ready? No, and I hate mayo - this is Yummy Smells terrible. It doesn't smell good The optimistic really okay on go on go. All right countdown three two one go This is this is pretty good We're gonna be giving all the food to the homeless We gotta think about it that old man eats that like every day Are we spitting it out? And we still got the chips right? Oh, yeah, yeah, right Get this thing out of my Bro, I don't know who eats tuna man. That's disgusting from breakfast. Oh out of ten I'd give this like a five out of it. It's not bad, but it's not good Now the chicken sandwich which I'm completely expecting to be dry, but That's actually not bad at all really Right Not a lot for the next 24 hours. We only consume what the wheel and what the strangers say about what I could do Let's put some of the mac and cheese on this sandwich That's it bro. That's a fly pack your jealous, huh? You're drawing him Now I'm just like I'm gonna hear all this is processed stuff So it's gonna be another like maybe an hour or two and I'm already gonna be hungry yet But we still have lunch and dinner. So let's spin the wheel again and see what we eat next. Yeah, let's do it. Let's get it You spin it first last time does I mean I spin it this time? Yeah, go spin it All right, and this is gonna be for what we eat for lunch. All right, uh, I had a pretty good breakfast I'm hoping my lunch is good, too Taco shop, you know that meal for that though that meal for that. No, give me a proper Sir, I love taco shop. If you guys have watched our unknown fast food chain video I love taco shop so much. The only thing is it's the person before me Order something that I mean there's anything nasty at taco shop

They really take it like a tuna sandwich a fish taco. I'd rather be for steak or something. Yeah, all right turn for lunch Let's hope that you're not let's hope that you're not completely cooked twice in a row I Just wants a good meal. I'm retiring. I'm over. It's nice meeting you guys. We'll see As our dirt so we once were closest gas station and got Julian some lunch All right, so we're here at the gas station We're about to do a coin toss to see if Adam's gonna order for me or if I'm gonna be able to order for myself Tails never fails. I'm gonna go tails for the coin It's heads. Oh brother tails never fails, huh? Shut up. We've got plenty of options for you What do you want to be honest? I want something hot and ready hot and ready, bro We got a beef hot dog for you. I'll go for one of those on good. Yeah, that's like that Yeah, I do. I don't know. I think I'm gonna do some more browsing for you. Yeah. Yeah, yeah What you wanna drink? I'll get you a drink. Give me a drink. Yeah, you had to choose a drink. I like water We're going to separate those Kidding me. Let's get you a little side, of course. All right. You want like some candy? Don't ask me you pick it out Yeah, but I'm trying to be nice to you. No, cuz I'm about to do something that you're not gonna like. What do you mean? What why that look don't worry about it Just get sure these people balls what is because you have seen you eat the lays Pickle chips, so you might like the pickle balls. Are you gonna give me some more pickles? No But I'll get you a tuna salad Sam bro Nah, you're kidding. You're kidding, right? I'm dead serious now. This is your love. I'm out of here This is the pickle balls are the craziest part of my future. Not even the sandwich, bro. We got you pickle balls I'm not happy for this at all This is not funny. The first thing that bro told me when I saw him today is dude. I'm starving. I'm so excited to record this video Whatever Zephyr a I asked you. Yeah, I know you can't just run this around them Yeah So we went to taco shop to go and place Adam's order I hope whatever the person in front of me orders I just hope it's baja style tuna salad taco tuna salad taco to be crazy But as you guys know the rule we have to order what the person in front of us is ordering, so That's what we're gonna do

Chicken UFO Baja style bro How's it going? I have the exact same thing she just ordered, please. That's gonna be it. I'm not mad about it at all. Yeah, of course you're good. But I know you work. It's insane. How's it going? Yes, sir. Appreciate it. Julian, is everything okay? What's wrong? Oh, he's mad, chat. Yo, I don't know if I usually am, but I'm gonna eat some taco shop. You're gonna kind of feel bad. All right, so... We have our lunch. A chicken UFO from taco shop. It's pretty much a crunched wrap supreme on steroids. But it's pretty much the exact same order that I get. I usually get steak, but I've got in the chicken plenty of times. I got... Dandy's tuna salad. Hey, look at the famous fur flavor. You can't forget the pickle balls. And my wand. Of course. Yeah, bros been hungry all day. He just wants to buy the food. But hey, I asked you, and you said, "Oh, just get what you want." I'm going with the terms and conditions that we put for the video. That'll be a man of my word. Oh, it smells worse. Does it really? Yeah. Oh, that smells like cat food, bro. Julian. What? It's famous, it's famous for flavors. What it says on the box. Yeah, all right. Let's just get this over with. Ungo. Just start with everything.

Three, two, one, go. So worse or better? Oh, it's worse. Oh, you might throw it on. Oh, no. No, no. Oh, my goodness. And some pickle balls and wash it down. Well, I'm gonna dig in while you struggle over there. That's all right with you. [Music] The chicken's a little dry, but I'm curious to see how those taste. Ooh, I just got a whiff. It smells good. That's why it brings. All I've been able to have is just a side of chips and water and this sucks. Oh, yeah. I hate this video. This chicken's dry. We still have one last spin left. Let's get some dinner. Let's get some dinner. Yes, sir. [Music] It's time for dinner. All right. Are you ready? Ding, ding, ding, ding. [Music] Oh, I have a scare. Just come over to me. [Music] Respin.

Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. Be the big spin right here. [Music] What's it gonna be? All right. Something good. Something good. [Music] French pantries. Let's go. That's a good one. Let's go. That's a good one. I was hoping you'd get cooked. Ooh, I hope I don't get cooked. I've had good luck. Oh, video. I don't even want to look. Just tell me. [Music] No! How rude. Oh, Chris, let's go. Let's go. It is the best pizza I've had in St. Augustine. It's really good. At least you ended up with a good meal for dinner, right? Well, we'll see because who knows? Maybe someone ordered a tuna sandwich.

Let's go get some dinner. Let's go. Let's get it. So we drove down to the French pantry to go grab Julie and some dinner. I hope they don't have tuna salad sandwiches on the menu. That'll be so funny, bro. Yeah, funny for you, I'd say. How are you? Good. What was the last thing someone ordered from the menu? And I'll take that. Like the last order? Okay, so that would be a dinner French dip. Okay, let's do it. Okay. Let's do it. Thank you. So what was it? A French dip? Yeah, a French dip. Well, hopefully it's an actual entree that you could eat. Yeah, it's super hungry and you haven't eaten anything all day. Yeah, but drama like and subscribe. And comment what your favorite moment was if you made it this far in the video. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Fantastic. Thank you so much.

All right, Julie. And we got your French dip sandwich right here. Your first meal of the day, by the way. Yes, I am. First meal of the day. I am actually excited. We'll see you at Alfred's. Yes, sir. So we drove to Alfred and placed Adam's order. If you ask who write them, the free Tony L. All right. Awesome. We'll go about that. Sweet. Chat one. What in the heck is he doing right now? That's not all. If we're waiting on Thursday, I appreciate it. Enjoyed it. Have a good night. Ah, I got my pasta, baby. They both look pretty mid. Yep. Honestly, like you can't tell from looks if this is good or not. So we're just going to have to try it and see. Let's get it. Let's get it. It's 8 p.m. It's his first real bite of food.

That he's going to enjoy. I'm starving. I got to dip this in the jiu first. Aiju. Always letting it soak. Yeah, buddy. It's like an Oreo. Look at that. That looks amazing. Just the crispiness. Oh my goodness. I haven't had something to eat. I am starving. All right. I'm going to close my eyes. It's a good You speechless chat that is insane. Oh my goodness I've had the pasta and the pizza from Alphraze. It's amazing overall. I had a good day I had a very good day the wheel is on my side. Can you just be quiet? Let me eat. I Haven't ate anything today. I'm starving be happy that you ended on a good note, you know This is a good way to end the day. Honestly, I'm happy. I'm happy all right Well, like comment subscribe share with your grandma. Hi grandma drop water video ideas in the comments below If you want to leave some feedback negative or positive, we're open to any feedback. We're brand new YouTube channel We could definitely use it. Absolutely. Yeah subscribe Oh Oh, I won't be afraid no hesitation Oh Oh Oh

Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Out in the fields with the wild grass waves The sun sinks low paints the hills of planes I feel his hand in the rustling trees the wisperer mercy rise of breeze takes Old taste and see the Lord is good. His love runs free Every breath every beat of the drawn Tastings see where grace comes from The river rolls where the willows It speaks of a love that will never end Through the storms through the darkest night His light sounds steady is yolk is a lie Oh, come and don't turn away His arms are He will see and taste and see Oh, taste and see The Lord is good. His love runs free Every breath every beat of the drawn Taste and see where grace comes from

Oh Oh Oh The heart gonna go well like a soul set free Set free side guitar sings his love melody And when the voices arise they tell the tale of a god who says Whose love won't fail Taste and see Old taste and see The Lord is good. His love runs free Every breath every beat [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] ♪ Through the shadows, through the frame ♪ ♪ I'm listening close I'll obey ♪ ♪ Teach me, teach me, oh Lord ♪ ♪ When I'm weak, you make me strong ♪ ♪ When I'm lost you bring me along ♪ ♪ Your mercy, Your grace ♪

♪ It carries me on, teach me ♪ ♪ Oh teach me, oh Lord ♪ ♪ Teach me your ways, oh Lord, oh Lord ♪ ♪ I'm here, I'm waiting ♪ ♪ My heart restored teach me, teach me, teach me, oh Lord ♪ ♪ Teach me, teach me, oh Lord ♪ ♪ Tell me, teach me, oh Lord, oh Lord, oh Lord, oh Lord ♪ ♪ Teach me, teach me, oh Lord ♪ ♪ Teach me your ways, oh Lord ♪ ♪ Teach me your ways, oh Lord, oh Lord ♪ ♪ I'm here, I'm waiting ♪ ♪ My heart restored teach me, teach me, teach me, oh Lord ♪ ♪ Teach me, teach me, oh Lord ♪ ("Pomp and Circumstance") ("Pomp and Circumstance") ("Pomp and Circumstance") ♪ How long, Lord, will you hide your face ♪ ♪ The night stretches on, no sign of grace ♪ ♪ My heart's restored, it won't stop its age ♪ ♪ I'm counting stars, they fall in faith ♪ ♪ The silence cuts like a broken blade ♪ ♪ How long do you mend what's been free ♪ ♪ How long, Lord, how long will you leave me ♪ ♪ Here alone, a crowd, a crowd ♪ ♪ Still the answers unknown, are you listening ♪ ♪ Are you near, are you near, are you near ♪ ("Pomp and Circumstance") ("Pomp and Circumstance") ♪ The shadows mark they dance and creep ♪ ♪ My souls are prisoner, I cannot sleep ♪

♪ How long till you pull me from the deep ♪ ♪ How long, Lord, how long will you leave me here alone ♪ ♪ A crowd, a crowd, still the answers unknown ♪ ♪ The answers are known ♪ The clouds roll heavy, but they can't stay long [music] The night feels endless, but it's not that strong The earth keeps turning Trust where you belong Do not fret, no, don't you cry The storm will break, the sun will rise Trust the Lord and dry your eyes The wind may howl, but it can't steal your peace The rain may fall, but it brings release In the hands of grace, every fear will see Patience whispers hold on time Faith will carry through the fire Do not fret, no, don't you cry The storm will break, the sun will rise Trust the Lord and dry your eyes The river knows how to find its way The mountains stands, though it wears with age Be still and know through every state [music] [music] [music] Why did you leave me here in this night so black? I called your name, but it echoed back The stars are blind, the moon won't glow Is there a reason for the season?

Why have you forsaken me? I'm lost in the shadow of a dead tree O Lord, don't you see [music] I built my house on the shifting sand The tide came in and erased my plans The ocean road while I stood still Why have you forsaken me? I'm drowning in waves that won't set me free O Lord, don't you see But the wind it whispers A voice so low through the ashes of sorrow Starts to grow [music] All right, here we go. Can you preach that? This is a classic. This is an oldie, one of the originals, another mud bog. All right, we haven't done one of these in a while because I'm like, how much more could I honestly preach that? Okay, here is what I'm thinking about. Loud does not always equal movement. Nothing wrong with being loud, but sometimes we could be loud but have no movement. The true thing is this, are we growing in Christ? Are we, are we building that foundation that I talked about in the sermon? Are we building these things, building our faith for the storm, before the storm? Just because you're loud, these trucks are loud, okay? There's nothing wrong with that and there's nothing wrong with being loud, but don't just be loud half-depth. Don't just be loud, be able to get through some stuff in your life. Don't just be loud, be able to get through some of the toughest ruts that are going to happen in life. It's not just about being loud, it is about being able to make progress, growing in your faith. How do you grow in your faith? Man, that B-I-B-L-E baby, that B-I-B-L-E baby, boy and baby, girl, them ladies and gents is the book for you and me. So that's what I'll say. Can you preach that mud box? Being loud is okay, but you better be

able to get through some ruts. You've got to have that faith. You've got to have that connection with Jesus, that man, when I hit that rut, when I hit those things of life, we know they're going to happen, I just preached about it, that I am ready. I am built for the storm, before the storm, where I could see the other side of it all. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] So close. [BLANK_AUDIO] [MUSIC] [APPLAUSE] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [MUSIC] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO]

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[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] But my 41 is coming. The mud just shows what the truck is built for. Sometimes mud in life, storms of life just show, man. This is what the faith that trust is built for. Jesus said, man, this is going to happen. But when you build your life on him, on his foundation, the wind of waves will beat against the house, but it will not take it down. Can you preach that? I tried. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO]

[BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] Gosh, I just got to put the shades on. Man, I love, love, love. Being able to come out and minister with you guys to see y'all on the other side. Guys, these weeks are some of my absolute favorite weeks in what I tell the church all the time is this. When we get a win, all of us win, all of us win, get this man, especially if you watch this far. If you are a part of champion and you're rolling with this, when we have a win, when we have a win, When we have man just God do something in somebody's life to this place, baby, you just got to put them shades on because it feels good to win. And I want to say this late in the episode, I want to look you right in that camera and say this. If you're not a part of a winning team, champion is winning, baby. Make it on board with us, get on board with us, row with us, let's win together. Whether you've got a few weeks left, a few months left for your life, or let's win together, just row with us, be a part of it. Man, when you do something to contribute, meaning you just spread it, you encourage somebody, man, go watch this episode. You tell somebody back on whatever it might be, when you row with us, you're a part of the winning team, baby. You just got to woo with a tear in my eye with them shades on, baby, and just say, hey, welcome to the winning team. It's actually a year this week that we've been on the PANDO app, and thank you all for winning and rowing and championing these seasons with us. I love all of you deeply. Let's get to the last part of this of the entrepreneur segment. Painting Business is one of the easiest businesses to get into, even if you don't have experience. I've helped thousands of painting contractors grow their business. I've helped hundreds of people start a painting business and grow to millions of dollars a year. I also run my own portfolio of painting companies that does about $37 million a year, with two of our companies doing about $9 million a year. In this video, I'm going to break down how to start in the painting business, even if you don't have experience. Let's dive in.

This is how 18-year-old college kids ran a painting business. If they can do it, so can you. So when I was in college, I did a college internship with a company called College Works Painting, and there was a bunch of these companies around the country that did this. It was an internship where, as an intern, you would run a painting business this spring and summer. You would knock doors, sell jobs, hire painters, manage crews, and actually earn a profit on the work you produced. I did this when I was 18 years old. I ran a $60,000 painting branch and made a little bit of money. And then the next few, five years, I coached about a hundred other college students as their mentor through the same experience and oversaw about $2.5 million in business while I was going to college full-time. Every year, this company did about $25 million per year in business, and every year, that $25 million was done by fresh interns who had never done this before. They had no background in business and no background in painting. So how did this happen? How did we do it? So I'll tell you the same thing. I would always tell college students when I was recruiting people for the internship, which is, why do you run a painting business? College students don't think running a painting business is very cool. A lot of adults don't think running a painting business is very cool, right? It's like an [inaudible] business. And when I, still to this day, when I tell people I run a painting business, they think I have a van and a ladder and a brush, and I'm a painter. And I'm like, well, a little different than that. Like I run a massive portfolio of painting companies, and I'm like a business person, but people don't think painting is cool. And so we would always have to explain to college students why the painting business. And so this is why. First, it's a really simple business. Most people can paint a house themselves. If you just watch a few YouTube videos, like you could paint a room yourself. A lot of people watching this video have painted themselves. So it's a relatively simple business compared to a lot of other businesses. You could start like software development or something in AI, like you need a lot more technical experience there. Painting is a pretty simple business. Number one. So we don't need to learn much about the business itself, which allows us to focus on the mechanics of business, like marketing, sales, production, team building and things like that. The second reason we get into the painting business is there's not a lot of risk. We're just painting houses. We're not doing hard surgery.

There's not high stakes. The worst thing you do is you get paint on the wrong thing or you got to repaint something. Like it's not very high stakes. It's pretty low risk. The third reason we get into the painting business is because it's really low startup costs. You don't need much to start a painting business. In fact, you don't even need to buy equipment to start a painting business. I started my business with 200 bucks and made 4k in profit in the first month. So low startup costs, simple business, low risk, and we can start it really simple. So one of the things we did with college students is we would only do exterior residential repaint projects on cookie cutter homes. We wouldn't do custom homes. We wouldn't do interior. We wouldn't do commercial. We wouldn't even do anything that was built more than 20 years ago. We would keep it so, so simple at the beginning and that's how you can get into this business. As a beginner with no experience, is you can keep it really simple because the differentiating factor in this business is professionalism. And somehow this industry still lacks professionalism across the board. And so it's not hard to this day to come in and be more professional and bring better business principles than most of the people who are out there. And that's the differentiating factor. There's plenty of great painters out there that you can tap into. It's not about being a great painter. It's about being a great business person. And if I can teach college students how to do that, I can teach you how to do that. This is how you learn the trade if you're new to the painting business. Obviously it's important that being in any business, you understand the trade, but there are plenty of things that you've gotten into in your life that you started not knowing anything and now you know a lot about it. it could be your current career path. Everybody starts at zero and then acquires knowledge, and this is gonna be no different. You still need to know the trade, you don't have to be the master craftsman. I am a horrible painter. Someone asked me the other day, hey Eric, what do you say when a customer wants you

to paint the house? My answer was, ha, you do not want me to paint your house. I'm a horrible painter. I get paint in the wrong places. I get paint on me. I take forever. Like I'm a very bad painter. I have painted maybe two houses from start to finish in my 20 plus year career in the painting industry. I haven't touched a brush since maybe 2011. So it's been a long time. You don't need to do any of the painting to run the painting business. And that's how most big businesses are. Like the person who runs a five million dollar company does not do the service at the, like I don't like to say bottom level, but like at the front end, the front lines. They're not doing that because they can't, because they're running the business. And the people who do get stuck painting, actually that's the first thing that you do. So if you're someone watching this business and you're painting, my advice to you is, you have to stop painting so you can build a business. So your job is not to be an expert painter, but you need to have the knowledge of the craft itself. So let's talk about how you acquire the trade knowledge that you need. There's two things I'm gonna show you first,

is how you acquire knowledge over time. So at the very beginning, just like we did with college students, you're gonna start with low complexity. You're gonna start really simple at the beginning. And then over time, as you go through the business, you're gonna learn more and more and more into getting into things that are more complex. So even when I started my painting company, my first painting company, Foothills Painting in 2010, I'd already been in the business for six years. So I knew stuff, but even then, it wasn't until year three, where we actually started doing interior projects. We still just did exterior because the business is easier to scale when you keep it simple. So this is actually a win for you because you're gonna be nervous to do complex projects. So you're gonna say no. People with experience say yes to complex projects and they actually complicate the business, which makes it harder to scale. So over time, you can slowly make the business more and more complex, but at the beginning, you just keep it really, really simple in this little box down here. So there's not much to learn and you say no to everything else. And then over time, we're gonna learn more and more

and become masters of the trade. But at the beginning, if this is all you're servicing, you just need to be a master of this so that you can serve clients in this box. And then over time, we can expand your service offerings as you learn more. So how do you learn? There's five main ways that you can learn the trade. The first way you can learn it is online. There's an abundance of resources online. You can go on there and just start Googling, right? There's YouTube videos, there's DIY videos, there's articles, you can use ChachiBT and say, hey, I wanna start a painting business. I wanna keep it simple. I'm gonna do residential repaints, make a curriculum for everything I need to know and link to resources. You can use all these resources online to build yourself a crash course and just go consume tons of content for the next two to three weeks, and you will learn a lot. The next thing you can get involved in is groups. All right, so this is like, the best groups they get involved in is painting contractor groups on Facebook. There's a bunch of these. In fact, there's a group on Facebook called Painting Contractors with 200 or 250,000 members.

You could just like go start reading through the group or you could just start posting questions in the group and you'll get tons of responses 'cause there's a lot of people really passionate about painting in that group. That's an excellent resource ongoing. My head of all production still uses groups like that when he encounters things he's never seen before because that still happens in our business. The next really great resource you have is your vendors. So in most places, this is gonna be Sherwin Williams, you know, your paint provider. It could also be Home Depot and Bear Paint, it could be Valestpar, it could be Pittsburgh paints, whatever, it could be Benjamin Moore, whichever supplier you're using to get your paint, their job is to help you. And I can tell you that the reps at Sherwin Williams need to open lots of accounts. One of the biggest parts of their whole job is actually helping startups. They have all the answers about product, application, services. They are incredibly, incredibly useful to you. Make a great relationship with your vendors and they can help you learn what you need to learn including like just go do a crash course with them. Like that's literally their job that they get paid for is to help you learn. Next up is gonna be your cruise.

So when you start the business, you're gonna start hiring experienced crews. I mean, almost everyone I hire to paint houses has more experienced painting houses than I have. You're gonna hire crews, whether it's subcontractors or employees, I recommend subcontractors. A lot of these guys have been painting for 15 years and when you come across something you haven't seen before, you just ask them, hey, can we paint this? Have you done it before? How much would I need to pay you for it? And that gives me an anchor point for what I need to charge. You're gonna learn a lot from your crews and you're gonna start over here with stuff that's really simple and then using these resources, you start to slowly expand out your knowledge base and learn. And then finally through all of this is just through experience. So at the beginning, you're gonna do all this research with online and groups and it's gonna get you good base knowledge. And then you're gonna start to encounter things that you don't know. And when you encounter things you don't know, that's experience and then you're gonna use And that's how anybody becomes a master and anything is through experience and learning. Again, we're not doing heart surgery here. We're not doing anything that's urgent here.

Any question that ever comes up is not an emergency. So you actually can just say, I'm not sure customer. Let me get back to you. I just wanna make sure I've got the right information. I wanna make sure I handle this the right way. Can I get back to you in a couple hours? And then you go post them there. You do a little online research. You hit up your crew and you hit up your vendor. And in two hours, you just totally equipped yourself with everything you need to learn about the trade. So this is how you learn the trade over time at the beginning, keep it really simple and then slowly add and that will actually benefit you in business. And there's no shortage of resources. This is how everybody learns. And you will very quickly be up to speed. This is how I sold my first five jobs with no reputation. When you start your painting business, you don't have a reputation. And so how are you gonna sell against the people who already exist? We have something going for us in the painting industry, which is there's a total lack of trust. The industry, really the whole home service and contracting industry has a bad reputation. Just go ask people, did you ever have any work done in your house? How is your experience? And it's almost always bad.

Like we just have a bad reputation. So there's actually a little benefit to being new. Is you're not from the industry. The industry they already don't trust. And so you're almost on the same page side by side of the customer talking about how bad the industry is and you're not from it. Therefore you can build trust on that. And that's what I lean into. So when I was selling my very first jobs, I didn't have any before and after pictures. I didn't have any reviews and customers like, how long you been in business? I'm like, you would actually be my first customer. And they would be nervous about that. And I would just say like, do you have any concerns about that or questions about that? And they'd ask whatever question or concern. And they'd say, look, I haven't done this before. And I know you've been taking a chance on me. And so let me tell you why you can't take a chance on me. I think that painting house is really about two things. We gotta make sure we're using good products and then we gotta make sure we do the job right. But painting house is actually pretty simple. Like you can just look at YouTube videos on how to paint the house. That's not the problem with the industry. The problem is that people don't do what they say. They don't show up on time, they leave messes,

they're difficult, they're hard to work with. It's all the horror stories you've heard. What I can promise you is I'm not gonna do any of that. Here's my track record, here's my character. Here's what I believe. And I will personally be here every single day. So I can make my own personal promises to a customer that the big companies can't because you're interacting with a sales person. So you don't need to win every job. You just need to win one job. And once you win one job, you get, before and after pictures, you get a review, you get a reference and someone you can call because you're gonna knock it out of the park. The next job will be easier, the next job will be easier. So the hardest job to win is the first one. So you're gonna sell on character. But there's three things that we need to really focus on to start getting clients. We focus on marketing, we need to focus on sales, and we need to focus on pricing. Later, we'll get to, how do we actually get the houses painted? So for marketing, there's a couple of key principles. The first thing is at the beginning, you wanna do things that bring in money fast. Here's some examples of things that don't bring in money fast. Websites, don't spend a bunch of money on a website. Build a free one. Your website doesn't matter if nobody goes to it

and no one's going to it because nobody knows you because you're brand new and you're not spending any money to get people to it. Wrapping vehicles, not a bad idea, but if you go spend 2,500 bucks wrapping a vehicle, you might not get a call for a month. And it's gonna take like a few jobs to make that worth it. It might take three or four months to get your money back. We want things that we can put money out and get that money back quick. Another example would be investing in SEO. Really good thing to do, don't do it at the beginning. What we want is things that return money now. The second thing to understand is the beginning is about hustle. You just have to make it happen. The people who succeed at starting their business and the people who fail, the difference is grit and will and willingness to do what's necessary. Like you just have to go put in the work at the beginning because nobody knows you and you just have to go like get through that first early stage, get that first job and then get a second and then a third and then start getting one a week. The third thing we want to look at is your five options for marketing. One is you can do door to door marketing. That's what I did.

I think it's the absolute best thing that you can do at the beginning. You don't have to do it forever. You just have to do it at first just to get the ball rolling and create cashflow. And then you can start using money instead of time. Two is lawn sons. It's super basic, but it works. Just drive around town, start paying attention. How many lawn signs do you see? I can tell you driving around my town. I look at this. I don't see hardly any lawn signs for painting contractors. If you just start putting up a lot of lawn signs, like people will see you and they'll call you when they need painting. Tell you a really quick story about this. One of my project managers, he lives on a farm and he has a barn and somehow like a car crashed through his barn and he had to replace his barn and I talked to Ray that morning and found out he needs a new barn. I was driving home from taking my daughter to school and I saw a sign at a stoplight and said, "We build barns." I took a picture of it, texted it to Ray. Ray called him and they rebuilt Ray's barn for... Lesson there is like, if you're just visible when a customer needs you, you get the business.

There is no brand in painting. It's literally like a convenience thing. Be there when they need you. Three is flyers. If you want, you can just drop flyers. You'll drop like a thousand flyers, get two or three phone calls. It works, but what's better is to actually knock on the doors too. Four is lead services. Lead services like Angie, Network, Thumbtack. These are not all great. Sometimes they're really expensive, but at the beginning you don't have any other costs. And so you can afford them. And you pay them for lead. So it's a really quick transaction. And then five is gonna be Facebook ads. If you have some experience in this, you can run them. If you don't have experience, it's hit or miss. If you work with me and my coaching program, we have webinars where we teach you how to run your Facebook ads productively and it's highly effective. Now I want you to understand the cash flow here. So the way that the cash flow in the business works is they're two parts of the business. First we collect 25% when we sell the job. And the only expense we have is our marketing expense,

which is usually 10 to 15%. Which means when you sell a job, you're actually making 10 to 15% positive cash flow. And then we have the other 75% of the project when we actually paint the house. This is the production. Our cost is our subcontractor for 50%. And so we make another 25% cash flow when you produce the house. And so we make money when we sell and pay back our marketing costs. We make money when we produce and put that in our pocket. And what's nice is when you use these options, you get a lead this week. You do the estimate within seven days and you close it within three. So we turn over our cash and payback our marketing expenses within like 10 days. So once you hustle all these things in the very beginning and you start doing a couple jobs a week, now you're actually making enough cash flow over here and here that you don't need to do all this stuff anymore. You can hire people to do this and you can double down on this. All right, sales, I'm gonna walk you through a really basic framework. I have a much more detailed video on this that you can check out where I go into 30 minutes of detail on our sales process.

I'm gonna give you the three minute version right now. There's five main steps in the sales process that we wanna master. If you get these five things down, these five playbooks we use to sell 50% of our bids. And then there's a lot more in depth we can get into, but this is the fundamentals that makes people really great at sales. The first thing is the initial call. This is when we set up the estimate. We set expectations for the estimate. We build a little report on the phone. We find out what they need and want. We build out with the customer. This is what the estimate process will look like. We make sure they're available for the time. Things like that. Set yourself up for an opportunity to actually win the job. At the house, we take a little bit of time to do a Q and A. We really listen and we ask questions and we find out what's important to them. You gotta understand what's important to your customer so you know how to tailor everything else you're gonna talk about to them so it's a custom experience. The next thing we do is a walk around. That's when we actually walk the project. We identify different problem areas.

We make recommendations. We customize bid. We ask them what they want done. This is where you build a custom estimate for your customer so you get them exactly what they need and want. Then the next thing we have in here is what we call pre-closes. This is basically two things that we do to give customers a reason to buy. You gotta realize that most customers, if you don't give them a reason to buy, then they're just getting an estimate and so you get out to the thing, to their house and you walk through the estimate process and they don't take it very seriously and you ask questions like, "Hey, do you want this or that?" And they're like, "I don't know, just quote both." And then you get to the end and they're like, "Cool, thanks for this." And you're like, "Yeah, do you wanna do it?" And they're like, "Oh, I don't know. We're not ready to decide yet." Like they didn't even take it seriously and it's super frustrating. And so we need to give them a reason to take it seriously and a reason to make buying decisions and the best way to do that is with money and it doesn't take much to give someone an incentive.

So there's two ways that we'd save people money. One is scheduling, so there's a scheduling discount. When we say, "Hey, if you can be flexible around our schedule, we'll save you some money when you want to paint six weeks to eight weeks, cool. I've got a couple spots here, but that worked for you, cool. I'll knock a couple hundred bucks off." And then we also let them know, "Hey, if everything looks good today, you like me, you like the price, you wanna work with me, saves me time, if you just let me know that today." So if you guys say, "Today, Eric, let's just do it, it helps me out, I'll save you a couple hundred bucks." It's very casual, it's literally an eye scratch your back, if you scratch mine, but that's all it really takes to take someone from a window shopper to a buyer. And then the last thing we have is the clothes. This is where we actually present the estimate and give them the prices and then stop talking and let them actually make a decision. Throughout this whole process, we're gonna build rapport and build a relationship because people buy from people they like, people trust people they like, people buy based on trust. And this is fundamentally our sales process. I've got a much more detailed video, you can go check out there. And then finally, we get to pricing. There's only two things I don't wanna tell you about pricing.

The first is don't worry about it. A lot of people get really panicked and really worried about pricing because you're worried about pricing and job wrong. But if you're building the business the right way, we should charge 5,000 for a project that's gonna cost 2,500 to do. So you would have to bid this project instead of at 5,000, you'd have to bid it at like 2,300 to really screw up So there's not really anything to be too worried about because if you made a mistake like that, you will never make that mistake again. It's 200 bucks to fix that forever. So we just gotta be like in the ballpark of 5,000, 5,300, 4,700, whatever. We've got enough spread at the beginning that you can make good money on any job, even if you're off a little bit. All right, so now we're gonna talk about two things. One, how do we hire? Subcontractors, and then two, how do we do your first jobs? All right, so hiring is really simple. We basically wanna get a lot of leads, and then we screen 'em through email, and then we screen 'em through a phone call, and then we screen 'em through an in-person interview, and then we check out their work, and then we make them a job offer. We wanna cast a big wide net here, and then be super selective,

so we only find the top 1% of people over here. So the question is, how do we get a lot of people up here? Well, there's basically three ways that we can find subcontractors. The first is ads. Typically we do this on Craigslist. We post in the general labor section in the skilled trade section, and we post an ad every single day, or two ads a day, to get lots and lots of candidates. Yes, we spend money doing it. Yes, it's expensive. Yes, it's worth it, because this is the people who are gonna paint your houses and make you money. The second thing we can do is network at the store. All right, so you can literally go to the paint store and look for unmarked white vans, and just say, hey, excuse me, man, are you a subcontractor? Are you ever looking for anyone else to work with? Let's exchange numbers. I've got a couple of projects coming up. I'm looking for somebody. Super simple. This is what they do. Unmarked white vans. You can just talk to people. I found some of my best out of that way. The third thing you can do is on Facebook. So you can do Facebook Marketplace, or you can literally run Facebook ads.

This one, by the way, includes if you see someone painting a house, and it's an unmarked white van painting a house, go talk to the people. That's where I found one of my very best crews that came with 10 guys. He painted a $700,000 job for us in eight weeks when we made a ton of money. So they're out there. We just need to cast a wide net, invest money in here, invest money here, and start doing this because all you really need is one to two subs to do a lot of revenue. For perspective, you basically need two people, is 5,000 per week. So if you wanna do 20,000 a week in a million dollar business, you need eight people to do 20K per week equals one million per year. So that's what we're looking for. We don't need a lot of these. We need a lot of these to get just one or two really good ones here. All right, so let's talk about how we do our first job. So once you are super selective, so you're likely gonna succeed with this person, likely they're gonna do a good job 'cause you were thorough over here, now we need to make sure the first jobs go well. So the very first job, let's just assume we've got a three day project.

All right, let's just pretend every one of our projects is a three day project. This is what our schedule's gonna look like. On the first job, you're gonna show up in the morning and you're gonna show up at the end of the day, and then morning, end of day, morning, end of day. So this is the pre-job walk and then this is the final walk through to collect payment. The next job, you're probably gonna do the same thing. And the next job, you might just show up here and here and here in the final walk. And if everything keeps going well, then you're just like here, here, and here. All right, and then we're just gonna do the first and last, the first and last, and then you get to like, "Hey, they're gonna do the pre-job, "I'm just gonna do the last one." And eventually, with a good crew, you can get to the Promised Land, which is you don't show up at all, and they do the entire project and you manage everything from the phone. This, you need top 1% subcontractors to do that. We call them tier one subcontractors out there who just are phenomenal, who do amazing work, can communicate with clients, can collect final payments and all that. But this is how we're gonna tee this up to make sure that you can do the project really well. And if you meet someone in the morning

and they can't work competently for eight hours until the end of the day, you hired the wrong person, which goes back to, "Hey, I just didn't do a good enough job "in the hiring process." (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (gentle music)