Hi, this is your host, Saptan Bahartiya, and welcome to another episode of T3M, our topic of this month. And topic of this month is infrastructure as code. And today we have with us once again, Rob Herschfeld, CEO of Rec and Rob. It's great to have you on the show. Swap, I'm excited to be here for one of my favorite topics. Exactly. When I was working on this series, you know, your name popped up first.  And we have talked about infrastructure as code so many times. And, you know, we have some lengthy discussions about it. Talk a bit about how do you look at infrastructure as code? How do you use it? And is it different from how others use it? I do think we treat infrastructure as code. And this is a RACN phenomena, but it also comes back to my conversations in the industry. We look at infrastructure as code as much more of a process focused thought instead of tools. So our idea is that the operations team wants to be more like a development team in that how they approach management and automation of their infrastructure. So a dev test prod, high degrees of reuse, a lot of modularity, stop inventing custom stuff all the time, have high reuse, strong APIs, you know, those are the things to me that really drive infrastructure as code processes and practices, not where sort of a lot of people get stuck, which is can I describe my infrastructure in YAML and then submit it, you know, and then store it and get that to me is so low on the hierarchy of infrastructure as code. It's almost laughable. Before I was talking to you, I was recording a show and the team that they gave was that has DevOps kind of lost its luster. So when we look at infrastructure as code, once again, talk a bit about some of the, as you said, practices, processes. What does it mean from these cultural movements? What does it mean for DevOps? And, you know, what DevOps teams can do to once again look at things more like code. It's interesting because DevOps is also a very process statement, but it's very focused on collaboration as the core piece for what makes DevOps DevOps in my mind. It really is this idea that the team should be working together this introduction of the concept of a pipeline of going from a developer into production. And to me, a lot of what we've evolved to from a DevOps perspective is this idea of pipelines. One of the things Racken really promotes is this concept of an infrastructure pipelines. Very similar concept, but connecting together all of the pieces and parts that are necessary to run your infrastructure. And this is one of the things that people often forget when they're dealing with infrastructure. Infrastructure is not one thing. It's actually a connected series of different components, different services, different capabilities for an enterprise, especially on premises, bringing systems online and operating them is usually 10 to 15 different systems that all have to be orchestrated to make that work. And that's where the pipeline comes in. If you're using cloud, people use Terraform. If you looked inside your Terraform plan, the Terraform plan is actually a mini orchestration that's connecting together all of the cloud services for you. And people overlook the fact that there really are a lot of moving parts that have to be connected together. So this idea of pipelining all of the services is very compatible with what DevOps looks at from connecting together or pipelining together different teams and making them work together. They're incredibly compatible components, sort of different conceptually. I think just because there's a discipline involved in infrastructure is code that DevOps teams welcome, but it's a different thought process. And I've been listening to you. I also remember the whole series that we did on infrastructure as code and there was a whole episode dedicated to just collaboration. And once again, you mentioned collaboration a couple of times. Talk about the importance of collaboration and why do you focus so heavily on collaboration? It's one of the things that sort of the formation story for rack and there was was the reason why we started the company is because when we were doing operations work and bringing automation into customer environments. When we were when we were forming it inside of a team at Dell, what we kept finding was that we would bring in automation and then the automation would end up unique at each customer. And so as we improve things, we couldn't help each customer improve. We couldn't share things back. We couldn't work within our teams. And when as rack in one of the things that we find when we work with customers today is that each team is an automation silo. And they have trouble sharing automation between their teams, even if they're doing very similar things with very similar infrastructure. So I look at the amount of waste and frustration, time, toil, right? All these all these complexity all these problems that we have in our in our day to day lives as operators and on the infrastructure side that are exacerbated by the idea that we're not collaborating. We're not reusing each other's work. We're not able to take advantage of the great automation of the team sitting next to me or the company sitting next to me. In a way that allows us to benefit from that shared work. And that is a significant problem, right? I have a strong history in open source and when in open source we try to solve problems together. And it has always been frustrating to me that operations teams have a lot of trouble or before rack in had a lot of trouble actually sharing and reusing code. And that's been a big focus for us as sort of the formation story for rack in is addressing that collaboration story, you know, at the automation level. When we talk about automation, we cannot talk about the big elephant in the loop these days, which is genitive AI, you know, gen AI, LLMs talk about its role. Is it going to help or hurt? This is one of those alarm bells that I've been been trying to sound for people is that, you know, we see people get very excited about LLMs and using code generation techniques. And it works actually very well. I've done some talking about this and shown some demos, but the challenge is that if you're not careful, it's very easy to have the LLM generate a really significant amount of technical debt, meaning code that is generated for one use that isn't maintained by a person is not designed to be maintained by a person is, you know, you're not able to then reuse that. So if you're using LLMs to repeat info code that you might already have, you might generate it very quickly and you might say, I didn't want to reuse code that I already had. I was able to generate new code and it's great and new automation and that's great. The challenge is that everything that people build automation and code wise has a life and has a life cycle to it. So unless you're using LLM for truly throw away scripts, you're potentially walking into cases where it would have been a better investment and we're working to make LLMs help do this to find examples of scripts that already exist where you can say, oh, wait a second, somebody is 90%, 95% of the way there. I can use the LLM to help me understand, interpret, extend and add to the code, the automation that I already have and then collaborate with the people who own that original code. So now you have one piece of code servicing both people. It is definitely a danger that we're running towards, I wouldn't even say walking, we're running towards this idea that we're going to have more and more bespoke automation. We did a roundtable recently where we heard from financial operators in the financial services area and one of the things that stunned me was they were like, it's not that we don't have enough automation. We actually have too much automation and so if we turn around and have LLMs magnify that effect and create even more, we really run the risk of just this explosion of unmaintainable infrastructure. And I think most people already feel like they have more automation than they know how to maintain and more infrastructure than they can track. So we're going to have to use LLMs a lot more carefully to solve that problem or we're just going to race to the bottom fast. Can you also talk about what kind of trends you're seeing in the context of ISC in the ecosystem? ISC is definitely very well entrenched. One of the challenges that we see from a trend perspective is that people keep working in silos here. They take something like a terraform and then they wrap terraform in an orchestrator and then have to then bolt in Ansible or some other automation configuration or bash scripts or things into that system. And so what we see is we see a lot of really interesting tools that get people very excited, often centered on terraform, which is a HashiCorp open source project. And so what we've seen here is that there's a lot of enthusiasm for solving these in siloed dimensions and they add a lot of value doing that. What the challenge is that we're not seeing the collaboration on the other side. So as people start looking at these tools and taking advantage of this infrastructure, they really need to be aware of how do we reuse this technology. It's very common for me to talk to a platform team at an enterprise that has thousands and thousands of terraform scripts and are trying to figure out how to consolidate that work. That's the purpose of the platform team and sort of the growth of platform teams, which is another trend line that I see. But the platform teams themselves are a response to this automation sprawl that we've been creating. And so we have to be careful not to take control away from people, but definitely to encourage a reduction in the sprawl because ultimately it just becomes a challenge and a security issue, a compliance issue, a governance problem when you have a lot of duplicated automation running around. And so that's been something that we're tracking and we're seeing as much as people are enthusiastic about all these tools, they're starting to scratch their head on the governance side of it. And can you also talk about what role is Reckon playing in once again helping organizations kind of embrace these practices, these processes? I appreciate the question. We took an infrastructure as code approach and architecture even before it was called infrastructure as code. We've had several names for it in the past. And at the very foundation when we built the system and I think this is important for thinking how this works. Infrastructure is code thinking, right? The ability to have immutable artifacts, get processes, dev test prod, right? Share and reuse components. So the composable modularity of the way we build automation is designed in from the very start. And that has been a critical piece to how we build a digital rebar or product and make it so that when people build automation, they're able to leverage the existing infrastructure pipelines that we have in place. The processes, the methodologies, the ability to have a very concrete dev process so that when you go into production, every all of your automation is immutable and locked down. I focus on that a lot because it ends up creating a really significant value in ROI because nobody wants variation and change or uncontrolled code in their production environments. And so being able to have these infrastructures code processes, some GitOps and know exactly what's deployed in which places and have ways to manage that and describe it and collect the information. Those are actually the underpinnings of infrastructure is code. Those process controls and gates and really empowering people. And I can tell you that the ROI that the teams who adopt these practices right through digital rebar or through their own process. The ROIs are really significant. Their operators are much more productive. Their infrastructure is more reliable. It's more robust. They're able to create compliance reports and actually tell people what they're doing. They can respond to security issues much more quickly. They actually can rebuild their whole infrastructure from scratch in an hour or two. These are game changing impacts and how people manage and run infrastructure. And they're very real. We see customers. People don't think financial institutions are particularly high achieving IT organizations. They're wrong. They're remarkable IT. They spend a lot and they invest a lot and they do a lot of work in IT. But we've seen just dramatic turnarounds on how quickly organizations can get things done and how reliably and how much especially in highly regulated organizations, how much they can be confident that they know what's going on and they can quickly respond to issues. Rob, thank you so much for taking time out today and talk about, as you said, our favorite topics. Thanks for all those insights. And as usual, I would love to chat with you again soon. Thank you. Thank you, Swap. I appreciate the time and I'm looking forward to our next conversation.


I am choosing to go, I am choosing to follow Jesus. I am choosing to obey the great commission. I am choosing to love the way that he first loved us. I will not settle for anything less. I am choosing to be a disciple of Jesus. Howdy, radiant. It's good to see everybody. And those of you who are joining us online, we want to say welcome to you. We love you and all of our brethren and sister-in at the Portage campus, Pastor Stephan and Candice and your whole team, we love you guys. Come on everybody that's present in the room and at home come on let's clap and say we love you guys and we hear you, we love you and grateful that you're clapping there for us. And this is an important weekend and moving into an important week for our nation. If you have not heard this coming Tuesday is election Tuesday. And I, this last week, Jane and I were up in Northern Michigan on a little bit of a getaway. We went to Trevor city and got to see some of the colors. And while I was up there, I was working on the message and really praying and asking the Lord, what do you want to say this weekend? And actually had an outline for a whole different message for this weekend that I had built as part of this disciple series. And the Holy Spirit really prompted me and arrested me and said, Lee, I want you to talk about politics. Now, the three things that you are never supposed to talk about in church are sex, money and politics. Well, the good news is I'm not talking about money or sex but today I am talking about politics.  And I want you to turn with me in your Bibles to Isaiah chapter six. Now, right about now, people on both sides of the political divide who are part of the radiant family or radiant friends who have joined us this weekend are queuing up all of their cackles going, wonder what side he's going to land on. That's not at all the point of this message. The point of this message this weekend is not that we try and help identify which side God is on, but to help identify whose side we are on, God's or man's. Because God, unwittingly, many people believe that God is not political, God is very political. It's just this, God is not interested in entering into either camp of man's political platforms but God is interested in inviting his people into his political platform. And I want to point you and draw your attention in this chapter, Isaiah chapter six. I'm gonna read it and then we're gonna look at it. And I have some things to say that are gonna help hopefully pastor us and shape us and shift us as we move into this week as the people of God. So look with me at verse number one of chapter six. It says, in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up. And the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim, each had six wings with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to the other saying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.  And the foundations of the threshold shook at the voice of him who called. And the house was filled with smoke. And I said, woe is me, for I am lost. For I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hands a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar.  And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us? And then I said, here am I, send me. Here am I, send me. Now to give you background, Isaiah, who is living about 735 years before Christ. So about the year 735, 736 BC is living in the midst of a time, a period of time in Israel's history of both political grief and political turmoil. And the reason for that is, Uzziah, who's one of the greatest kings in all of Israel's history, has died. And what this has produced is a leadership vacuum in Israel at a time when there's an economic downturn and there is imminent threat of Syria or the Assyrian Empire and Samaria, which is now the northern 10 tribes of Israel that have come under the leadership of Sinakarib. They've been invaded by the Assyrian Empire. They've been conquered. That would be, it'd be like this. It would be like if Kalamazoo, Michigan was a kingdom and Battle Creek, which is kind of a sister city, had already been taken captive and under the control of a foreign army. And they're using that as a base as they threaten to invade us. That's what's going on in Israel. And so Israel has a leadership vacuum. They have a weak king. They have an economic downturn and they have the threat of being invaded by armies.  They don't hack into your Facebook system. And it's not a digital attack. They come in and they rape, pillage, steal and enslave. They are under the imminent threat of that. So much so that Isaiah, who's the prophet of God that is a prophet to the army. That is a prophet to the southern empire or the southern kingdom of Judah. He marks time by the death of the king. In other words, he's marking time by a political tragedy. And in the year that King Uzziah died, he defines what is taking place by the death of the king and then by this encounter that he has with God in the temple of God. The temple in Israel is the center, both politically and spiritually, of the people of God. The temple that Solomon and Bill, it stands there. There's the priesthood. There's the sacrifices. There's the presence of God that marks this temple as significant. And Isaiah is here in Jerusalem in the capital city. He's in the temple. He's filled with turmoil. He's filled with worry and concern about the nation. There's this leadership void. There's this political turmoil. And yet he says, in this moment, I saw the Lord. I saw the Lord on a throne in the temple, high and lifted up. In the temple, high and lifted up. The train of his robe filled the temple. And he saw these living angelic being that the Bible describes as seraphs, which literally described as fiery spirits that are encircling the one who is seated on the throne and they're crying out, holy, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty. And the threshold, the foundations of the very temple, these massive stones, these threshold stones, if you've ever been to Israel and seen these massive stones, limestones that they have built as the foundation stones of the temple. They are shaking at the voice and the temple is filled with smoke. For all those of you who don't think it's biblical to have smoke machines in church, read Isaiah chapter six. We're just imitating what God has done. And here's Isaiah confronted in this moment. God literally has given him the ability to see beyond the natural realm and gives him a glimpse into a higher, greater spiritual reality. The heavenly dimension and he beholds God. Literally, it's as if God, and if you read the whole thing, there's angels, there's his divine counsel there. He asks the question, who shall we send for us? It's God inviting Isaiah, not just through the natural veil, but through the spiritual veil into his purposes and into his politics.  Who's gonna execute our decrees? And Isaiah, as he beholds God, is undone. He's undone in this moment. Imagine stones the size of a car trembling under your feet. And the veil between this reality and the eternal realm is pulled back and you behold God on a throne.  They take wings and they literally cover their face so that they're not exposed to the glory of the living one, the sovereign who's on the throne. They fly in circles, never ceasing to declare holy, holy, holy. In other words, other than different, distinct is God from all the other kings and all the other beings that exist, no one is like God.  And his voice literally shakes stones that modern man marvel at how they were moved. He says, I am undone. Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips. He's confronted by his words. He's confronted about the attitude of his heart. And his whole posture begins to change. The very same throne room that Isaiah sees in this vision, 700 plus years later would be seen by John the apostle as he is the last living apostle of the Lamb who is now imprisoned on a work camp island that is nothing more than a rock quarry in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, an island named Patmos. And in the day of the Lord, which is Sunday, John is in the spirit, he's 90 plus years old. And in Revelation chapter four, he sees the same throne. Isaiah chapter four says after this, I looked and behold, a door was standing open in heaven and the first voice, which I heard, heard speaking was like the sound of a trumpet and it said, come up here and I will show you what must take place after this. At once I was in the spirit and behold, a throne stood in heaven with one seated on the throne. And then Revelation five verse six describes who it is that's on the throne between the throne and the four living creatures of the same creatures that surround the throne of God in heaven where he reigns and rules. It says, and he was among the elders. I saw a lamb standing as though it had been slain. And do you know what these living creatures are saying 700 years later? Holy, holy, holy, they didn't grow tired of it. 700 years later, what happened to Isaiah? What happened to John when they encountered the presence of God? When their countenance and their eyes, both of their natural and their heart were lifted up to something higher than the situation in a turmoil that they were facing and the political issues that were surrounding them. Well, I'll tell you what happened. Their fear went to fascination, their confusion went to confidence, their impurity went to impunity and their worry became encapsulated in the mission of God. Isaiah's response was, I'm a man of unclean lips. He has an angel take a coal off of the altar, the altar in the temple, which is a coal that is part of the remains of a sacrifice that had already been given. The angel took the coal, flies to him. Can you imagine this in your prayer time? An angel of the Lord, a fiery one coming to you with wings all over the place and he takes a coal, he touches your lips, he sanctifies you, cleanses you. And in that moment, everything changed for Isaiah. Or as they say in Australia, Isaiah. Everything changed in that moment. He said, he heard God speaking in the Godhead and amongst his divine counsel and he says, who will we send to the nation to be our spokesperson? And Isaiah went from being afraid, confused, grieving to saying, here am I, send me. And it's because of this that most commentators declare that this was the calling of the prophet Isaiah. Now, this next week bears a striking similarity to the time of Isaiah. Never before have I seen the tension, the turmoil, the grief and the confusion in our nation regarding politics. And I would also say that I have never seen a time when the political conversation and the sense of urgency related to politics has even found root in the church. To where much like Isaiah, we're marking time by the turmoil that surrounds us. How many know 2020 is going to be a hallmark year? In fact, in the future, 2020 may even become a cuss word. And in the midst of that season, there are many people that are feeling a lot of the same fears, anxieties, grief, anger, divide, division. And instead of saying in the year that King Uzziah died, we might say in the year of the great election, in American history, I saw the Lord. That is my prayer for the church. It's my prayer for this church, this little flock that God has given to us, that we would not become caught up in trying to squeeze God into our political box, but instead our eyes would be lifted up and we would have a greater revelation of God, even in this hour than we've ever had before, of the Lamb of God, more than we've ever had before. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't vote. Jane and I have already voted. That doesn't mean that we don't have political convictions we absolutely should. And it's not my job as a pastor to give to you a political checklist. My job is to teach you the scriptures. And I personally believe if a Holy Spirit filled Christian with a Bible in their hand and a submitted posture before the Lord, the Lord, the Holy Spirit is gonna lead and guide you into all truth. You will not stand before me and give an account for the votes that you pass, or the boxes, or the circles that you check, but make no mistake about it, Saint, you will stand before God and give an account for the vote because you do not belong to yourself, you belong to the Lamb of God. And so it is not my responsibility to say this or that. There is a whole mentality that we can have that says that God is so far removed from the politics of men that he's not interested in the politics of men and nothing could be further from the case. But God is above the politics of man. When Isaiah has this vision, it says he was high and lifted up. The temple represents the political, the spiritual environment, but above it all was Jesus. Around him were the angelic ministers and God invited Isaiah into his political agenda to be a prophetic voice and not a political pawn, to be a prophetic voice to the people that is higher than the politics of man. Listen, we operate in a natural plane and so whatever is going to happen Tuesday is going to happen on Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday or a month from now. But let me tell you something. The greatest shock of our hearts will not be or should not be connected to what happens on Tuesday. The greatest shock waves that have been felt in our culture must not be the ramifications of election day. The greatest shock that hell has ever experienced in our world has ever experienced and the church needs to stand in awe of his not election day shock, its resurrection day shock that the lamb of God has overcome. Jesus rose from the dead and he has been given a name that is higher than any other name that at the name of Jesus Christ, every name will bow and every tongue will confess that he is Lord. And so going into this week, here's what I want us to remember because revelation calls into remembrance significant spiritual realities. If we fail to remember, then we will fail to tap into the spirit of revelation that awakens our heart with confidence and fascination at who Jesus is. We don't want Jesus to just be a cheerleader for the platforms of men. We want to be prophetic voices of the one that we've become fascinated by. The one that we see high and lifted up on the throne. As believers, we've got to be people that swear our allegiance not to a donkey and not to an elephant, but to a lamb who is on the throne. That's who I've chosen to swear my allegiance to. My swear my allegiance to the lamb. That's who I belong to. So what do we need to remember? We need to remember a few things. Number one, we need to remember who's on the throne. We need to remember who is on the throne. The Lamb of God, Jesus, our King is on the throne. Ephesians chapter one, I want to just read this to you. It's important. In fact, in your Bibles, you should just turn over there with me. We're going to do old fashioned sword drills. I read a lot of verses and sometimes I just put it up on the screens and we'll do that right now. But I want you to look at this. Ephesians chapter one, verse 19 through 23. Look at this, verse number 19. It says, and what is the immeasurable? This is Paul saying that he wants the eyes of our understanding to be opened to this. To what? Verse number 19. And what is the immeasurable greatness of his power towards us who believe? According to the working of his great mind that worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead. Now get to this next part. What happened when Jesus was raised from the dead? And seated him at the right hand in 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 age to come. It sounds to me like he's above it all. And then it goes on, look at verse 22. 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 and all. Do you know that because Jesus was raised from the dead, God has put him on the throne and he is over all authority and all government and all rule and all platforms. When the Bible says that his voice shook the threshold of the temple, what that means is the platforms that men build and the agendas that men express are only vulnerable to the voice of the one who is higher than them, which is Jesus. Jesus is above it all. And church, we gotta remember who's on the throne. I'm gonna preach myself happy, even if you're not. See, Jesus didn't die to win 270 delegates. He came to win 8 billion souls. And he's not waiting for an electoral college to declare that he is the rightful king. The father, the creator of everything, the one in whom every family in heaven and earth has been named, he has declared him his king and he has installed him on Mount Zion. We gotta remember who is on the throne, not just some little spiritual language like, oh, Jesus is on the throne spiritually, but not really. Church, it's important for us to understand as we live in this world and we navigate these waters, we're gonna be political creatures, we're gonna have preferences, we're gonna have relationships and we're gonna listen to voices and all these types of things. But at the core of who we are, we've gotta constantly have our eyes lifted to something higher, which is to the reality that Jesus Christ is king. He's on the throne. And when that happens, we'll go from fear to fascination, we'll go from confusion into confidence, no matter what comes our way. Number two, we have to remember what our unity is built around. Our unity as Christians is not built around our political agreement. Our unity is not built around the platforms of men, it is built around the purposes of God. It isn't built around the promised work to come, but it is built around the finished work of Christ. What Jesus has done on the cross. Ephesians 2, 14 says, for he, Jesus, is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the laws and the commandments and the ordinances that he might create in himself one new man in the place of two, so making peace. The enemy comes and wants to divide. Jesus came to unite us. And let me just tell you that right now, both platforms, political platforms in our American context, because believe it or not, there are other political platforms all over the globe. We just happen to live in this nation. But in this nation, both political platforms work over time to divide and conquer. Jesus came to unite. Not unite us around our political agendas, but to unite us because we recognize that all of us come to God as sinners. All of us have brokenness, and only Jesus can become our peace. The platforms of men create cycles that perpetuate division.  It's the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel is the only thing that can break down barriers between black and white, between wealthy and poor, between young and old, between Democrats and Republicans. It's the finished work of Jesus on the cross. Why? It's because nobody comes to the cross in pride or arrogance. Everybody comes to the cross in humility. And it's only through the supernatural shed blood of Jesus that we can be healed and made whole. You see, we can argue about where did sin begin and who's responsible for it and what created our divide, even the racial tension that's going on in our country. There is lots of guilt that can be dished out, but you know what? I'm not interested, and our nation is not necessarily interested in recognizing taking responsibility. Human sinfulness does not wanna take responsibility, but I'll tell you what I know. I know this, that I was a sinner and Jesus died on the cross for me so that I could be made new and I could be made one.  There's one body, it's Jesus and we are one in Jesus. And only his blood brings us together. Only his blood brings us together. We need one another. It's time for the church to be an expression to a broken world of what unity looks like and that unity can only be found in agreement on who Jesus is. And we work from there. So we gotta contend for unity. Ephesians chapter four says earnestly contend for the unity of the spirit. We gotta fight for the unity that we find in Christ. In Colossians chapter three, Paul admonishes us. He says, put on then. He's talking to believers. Listen to this. Put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved. Listen to this description. Here's what he wants us to put on. Compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against another, post it all over Facebook. It's not what it says. Protest them. No, that's not what it says. It says forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you. So you must also forgive. And above all these things, listen, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful. We gotta remember what our unity is based around. We all need forgiveness. Anybody who's watching me right now, is there anybody that I've ever met that doesn't need forgiveness? Do we all need some empathy? Do we all need compassion at times? Would we all do better if we listened to one another instead of talking at one another? Would we all do better if we took a spirit of humility instead of an arrogant, prideful, boastful attitude? What would happen if in humility and in grace and we let our words reflect empathy and compassion that we've received from God? What if we were quick to forgive and slow to divide? Because listen, if you get inflamed by the politics of men, the leaven of Herod and the leaven of the Pharisees, it will divide us every single time. But as the church, we've got to be reminded what we are united around. We are united in what God has done for us, and not what man promises to do for us tomorrow. Number three, we have to constantly remember how broken our world system is. And church, listen to me, the political system is an expression of this world's brokenness because man is broken and man creates political platforms. And so our platforms are broken. The democratic platform is broken. The Republican platform is broken. The Libertarian platform is broken. The Green platform is broken. The Independent platform is broken. And that's not to say that we don't necessarily have to engage in it. It just means that it cannot be our hope and we have to remember that we're called to something higher. Hebrews chapter 12 says, verse 27 and 28, this phrase yet once more indicates the removal of things that are shaken. That is the things that have been made in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain, therefore, let us be grateful for we are receiving a kingdom. Listen to this. We are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and all for our God, just like Isaiah saw, is a consuming fire. Do you notice what it says? Everything that can be shaken is gonna be shaken. Our whole world is broken. It's being shaken just like the threshold of the temple in Isaiah's day was being shaken. Everything that they put their confidence in was being shaken. Today we're seeing everything that we put man's confidence in is being shaken but God's not allowing it to be shaken so that we would be fearful or expect destruction. He's doing it so that that which cannot be shaken is revealed and the only thing that cannot be shaken is that which is eternal, which is his kingdom. The politics of man are constantly on the decrease. The politics of Jesus are always on the increase. Of the increase of his government there shall be no end. Our world is broken and church we gotta learn how to navigate in the midst of a broken world without allowing the broken world to break us. And the last thing that we have to remember that Isaiah captured out of his revelation was we need to remember what our mission is. Isaiah says to the Lord, here am I, send me, I'll go. He wasn't going before this. He's in the temple. He's searching. He's grieving. He's scared. Sounds like us. But after he has a revelation of who's on the throne. He says, God, I'll go. My eyes have seen the Lord. And I know that whatever happens, God is on the throne. And nobody's removing him off the throne. Just like him, we have to remember what our mission is. Our mission is not to build a perfect utopia without God. As the people of God, our job is to proclaim the nearness of the kingdom of God. The gospel of Jesus Christ. I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation for the Jew first and also to the Gentile. I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus. I don't want a perfect world without a perfect King because it will never happen. And if I put my hope in some platform or some agenda that they're gonna fix all the problems, unite us, make everything go away, then I have misplaced trust. My trust is in the one that I behold on the King. And my response, my heart's response is God. Isaiah says, I'm lost. Guys, our culture is lost. The only thing that will bring us and reorient our hearts is a revelation of who Jesus is. The gospel that has the ability to save us. It's the only thing that has the power to save us. And the church is the carrier of the gospel. What would happen if out of our mouths, listen, can we just be honest? We are a people of unclean lips. We are a people that have unclean lips. What do we need? We need the coals off of the altar, the finished work of Jesus to be applied to our lips. So that the words that are coming out of our mouths and the things that we're clicking on the keyboards with our fingers and the thoughts we are thinking are purified under the atoning work of Jesus. It's possible that we are successful in our political endeavors and we are failures in the gospel endeavors. The church was never called to be the champions of either political entity. We've seen both ideologies championed in God's house. What we need to do is be people that champion the Lamb's cause. And even this week as our nation rages, I'm not gonna make any predictions about it. I don't know what's gonna happen, but I know this. That come Wednesday, I know who's on the throne. Come Thursday, I know who's ruling and reigning. Come Friday, I know who the one is who is able to break the seals on the scroll. Come Friday, I know who's able to heal the nations with the leaves from the tree of life.  And come Sunday, I know who the one is who has overcome the grave, who rolled the stone away. And if he's able to roll the stone away and emerge and speak peace, I know that he's able to step into our situation and declare peace, be still. Cause I'm still on the throne. If we come through this election cycle, bitter, divided, gloating, offended, angry, then it will show that our truest allegiance is to the politics of man and not the politics of Jesus. But if as the people of God, we come through this election cycle and we can forgive, we can believe the best, that we can pray for one another and with one another, even people that we disagree with. If we can unite around Jesus, if we can speak words filled with grace, if we can demonstrate faith and we can work side by side for a higher agenda, if we can point the world to Jesus, then we'll be able to show the world, our King, who is high and lifted up. And his name is Jesus, and he is the hope of the world. Church, lift up our eyes, and behold the King who is on the throne. And let's be people of the Lamb. Let's be people about the politics of the kingdom of God. You see, in the kingdom of God, every sinner is a candidate to become a saint. In the agenda of heaven, every sick person is a candidate to receive healing by his stripes.  In the politics of Jesus, those with dark skin have an inheritance just as much as those who have light skin.  In the kingdom of God, there's a place for everyone. And that's what we stand for. So my prayer is that as we go into this week, we will be people that are prayerful. We will be people that are spirit-led, and we will be a people united. And the reason I say this is the last election cycle, 2016, we had people who were angry and upset at their brothers and sisters, that Trump won and actually left the church over that issue. And there are also people that right now are so offended and divided at those who would dare support Biden in both sides of the equation. And we're lobbing hand grenades at one another.  They can sit back and say, because believers are destroying each other. But we need to say that those are secondary issues. Our unity is in Jesus. Wherever you're at, here, online, portage, I want you to take the communion elements that you have. This is where our unity is found. It's found in what Jesus gave us, his broken body, his shed blood. See on the night in which Jesus was betrayed and was on his way to go to the cross to die a death he did not deserve to pay for sin he didn't commit. He gathered his disciples, 12 of them around a table. And today he gathers millions around the table. And he took the bread, he broke it, he blessed it. And he gave it, and he said, this is my body. Church, we are his body. He was broken so that we could be united. And tonight as you hold the bread in your hands, remember his body broken for a reason. It was us. Lord, we thank you for your body. Unite us, oh Lord. As one body, one people, no more dividing wall, no more hostility, because we've seen the Lord. Receive his body broken for you. And in the same way, and on the same night, Jesus took the cup at the end of the meal. And he said, this is my blood shed for you. This is my blood of the new covenant, a covenant that was established in his own blood. He said, take and drink it. And as you do, remember. Tonight we remember who's on the throne. Tonight we remember what unifies us. Tonight we remember how broken our world is, but today we also remember what our mission is. And we remember that Jesus shed his blood for us and for others. Receive the blood of Christ. I wanna invite you to stand with me. Lord, we respond to you today. We respond to the one who's on the throne. We want the eyes of our heart to be flooded with that revelation that shakes us to the core. And we confess, Lord, without you we're lost, we're undone, we're people of unclean lips. But Lord, in your presence, in your presence, our heart is illuminated. In your presence, we are transformed, God. In your presence today, we say, in response to your heart's cry and your desire, who can I send who will speak to this broken people? Who will go on my behalf? We say, here we are, God. Send us. Send us to a lost and divided world. Send us to those who are broken and fearful.  Send us to those who are searching for a foundation because their whole lives are being shaken. Jesus, you are the resurrected one. You are king forever and ever and ever.  In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.


Hey, what's up coach welcome back to my channel now today? I'm going to show you three different ways for clients to take you more serious and These are three things. I wish I knew Right at the beginning of my business and if I did I would have seen a drastic difference in my business The first couple years and I think you're really gonna like number three So make sure you watch number one and number two all the way through before you get to the third one All right, the first one. This is something I talk about a lot on my YouTube videos And I think this is so important because when you have this set up You establish the tone between you and the parent or the prospect or the client whoever you're working with All right, and here's what it is You need to have a very professional First impression and there's three things that I look at here Number one if you have a scheduled call with someone all right you show up on time All right, so you're there early. You're calling them. All right, the call is scheduled It's not some random call that you have with the prospect It needs to be a scheduled call and you show up on time if you're like two or three minutes late That is not a good first impression. All right.  All right, so if you have That set up if you have a professional first impression you're on time scheduled call. All right, and lastly You have people jump through hoops To get to a call with you versus just calling you whenever they want. All right So when I'm talking about jumping through hoops, they go through an application process There's a call scheduled they go through your process and you have a process it's not set up to where they can just call you whenever they want and Call you at midnight or call you at four in the morning You can't operate a business that way. All right, unless you have a sales team member who's on staff There's waiting to pick up the phone most coaches in the space don't have that. All right, so again to recap Show up on time make sure the call is scheduled and third you want a process And you want the prospects that you talk to to jump through hoops to get to you That is very important that shows who's in charge of the call. All right, that's the first one Next you want to establish your standards with who you want to work with and who you don't want to work with now I've said this before in other videos, but this is really important. If your program is for everybody Ultimately, it's for nobody Right if if you're training like a three-year-old 12 year olds 25 year olds 40 year olds if it's for everybody It's not for anyone All right, you need to be specific with who it's for and be willing to weed out people who don't fit your criteria All right next it's okay in your marketing. Yeah To talk about who you don't want to work with and what that does is it attracts those who are a good fit even more over to you Right for example in my youtube videos. I don't talk about trying to help 500 million different types of coaches right my audience is tight with who we work with I can't work with everybody I don't want to work with everyone I want to work with those who are serious that have a business that want to grow and and they're looking to make these Sort of changes period All right, I'm trying to help too many people. I'm not helping anybody. All right It's the same with your business. So you need to tighten up the the screws on Exactly who you want to work with and who you don't want to work with All right, and the last thing when I think about standards it is okay to be disliked on the internet It's okay to be disliked on email market email marketing that you send out It's okay for some people to be rubbed the wrong way about how high your standards are that is okay Right, and I'm not saying you should be someone who's not a likable person What I am saying though is you need to have these standards that are high and know that it's not for everyone If it was for everyone then your standards are too low. That's that's how it works So raise your standards higher. All right, what that does is people take you way more serious That's the whole point of this video If you want people to respect you respect your time take you a lot more serious You have to change how your business is operating right and that leads me to the last one and I will never forget this This is really funny. So in 2010 it's a year. I started my business. I would say this year a fish the official year that I started my business I was already training kids before them and back then I always had a short haircut and I always shaved my beard like I had a pretty big beard when I was in college and I shaved it right when I Had started my business and I remember getting advice From people that were like, yeah, like you're around kids. You need to be clean-cut you need to always have haircut and I always thought that that was like the proper thing to do and I remember meeting with one of my old mentors and One of my biggest problems I had was I was like man like these parents think I'm a kid like They're not respecting me. They're not respecting my time. They think I'm too young and he was like Ben Can you just grow out a beard and I was like, yeah, I can do that and he was like, they're going to look at you different when you grow out your beard Now whether you can grow a beard out or not, right? This is something that I would challenge you to do if people are not taking you serious That one little thing can make a significant difference and it's hilarious. I grew up my beard And it's not like I looked like Moses or anything, right? My beard got kind of long and I started to notice the first impression that parents had with me at that point They're like, oh, this guy's probably in his 30s and That's very different than oh, this is like a 22-year-old kid Right, so I looked I appeared a little bit older That raised the level of respect that parents gave me at the beginning of my business once I started grow my beard out Right right now. I don't have a huge beard Right. I'm trying to look younger now So I hope this helps and you know, I can tell you these are three things if you do these three things You can see a big difference and if you're a girl watching this video, don't try to grow a beard I don't think that's gonna look good So that's it for today's video If you have any questions for me shoot me a text message My phone number is below every single video you can reach me there and subscribe to this channel If you haven't yet we post three times a week typically We've been doing that for multiple years almost half a decade at this point And we've been working with coaches all of the world every single day in our program And if you want to learn more about that you can go to any of the links below that'll point you to our program All right. Catch you later. Have a great day