This talk was given at Business for the Common Good, on March 6, 2026. Thank you to Ross Chapman for inviting me to share my thoughts at the outset of the event.
What a joy it is to be back home, here at Business for the Common Good, with friends. Truly this place, you people are precious to me. A decade of memories, friendship, and conversations that have expanded my own vision of what the gospel might mean for business. So joyful.
Last year, I went to a small Denver Institute fundraiser. As I was leaving and getting in the car, I told my wife, “These are some of the most thoughtful, godly people in the entire city. How did they let me in here?” I feel that way today. Must have been a mistake at the registration table.
Jesus once told a story. One of the teachers of the law wanted to have a theological debate with Jesus. So he publicly asks, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus answers with the Great Commandment, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
But the teacher pressed him, wanting to “justify himself” Luke says. “And who really is my neighbor?” So, Jesus tells a story.
A guy is headed out of town and is attacked by robbers, and left by the side of the road for dead. A priest and Levite – the good guys – both saw him, and passed by on the other side. (Likely because they didn’t want to be ceremonially unclean by touching him. Could be dead, after all.) But then a foreigner, a half breed, and presumably a business man with means, saw him and took pity on him. Hucked him on the donkey, paid for his hotel and hospital bills, and said, I’ll even pay extra if he needs extra help to get healed up.
So, who was the neighbor, Jesus asked? “The one who had mercy on him,” said the teacher of the law.
Mercy. That’s the theme for today’s event. Mercy-shaped business. What does that mean?
Let’s go back in the story. Let me ask you a question. Who do you see yourself as in the story? When I read the story, I’m this guy. Of course I’m the good Samaritan. I’d help. I’m charitable. I’m the good guy. But when I read it again, and really look at my own life, and spend half a minute thinking about it: I’m this guy. I’m the half dead guy on the side of the road in need of mercy.
You know, in business culture, we lionize “founders.” The great, courageous heroes who take risks, persevere, fuel the economy, and solve global problems. But here’s the truth: most founders are a dysfunctional, unhealthy bunch.
At least that’s been true for me. What you see the person on stage, or the LinkedIn posts, or the big win. Won’t you don’t see:
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- That time I was in a meeting with my team, telling them I’d be ashamed if we didn’t get more people to register for the event, as I crossed my arms, leaned back in my chair, and tuned out, as if to transfer my own insecurity onto my employees.
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- You didn’t see the time I was slighted by a client who was more powerful – and smart, and humble – than me, and I went to my car and expletives flowed like water down a mountain.
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- You didn’t see the panicky anxiety after reading a P&L from a down month, and my struggle to breathe.
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- You don’t see the failures of trying to balance being a good dad, provider for my family, having a cross fit body, an emotionally-in-tune husband, caught between emails, laundry, driving to practice, cleaning dishes, and finally losing my temper at dinner with everyone that I love the most.
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- And you don’t see me, in my bedroom at night, overwhelmed from the pressures of life, taking a notecard out of my drawer, and reading silently between tears Psalm 57: “Have mercy on me, my God, have mercy on me; for in you I take refuge. I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings, until the disaster has passed.”
When I’m in a business context or at a business conference, we put it together. We do what we can to covertly project our importance, our agency, our power. Of course, we do it quietly, because we’re Christians. But, nonetheless, we network to get meetings with those who have the most capital. We’ve got goals to hit, after all. We are drawn in influence, to power.
But who am I really? The one with power? The one to make a big impact on the world? Or am I the one in need of mercy?
Mercy is not a small theme in the Bible. It’s actually quite central.
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- God, in his mercy, sends Joseph to Egypt to save the lives of thousands in a famine, and Joseph, reflects God’s own mercy when he, second in command to Pharaoh, relents from giving his brothers – who tried to kill him – the punishment they deserve
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- God, in his mercy, sees Nineveh, a huge city that is incredibly brutal, sends Jonah to preach repentance. And then they do! And Jonah is ticked they don’t get what’s coming to them.
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- The story of the Prodigal Son, who squanders all the capital provided to him for building a business and carrying on his father’s legacy – and the Father who runs to him, embracing him as he comes home!
Mercy is core to God’s character. “Mercy triumphs over judgement,” says James.
But what does this have to do with business? I have a theory: business, as we see it today, functions on the axis of power, where people are used, and money is the final end.
Business as it’s done today revolves around the accumulation of power. In the world of business, tends to be that investors exercise power over managers, managers wield power over employees, and employees wield the power of business to use customers for the end of growth, scale, “success.” Jesus said it this way, “The rulers of the gentiles lord it over them.”
I imagine it like power flowing upwards. Here’s a model. That is, at the top, the investors with the most capital, determine the fates of many. But when you talk to these investors, here’s what’s interesting. They don’t believe they have that much power. Above them seems to me something hidden, that’s controlling them.
Some call it money. The need for returns to stay competitive. Or they work in large corporations that simply are beyond the control of any one person. Others just call it market forces. But these nameless, faceless things – are indeed “powers.”
Here’s what is fascinating. The New Testament calls these out. Authors like Paul call them “the power,” or “thrones” or authorities. Because people spend their lives serving them, they’re this kind of “dark dominion.”. But you know what else Paul says? Through the cross, Jesus exposed these powers and dethroned them.
But with the kingdom of God, this is upside down. God’s kingdom functions by pushing power down a system. The Christian gospel behind here, with the Incarnation of God himself, taking on flesh as a baby in a manger. God empties himself of his immense power and takes on the nature of a servant, as it says in Philippians 2. In God’s kingdom, power is given away sacrificially for the benefit of others.
So, as applied to business, this means investors serve managers, and don’t use them. Managers serve and uplift employees, and employees have genuine love and concern for customers. And at the bottom: customers benefit from goods and services that they need to flourish. “The son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and give his life as a ransom for many.”
About 10 years ago, New York Times columnist David Brooks addressed a group of Christian philanthropists on the topic of how to be a person of faith in the public square. He did so as a friend of evangelicals. He did offer some friendly criticism. He cautioned them against what he called a “wall of withdrawal,” whereby some Christians always believe they’re an embattled minority. Sometimes too, Christians can be condescending others in culture, believing that they’re spiritually superior to others.
But he also said Christians have something valuable to contribute to our world today. We offer the world an “inverse logic.” He said: “Secular society works by an economic logic. Effort leads to reward. Input leads to output. Investment leads to profit.
“You worship a Savior who teaches an inverse logic. You have to give to receive…Success leads to the greatest failure which is pride. Failure leads to the greatest success which is humility and learning. In order to fulfill yourself you have to forget yourself. In order to find yourself you have to lose yourself.”
Christians really do offer business and the world a shocking, beautiful, upside down message. Jesus said it simply: “The greatest among you will be your servant.”
What would it look like to be humble in business, truly those who receive and extend mercy?
Let me tell you another story. John spent 19 years in prison. He was convicted of a minor offense, but tried to escape several times so he got thrown back each time. By the time he got out, his heart was bitter and cold. Prison made him a criminal.
While on parole, and looking for a place to live with just his possessions in a backpack, one night a pastor took him in. He gave him a meal, a warm place to stay. But that night, while falling asleep, John saw the pastor’s prize possession: a rolex his dad gifted him before he died. John knew this was his chance. He took the rolex, and fled into the night.
The next week, the police dragged John back to the pastor’s house and said, “We found him with this rolex, Reverend. I believe this is yours?”
And the pastor said directly to him, “John, I’m so glad to see you. But you left too fast: you forgot the gold jewelry and the silverware. Why did you not take them with the Rolex I gave you?”
You may know this story: It’s Jean Valjean in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. Bishop Myriel finally says this to him – and he says it to us today. “Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I buy from you: I withdraw it from black thoughts and the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God.”
It would have been enough if we had just received mercy: if we were forgiven our sins. But shockingly we receive grace, the undeserved gift of life, life abundant, poured out into our hearts! Life is new!
And now, since you’ve come to Business for the Common Good, you know what story you’re in.
Rather than start the day speed and hustle, what if we paused to receive the joy, peace and presence of God first? Let ourselves be filled?
Rather than just responding to the blistering demands of business, what if we paused and thought: what’s good here? What’s broken? And what might God be calling me to redeem? And what’s just noise
What if rather than serving money – or that big exit one day – we really believed that the purpose of business really is to extend love, grace and mercy to customers, suppliers, vendors, and our employees?
What if, in the next 10 years, this community at Business for the Common Good grows in number and humility? And from finance to AI startups to landscaping companies to working in hospitality, we saw business as a place to die to self, and serve our neighbors? And, quick side-comment, we need believers shaping these AI models. The world is changing.
Today you’ll hear examples of faith lived out through business in ways that have had a transformative impact on our neighbors. I can remember past years, when saints like Uli Chi challenged us to wisdom in leadership; John Marsh taught us to see real estate as the chance to repair broken cities; Lisa Slayton and David Park taught us to be whole-hearted in our work.
I aspire to that. Maybe you do too? But as I said, I can be rather dysfunctional. Ever in need of mercy.
And yet, I’m convinced we can grow. We can change. So can our world. The key? Listen to John, the writer of the fourth gospel, in his one-sentence summary of the gospel: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”
When we behold, pause, fix our gaze on him, we find ourselves free. And immensely rich. We can be no richer that we are right now. We have everything we need here, right now. Here’s how AW Tozer put it:
“The man who has God for his treasure has all things in One.
“Many ordinary treasures may be denied him, or if he is allowed to have them, the enjoyment of them will be so tempered that they will never be necessary to his happiness. Or if he must see them go, one after one, he will scarcely feel a sense of loss, for having the Source of all things he has in One all satisfaction, all pleasure, all delight.
“Whatever he may lose he has actually lost nothing, for he now has it all in One, and he has it purely, legitimately, and forever.”
And when money and power is dethroned in business, and the heart is fully satisfied in Christ, the way is truly opened to each of us truly living out mercy and love. The way is opened to business for the common good.