 Okay. Let's pray. Father, we thank you. Thank you for this day, Lord. Thank you for all that you are to each one of us. We praise you. We worship you, Father God. Lord, we commit today's presentations, G. M. I. D. Hands, and we pray that, Lord, you will, your spirit will continue to speak, Lord, to us. And also, God, we pray that even as students present, Lord, that you will speak through them, Lord, as well. We thank you. We commit this time into your mighty hands. In Jesus' master's name, we pray. Amen. Amen. Okay. So, Anthony will present first. Anthony's sermon topic is Negotiating for a Better Future and Sermon Titleist by the Future. Okay. So, Anthony, if you're ready, you can check your mic and switch on the camera, and then you can start. Okay. Good morning, sir. Good morning all. We can hear you. Yeah, but we can't see you. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Great. We can see you now. Okay. So, where are you from, Anthony? Nigeria. In Nigeria. Okay. Wonderful. Okay. Let me just get the timer ready. So, okay. And what time is it in Nigeria right now? It's 4.30. 4.30 a.m. Wow. Okay. I appreciate you joining. Okay. Yeah. So, you're ready? Do you have any presentation, any PowerPoint? Yes. Okay. You want to... Yes, sir. Yeah. You can share that. Okay. So, we can check that out. Is this one right? Okay. Maybe you need to start the slideshow, then you can get... Well, now it's gone. We can't see it right now. No. We're not able to see the presentation right now. We can see it now, but it's in the presenter mode. Okay. We'll go with this. Okay. We'll go with this. Okay. Okay. Shall I start your timer? Just a sec. Okay. Okay. Your time starts now. Go ahead, please. Well, good morning once again. Thank you for this opportunity to present. So, my Summon topic is, Buy the Future, Negotiate for a Better Future. So, I will be starting with... We all know the Biblical story of Esau and Jacob. So, my texts, my script reading will be taken from Genesis, chapter 25, 20 to 34. But I will start from Genesis, chapter 23. And the Lord said to her, Two nations are in your womb. Two peoples shall be separated from your body. So, what this text means, that two nations. It means there are Jacob nations and there are Esau nations. Two people, there are Esau people and there are Jacob people. So, I'll move on to the next slide. Then, we now move on to the value system. So, value system means two people can be born under very similar circumstances, go through similar experiences and arrive at different destinies. So, we see that people that go through the same, that went through the same classroom, taught by the same teacher, went through the same system of teaching, yet still end up coming out differently. So, even in corporate bodies, organizations that starts the same day, that starts with the same vision, they don't end up in the same destination. Even in nations, we see nations that have almost the same dates of independence. They have different value system. They arrive at different destinies. So, paradigms. Paradigms is like a form where for some reason you see things differently. So, the Oxford Dictionary defined paradigm a distinct set of concepts through which a set of concepts or thoughts, patterns including theories, research, methods, postulates and standards for which constitutes legitimate contributions to a field. So, we see that people see life from where they are. If for some reason you sit in scarcity, you will see scarcity even if in your environment you are bound in wealth. So, we can see how like let me use my country, Nigeria for example. If not for the white men, we were sitting on oil. We did not discover oil by ourselves. It was somebody from somewhere that came and discovered oil. Which means we were sitting under abundance of wealth. We did not even know until somebody came and discovered it for us. So, the paradigms of ESO and Jacob. So, when you do a character study of ESO and Jacob, you will see that their paradigms were very different. Though they grow up in the same environment, but yet they have different talents, different goals. So, the challenge today is not to discover and use your gifts and talents, but to use them in such a way that you do not end up having advantage in your negotiations with life. Because every day when you live life, you negotiate. So, we now look at, I will be looking at attacks from Genesis chapter 25 verse 27. So, the boys grew and ESO was a skillful hunter, a man in the field, but Jacob was a mild man, dwelling in the tent. So, we know that growth is like a microscope when it is focused on a seemingly order and fine object. We discover images that contradict the first impressive image, images of what we saw. Growth expands character. We can see that immediately somebody gives birth to a baby. You see how cute that baby looks, very cuddly, sweet and beautiful. But immediately there is growth. There is what we call character amplification. Then you now start to see different traits of character. So, how hunting without roasting. The Proverbs chapter 20, Proverbs chapter 12 verse 27. The lazy man does not roast what he took in hunting. The divination of a lazy man is in the reference of a hunter who works hard to hunt for a game, but fails to take his product to a next level. Hunting is what you do as your profession, like singing and building. While roasting is what you do with what you gain from hunting, like generating a secondary income from your primary income. As in the case of ESO and Jacob, we know that ESO was like the lazy man here. He does not refine what he took from hunting. But Jacob was the one that refines what ESO did with his hunting. This is the negotiation part in Genesis chapter 25 verse 31 to 32. But Jacob said, sell me your birthright as of this day. And ESO said, look, I am about to die. So what is this birthright to me? Every negotiation is a given thing, a fair. You offer what you have to get what you need. The negotiation of ESO and Jacob was informal negotiation. In their own culture, ESO and Jacob birthright was the benefit a child received by virtue of their birthright and heritage. ESO was the firstborn of his father Isaac. And as such, what was first in line to receive the blessing of the family's inheritance. So why will ESO negotiate so poorly? It's not as if that if he did not eat that food, he's going to die. He's not going to die. Maybe because of pressure he came back from hunting and then he did not have anything to cook. So how did Jacob buy the future? We see that buying the future is very, very cheap. Jacob trades with ESO. He exchanges what is seen for what is not seen. He trades his present position for the opportunity of the future. Jacob does not wait for the future to happen before he starts planning, thinking about his next moves. He anticipates, trends and triggers the activities that would participate, that precipitate the future. The future belongs to those who use their mind to design what should happen after today. Creative imagination is the ability to see what will happen in the next 20 years ahead of time. The future will always be cheap if you could anticipate which talk to buy or which real estate you would. Or which real estate would be most expensive in the next 20 years. So these are different paradigms of two different people who grew up in the same environment. So I'm on the last slide here. So ESO sells his future. So people that don't develop what they have like the ESO people, they always tend to sell their future and they don't value spiritual things. So ESO failed to develop his skills. So he failed to negotiate crucially with Jacob because he had nothing to present just like how most of our African countries do. We sell our crude oil and then go back to buy the raw materials back and import it again. So the most important lessons in life is that you don't negotiate when you're hungry and don't need to buy raw materials. The most important lesson is that you don't negotiate when you're hungry and don't negotiate when you're tired. Reprocess your thoughts and options. Call for a timeout. Then always value what you have and don't exaggerate your need. Negotiate the offer down and then try and always buy the future. Thank you very much. Thank you Anthony. Thank you for that. This message for the marketplace, message for anyone, I mean it's obviously applicable for everyone but typically for those in the marketplace, I think more so but a powerful reminder of values, a powerful reminder of choice, a powerful reminder of the reality, the practical reality of life. Thank you for sharing that. Are the others there? Are the others Prabhu and Samuel Madhu? They're not here. So I guess they're not ready to present. So I think we'll close here. I'll probably, I'll just text them, I'll tell them. Yeah. So anyone else has any questions, anything that you want to share? This will be the last class. So kind of winding up here. Anyone? No? Okay. Also I just wanted to check, did anyone miss out the first test? Like I had one of the students right saying that she wasn't well and she missed that test and of course because it was time bound we were not taking in any responses after that. So did anyone miss the first quiz? Because of such reasons, because you were unwell, mainly because of that. So what I'll do is I'll open up the first quiz for maybe just a day and those who missed it can actually answer that. So maybe I'll just keep it open right from now till maybe early morning tomorrow so that can be completed. And also the second quiz, the final quiz is posted and I think most of you, some of you have started submitting that. So don't worry, I think I had some queries about whether I received the answers, et cetera. Once you receive the confirmation thing that the answers, responses to your quiz have been submitted and you receive your marks, that's enough. So you don't have to bother checking with me again. It will come. The only thing is, it's not showing for some reason in your classwork section. It's not showing as something that has been submitted. So don't worry about that. Of course, this is only for online and in-person students. E-learning students can just ignore this. You have time till the end of the... I mean till 24th to complete. Okay, so no more questions. I think at all. I think Nina Santosh had that question about women. It is... Yeah, let me just take that scripture. 1 Timothy, right? Where... Yeah, 1 Timothy chapter 2 and where he says, Let a woman learn in silence with all submission and I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man to be in silence for Adam was formed first, then Eve and Adam was not deceived but the woman being deceived fell into a transgression. Nevertheless, she will be saved in childbirth if they continue in faith, love and holiness with self-control. Okay, so definitely this is one of the complex passages or set of verses that we see here. So, we know from all the other potions in scripture like, for example, if you look at the... if you look at the book of Romans, the last chapter, Romans 16, starts like this. You know, I commend to you Phoebe, our sister who is a servant of the church in Centuryia that you may receive her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saints and our sister in whatever business she has need of you. She has been a helper of many and of myself also. And so, you know, we know of Phoebe, we know of Priscilla who taught Apollos, Priscilla and Akhila as a couple. They taught Apollos. Then there's verse 6, you know, there's also Mary. It says, he says, who labored much for us. And then chapter, sorry, verse 7, he talks about Junior. He says, my fellow men and fellow prisoners and Junior is actually a female name, right? And then you go on down to verse 12, you know, there's Triphina and Trifosa. And then, you know, Triphina is again a female. All right, I don't know, one of this, right? Triphina, mostly Triphina. Or maybe it's Trifosa, sorry. So it's a female name again. So we see, you know, verse 15, Julia is there and so on. So we see that there are a lot of people, women who ministered. Okay. Then we go to Acts. We see Philip. Philip has daughters. Philip himself as an evangelist moved from place to place. And then we read in how the Apostles stayed with Philip. I think this is in, yeah, chapter 21. Okay. If you go to chapter 21 of the book of Acts, talks about Paul and the team. It says Paul and the companions, verse 8. Okay. Chapter 21, verse 8 of Acts. On the next day, who were in Paul's companions, departed, came to Caesarea and entered the house of Philip, the evangelist, was one of the seven and stayed with them. Now, this man had four virgin daughters who prophesied. Okay. So the, you know, it was, which means that they prophesied quite consistently and ministered to people in prophecy. And so much so that it was noticed. And, you know, it's written here that Philip had four daughters who prophesied. It was not like, okay, once they prophesied and that was it. They seem to have had a consistent ministry of prophetic ministry. So we see that that is mentioned here. So we know from all this that when we, when we see all this, we come to this portion of scripture, then we know that, okay, this is an exception. So which means that this is something which is for that time, for that people, for that place. Okay. People place for that particular time. And also when we, so this is, you know, listen to Timothy, right? Timothy and Timothy is in Ephesus and he's pastoring the church there. So when we read about the history of Ephesus, we see that they had this female deity whom they worshiped. Okay. Goddess whom they worshiped there. And that goddess was a goddess of fertility or, you know, something to do, a fertility goddess. So they, so with that worship, they had some immoral, you know, ways of worshiping. They had some ritualistic physical relationship with other women as part of the worship and so on. So this was there in Ephesus, right? So we see that that was, that was something that was prevalent in Ephesus. And also there was this teaching which was going around in Ephesus where the female of the species was seen because of this goddess and the worship of the goddess. The women were seen, were portrayed as those from whom truth and doctrine and everything is received. And that, you know, so that, you know, that whole kind of teaching. So when it comes to the church, now that seems to have kind of become a part of the way or that culture seems to have kind of come in or threatening to come into the Ephesian church, right? So Paul is writing and he's saying, you know, I do not permit the woman to teach. Now why? It's because of that history, right? So this is maybe some of them were in that kind of a situation. Some of them were maybe, you know, even in the temples and so on of worship of the goddess and then the truth and everything, you know, that was portrayed as coming from the goddess onto the women and so on. So he's, you know, he's obviously setting that in place. Also, the fact is that about miscarriage, okay, which means that losing a baby during childbirth. It was because this God is what the God is a fertility and so on. So the thing is if you, you know, if you say anything, do anything against this goddess, then this goddess will, you know, kind of take a revenge on her and that will be in this area of childbirth, right? Which means you might lose your, you know, that kind of fear. So he is actually, you know, in that state because that statement verse 15 seems really out of place, you know, he will be saved in childbirth, you know, in all this. Why is this suddenly inserted? So this was the situation. This was a culture in Ephesus and therefore we can conclude that, you know, even though it seems to be very, very, very harsh, knowing the background of Paul and the teachings of Paul and the team and the companions and the ministry team that Paul, you know, he's kind of commending and thanking in the book of Romans. We see that this seems really loud and this could be the reason we can conclude that because of this that, you know, this is the instruction that he's giving that church, right? So yeah, so I just wanted to share that Nina is not on the group, but not in today's class. Hope she will get to see the video. Prince, did you have, is Prince in the class? Prince also had some questions, but I forgot that question. So is Prince sharing any of your screens? Is Prince also part of the class? Yes, no, maybe. Just put it on the chat. Okay, I can't see anything here. Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, so Prince is unmarried past. Prince is, okay, okay, fine. Okay, that's fine. Okay, so yeah, so with that we come to the end of this, this course of biblical preaching, right? I hope you got something out of it. And I just hope and prayer is that we will continue to be communicators of the gospel, communicators of the truth, right? And that we will do so with all authenticity, right? And also humility, right? Authenticity and humility. And may there be much fruitfulness, right? Even as you speak the truth, even as you handle God's word, rightly dividing the word of God in whatever situations and whatever spheres of influence that the Lord might use you, right? Okay, so we'll stop here. God bless and take care. We'll meet again next semester, hopefully, most of you, right? Okay, thank you so much. God bless. We'll end the class here.