Some of you have heard me talk about this topic before. So some of the material might not be new. It might be something you've heard before. And it's good sometimes to be reminded. Some of the same things, some of the messages that I hear in the church are messages I've heard for 50 plus years, but they're so fresh every time I hear them because I think there was a saint of God who kept preaching maybe in his latter years that you need to be born again. And someone asked him, why do you keep preaching about being born again? He says because you need to be born again. So sometimes we have to hear the same message over again. It's the start of a new year and I thought I wanted to just start with five messages that are good for us to remind ourselves as we think about. There's New Year's resolutions that are often made by people at December 31st, January 1st.
You know, in the world it's I want to lose some weight. I want to keep eating more healthy. And for most people those end by January 5th. Because you know the nature of our human nature is we go back to habits. And you sow an act, it becomes a habit. You sow a habit, it becomes a character. I've been reminded as I started this new year of a message that I've heard many times in the church which is at the end of my life we all get one year older. There are some people who didn't live through 2025, but God's given us breath for another year in 2026. We don't take it for granted. And one of two things is going to happen. One of these two things is going to happen. We don't know which is the sooner. And the two things is the Lord's going to come back or we're going to pass away. One of those two things is going to happen. There's no other third thing. It's one of those two things is going to happen. The question is which is sooner. And for me, whatever happens as you get older, the possibility is the Lord may take you away. But I'm also grateful for another year. And I ask myself, if I were to reach the end of my life, none of these accomplishments, even the ones that Jeremy read in the world, matter at all. God's not going to introduce me when I get to see him as the CEO of a company or this is the college you went to and these are the degrees you have. Any accomplishment. He's not even going to ask people what did you think of this person and what type of reputation did he have? He's going to measure me by Matthew 25:23. Were you good and faithful?
And it's a very simple two things to remember as you start a new year and you can there's many definitions of good. I like the one that Jesus told the rich young man, why do you call me good? Well, keep the commandments and lay up treasure for yourself in heaven. It's a good definition of good. Faithfulness is just what Jesus says later on in Matthew 25, which is you've been given a little thing, be faithful in it. As a result, I'm just going to bring up my Bible here. You are faithful in a few things. So now I'm going to put you in charge of a lot of things. Enter the joy of your master. That's the ultimate joy. All of us are seeking joy. There's points where we go through as of sadness maybe even you know we might feel stressed I hope not depressed I hope never condemned but stress can relieve there can be stress in our lives but the joy of the master comes from good and faithfulness in life so that's the first message I want to reinforce to you secondly we're running a race and in the world there's a prize they're all trying to go up or they're trying to make a lot of money or maybe as you get older, you're trying to stay healthy and, you know, make sure we're not in the hospital as much. But there's a godly prize that all of you brothers and sisters on this webcast can win. Everyone, there's no one winner. All of us can win. Philippians 3:14, I press on towards the goal for the prize of the upward calling of God in Christ Jesus. It says the Christ, that's Paul says, but all of us, that verse can apply to all of us because Paul said, "Follow me as I follow Christ."
1 Corinthians 9:24-27. Do you not know that those who run all run in the race all run? One receives the prize because why does only one receive the prize? Because many fall away. Run in such a way that you may win. Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. So I believe it isn't going to be just Paul who's going to win a prize. All of us can win a prize and I want to win. Now we may not be in the prize. There may be different shades of prizes but we can win a prize. And the thing about a race is it doesn't matter how you start. It matters how you end. And that's my third point. You run with endurance. Sometimes I like watching the Olympics right or these races. And I don't know if it was 8 years ago or one of the Olympics in the recent times. Most often these long-distance runners are won by Africans from Ethiopia, Kenya, some parts of Africa where they're just really built for endurance. I forget the runner's name, but he was running I think the 5,000 m or 10,000 meters. And in the middle of the race, he fell down. And in an Olympics, if you fall down, you're not going to win because you lose precious seconds. Every second counts. Every second counts. So by the time you get up, the pack, they're running in a pack is maybe 10 seconds ahead of you. So, but he got up and all of us watching were wanting to see what would happen. And it fortunately was not at the end of the race, it was the middle of the race. And lap by lap, he started gaining and gaining and gaining and gaining. And I'm sure it was hard for him because he had to run extra fast to catch up and he eventually won the race. And it's one of the most spectacular races I've ever read. And it's a little picture of that, right? You know, Jesus tells Peter as he's standing on water, Peter starts to lose faith and he sinks. Hold on to my hand. And we have to run with endurance. There's the story that we tell the kids of the hare and the tortoise. The hare, they're both running a race and the hare decided to sleep and the tortoise just slow and steady won the race. So I have a lot of respect for brothers and sisters who are slow and steady. It's not how you start, it's how you end. And all of us, you should not be discouraged as you start the new year. Put 2025 behind you. Of course of the mistakes that we can learn from, we can look forward to 2026 and for whatever number of years the Lord has given us to run with endurance and then number four press on to perfection because there's many things I did in 2024 that I want to improve on sharpen the saw that's I like this the press on perfection and it doesn't matter you know if of course in my work I want to be the best I can be for my company. I'm serving employees. I'm serving customers. But the more important goal I believe in my life is to be a better dad, a better husband, a better son, a better brother in the church, rather a better colleague, a better friend. All of these dimensions, I feel the Lord's given me three circles. My father often calls these the three layers of the house. My personal life, my family life, my church life. But you can extend that church, that third floor to also be your work life. The first floor is the most important. That inner circle, that inner layer is the most important because only the Lord sees you there. But if you have a solid inner circle, you can build the second and third foundation. I have a lot of respect for brothers and sisters who keep building those third floors. And we have many examples in our church and over the years I've had the chance as I visit many churches that have been you know in fellowship with us. Most recently a month ago I was in Bangalore. It's such a joy to be in Bangalore my home church. Things started there with two or three brothers, my dad and brother Ian, five families with just a desire for many of these things here, living godly lives, preaching holiness and building godly families and they sought to press on to perfection little by little by little no one knew that fast forward to 2025 brother Ian has moved on to glory but there were 500 people in the room there and many mothers I know have come over the years, many of them would never have contemplated in 1975 that the Lord will bring many of them young people, many of them are not born in 1975. But for whatever length of time the Lord has given us in any of the brothers and sisters here let's press on to perfection and number five you can love the world you can love money you can love your health most important thing is to love the Lord's people and encourage them all of us can be an encourager. I'll talk and I'll repeat this over time. You can all be a CEO. You know what CEO means? Chief encouragement officer. Chief encouragement officer. That's more important than being a chief executive officer. So all of us can be. We have a brother in our fellowship at NCCF. His brother's name is brother Thomas Kuran. I think he is like the best CEO of our church. He has a gift every Sunday. I think he's in his late 70s to encourage everybody. There may be 150 people in the sanctuary, even children, I'm sure every one of them feels touched by brother Thomas Kuran on every Sunday. It's an amazing gift. I watch him do it. He just finds a way to say hello. He remembers everyone's name, shakes the hand. That's tremendous. He's a chief encouragement officer. So all of us can do these things. I wanted to start with that before I move on to describing some of the key things that are a little more specific. Hopefully these are encouragement to you. I always found it difficult to think about, you know, when you want to be a Daniel in your workplace, what are examples of the Bible? You know, did Jesus have a software technology job? Was he coding? Was he in business? No, he wasn't. He was a carpenter for a period of time, but then the last three years, you know, he lived 33 and a half years. He was serving the Lord. But there are many examples in the Old Testament and then some in the New Testament too of men who were faithful and women too, but I want to talk about two or three men. And what struck me about this, right, I talked about faithfulness being the most important thing was they started to be faithful at a very young age in their teenage years. Something gripped them about faithfulness and they stayed faithful. I have some pictures here of Joseph. You can see the first picture shortly afterwards. Imagine being in a large family and none of your siblings like you, okay? And they sell you away. You find yourself in Egypt. You're a young strapping man and you know this woman is chasing you, part of his wife, and he's faithful. No one's watching him there. He could have done what he wanted to do. His father Jacob wasn't there, his brothers, but the Lord was there. He stood faithful and for his faithfulness he was sent to prison. It's the second picture here. And you know what he was doing? People tell you know folks that the most formative years of your life are your 20s because you finished high school, you finished college and you get your first job and everyone you know is under pressure like I got to land that first job. I want to you know establish my career well maybe you get married. You know what Joseph was doing in his 20s? He was in prison almost the entire time. Imagine if your entire 20s, right, you're in prison and you think you're going to escape. You're working, the baker, the butler. You even think that maybe one of them will help you get out. They forget about your story. But God allows this man to be the second most powerful man in Egypt. That's the third picture. Now, at the time, Egypt was the biggest country in GDP. Remains the most powerful country. So maybe to modern world United States. India is I think the fifth biggest GDP. But the world revolved around Egypt in those days. Imagine being the second most powerful person in the most powerful country in the world. That was Joseph coming out of the first two pictures faithfulness and prison. Amazing. God placed him there. But he was not occupied with his position there. God put him in Egypt for a purpose. What was the purpose? Not to make a lot of money of course to save you know Egypt and then more importantly his family from the famine bring his family to Egypt a whole generation of people from Israel saved and to be I believe a godly witness there. And you could think if Joseph was not in that situation maybe all of Jacob and all of the land of Israel people would have died because the famine was like you know COVID times is a million like practically lots of people in the world were dying. So that's Joseph. Job also another faithful man. He's probably one of the first books of the Bible. So lived before many of the godly people we think about, you know, like Joseph and so on and so forth. And it says, you know, I don't want to go over it, but if you read in the first chapter of Job, God is having a conversation with Satan. And I always wonder what would God say about me to Satan? Okay. Have you seen this man Sanjay or seen this brother Jeremy or what have you seen there's nobody like him because he fears the Lord or whatever have you and of course you know it says that he has all these material things. He had a lot of flock, a lot of cattle, many children. God blessed him. Okay. And in the Old Testament, a lot of the indication of God's blessing was material wealth. So, you know, in modern days, maybe he had lots of cars or houses or whatever. That's less than. But God did not tell Satan, have you seen Job, he's very rich. No, he talked about his faithfulness. Then, of course, all those things disappeared one day in an incredible catastrophe, right? All his children died, lost everything. Everything covered, his body is covered with boils. And even his wife, there's a picture of his wife telling him you should curse God and die. Okay? So even his wife is discouraging him. But he says the Lord has given, the Lord has taken, blessed be the name of the Lord. And then many who I don't know how long that next period and the next few chapters lasted. Maybe it lasted a few years. Friends come, friends go. They're not always encouraging him. And at the end of the book, you see his faith. Well, of course, the Lord restores many of the things, you know, his family and his wealth. But I think that's less the point of the story. Even if he had died and gone to heaven in the first century church, many people were killed. They didn't have everything restored to them. The point was God taught him a lesson of how to be faithful even through adversity. Another great hero of mine, Daniel. This is a great picture. I like these pictures because they often can quickly, they say a picture speaks a thousand words. So hopefully as you see these pictures, you're going to be inspired by what the faithfulness these men are. So before I back up to this picture, which is a picture of Daniel's three friends. So Daniel's actually not in this picture. Amazing thing about Daniel like Joseph at a very early age he was sold as a slave to Babylon. So imagine in your teenage years I left my home for college when I was 18. But I wasn't sold as a slave. I was very fortunate to get a scholarship to go to college. But I think of myself I left my home when I was 18. Imagine I was sold as a slave to this foreign country and I was put through a bunch of tests and very similar to all of us going to college. He went to his college but as a slave but he was gifted. He was a gifted man. He was smart. He was capable. Maybe he was also strong. But he gets to Babylon and he's surrounded with many of his other friends. You heard the first part of the story. He's offered meat and the wine. He decides to eat the vegetables and the water. And it's not because I don't believe Daniel was vegetarian. He had a conviction that the meat and the wine were offered to idols and he was going to be faithful. I'm sure many of his other friends from Israel were eating the meat and the wine. Okay, so that's a picture to me of other people maybe even the church that are compromising on a conviction. But you say that doesn't matter. I'm going to stand true to God to my conviction even if I'm lonely and I'm alone and nobody is with me. Because you don't even hear about these three friends till later. So maybe initially it was just Daniel alone being faithful and I love the end of that story. God says you know he was I don't know seven or 10 times I forget the exact number smarter in the test than many of the others. So he stood out right because the Lord faithful and we all know that verse from 1st Samuel 2:30. You honor the Lord, the Lord's honor. I've held on to that promise many times. Now, I've not prayed, "Lord, make me 7 to 10 times smarter." We're born with the intellect we're born with. I've asked often, "Lord, make me 7 to 10 times more productive." A lot of what we need in the workplace is productivity. We have to get a job done and we, you know, as you get older, you have a family. You have to balance your family. The other things you need to get done. Imagine if what it took one person 10 hours you could do in 1 hour. What it took somebody 10 minutes you could do in one minute. It almost feels like an AI robot, right? All of you who work use Gemini or ChatGPT. Oh, could you write this code for me? It spits it out for you in seconds. Imagine that the Lord could make you so efficient and you could give you that sort of almost that AI inside you to help you. That's the that's what the promise of Daniel is faithfulness. You're faithful and even if he doesn't and it takes a long time but I said Lord when I'm faced often with a puzzle often many of the situations I have to face in work and they get more complex as my responsibilities have grown are like you know when we give kids a five piece jigsaw puzzle they're small they solve it and it's a big accomplishment for a one-year-old to solve a five piece jigsaw puzzle then as they get bigger you give them a 50 piece jigsaw puzzle and they like going and solve it my daughter was back from college recently and she was solving a 500 piece jigsaw puzzle. Maybe there's 5,000 piece jigsaw puzzles, okay? And imagine that you could solve it really fast because the Lord gives you that faithfulness. I wanted to set that context for this picture. Because coming out of that the next puzzle that Daniel was given by his king was probably the toughest puzzle of all. It was I had a dream yesterday. I forgot what the dream was. If you can't tell me what the dream is and its meaning, I'll kill you. Imagine if our boss gave us that kind of puzzle. Okay, you have to figure out what I thought about yesterday and tell me the meaning of that and you don't, I'm going to kill you. None of that is the toughest work assignment any of us would have ever been given. Ever. So, he gets his three friends, he prays, and of course, we know the story. Daniel 2, the Lord reveals that puzzle to him. He interprets it and then you know Daniel gets appointed to an even bigger assignment. So that's all the context those two stories of faithfulness and God's reward of faithfulness in very very sophisticated. So here we come and Daniel's not in this picture. Maybe he was on a business trip and the three he's now he's surrounded not just Daniel he's got three brothers. Imagine it's amazing to me when God can give me brothers and give you brothers and sisters are also faithful. May not be in the same workplace. Okay, this is the same place. It's even better. But maybe in the church and they're also working. Majority of the, you know, 99% of the people on this call, they're all working. You're not full-time workers, right? We're all working. So if God can find a few other, but they may not be in your work. If they're in your work, it's even better. But you can pray together and have faithfulness and then you're not in the picture. And here you know what happens, right? Everybody around them are bowing down to this idol, big idol that the king created. Even their so-called church friends, the other people who believed in God, so to speak, their colleagues from Israel and we know what happened. God kept them. And this is a picture of Jesus. There was a fourth person there. And when they came out of the fire, I love the part of that verse that says their hair, the cords that bound them, that's rope, right, was burned. Yet the hair on their skin did not smell of fire. Think about that. The rope and the hair of your skin are the same material. How is it possible that the hair on the skin was not touched and didn't even smell of fire, but the ropes that bound them were burned off? And to me it's a tremendous picture when we go through adversity. This picture to me is not about solving the puzzle. We will be persecuted for our stand, right. I am sure there are people who don't like me in various in my decades or made fun of me because of my stand for the Lord or maybe there's a promotion that you know one doesn't get. But the Lord will stand with you. And in some cases like the first century says the Christians they did not survive the fire. They were burned and went to heaven. So we don't know how the story ends in our life, right? Whether we're but fortunately we've not been killed so far. But if we were to take a bullet or die for the Lord one day that may happen. We're willing to be faithful even to the point of death. Okay. Final picture from the Old Testament is Daniel. This is a favorite picture of mine. My dad gave me this painting many years ago. It sits in my office, in my home office. I love it. There's a picture of Daniel probably in his 80s. Okay. Much older. And he's now survived three successive kings. Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, and Darius. Now, three different kings. So, think about it like you're in this country. It's the most in this part of the world. And three, six, seven administrations come and you're still the second most powerful person. Imagine that faithfulness. Typically in a government, right? In the US, they have Republicans, Democrats, various different presidents. In India, you have prime ministers. Imagine in India, you have a Congress or BJP. They're the maybe two most powerful parties. In the US, it's Democrats, Republicans. For three different administrations, this person was still the second most powerful person. That never happens in any government because usually one administration has their own people, then they bring the other people. But Daniel was so well regarded that every king wanted him on that side. I think that's amazing. Anyway, here he is and again he has enemies who want to throw him into the den of lions. And this is a picture of these Daniels. Look at these lions. They're just meekly sitting next to him like my dog. Okay, just like there's little dogs. They're like puppies in front of an 80-year-old man because he's faithful. I want to meet Daniel when I get to heaven and ask him Daniel how are you what was the way in which you learned faithfulness so there are many many such examples of peaceful faithful I'll put a few others here they weren't always in industry but they were faithful they are heroes of mine George Mueller tremendous example of faithfulness and prayer and the story goes he was in an orphanage handling many orphans and there was no food you all know that story hopefully And he, you know, what do you do before food? You pray for the food. But there's no food on the table. And I'm sure the orphans are thinking, why are you asking us to pray for the food when there's no food on the table? He said, "No, we're going to pray in faith." He prayed for the quote unquote food. Maybe he said, "Lord, we'll see even. We're going to pray and thank you for your gifts today." He finishes saying, "Amen." After the end of the prayer, and the doorbell rings, and there's a baker whose van had broken down. He says, "I can't get to the city. Here's all the bread. It will go to waste." Imagine that. All the orphans are fed that day. And another day, I think it was a milkman and the milk was served. So George Müller is a tremendous example. You know, lived here 93 years. Tremendous example of faith. You know, Eric Liddell, another great hero of mine. Didn't live that long. Half the time lived 43 years. Okay. And this is again an athlete at age 18, the fastest man in the world. The fastest man in the world. So runs the Olympics is going to win the 100 meters. Okay, that's not me. And maybe it's not anyone that's called, but imagine if you were the fastest today. If you were the fastest man in the world or best cricketer or best football player, you're going to be the most famous. Everyone is going to be chasing you. Okay? But he had a bigger prize. He was a very committed Christian and as the story goes the heats for the 100 meters the heats not the finals the heats for the 100 meters was on a Sunday and he had a conviction again I'm not saying it's wrong to run a race or to play a sport on Sunday but he had a conviction just like Daniel I'm not going to run on Sunday Daniel had the conviction I'm not going to eat wine and eat meat offered to idols he had that conviction and well before they got to Paris he tells the coach I can't run and I you know the story goes the coach says go to church on Saturday I mean why do you have this you know we need you it's a he's a British citizen no I have a conviction so he misses the 100 meters heats and as a result misses this opportunity at the prime of his life if you're an athlete there's only few years that you're going to likely be option. I'm sure many people told him, you know, even potentially Christians, you know, just relax your conviction for one day. You're going to win Olympics then. But he had that conviction. I just man I think that's so amazing. Anyway, he gets they adjust the 400 m and they get him on the 400 meters which never run and I think the story goes when he gets to the starting track or the finals of 400 m one of his other athletes standing next to him slips him a piece of paper and on that paper is 1 Samuel 2:30 those who honor me I will honor and that to me is actually the big part of the story, of course, he wins the 400 meters, the story goes, and then he goes to be a missionary in China. So, he never gets to run the 100 meters again, okay? And he eventually dies of brain cancer serving the Lord in a prison in China, faithful for many years. What a tremendous example. But this is not just men. Women, you can also be faithful. Amy Carmichael, you know the impact she had in India many of the orphanages, you know lived what is it almost 80 plus years, met sisters who've grown up some of them came out of orphanages that were started by Amy Carmichael tremendous faithfulness and you hear her story how she started off wanting to be a missionary and imagine going as a young woman maybe in her early 20s or late teens to a distant country you don't know anybody coming from I think from England and serving the Lord probably a tremendous tremendous example so I hope those are inspirational examples and I hope you will find beyond these there are examples in the New Testament also of people whose only ministry okay I love this there you'll see this in Acts was to provide the home for the saints to meet so the Lord had given them enough money maybe a home that was big enough and they were the host of the fellowship. You'll see a small phrase here and there. I'm grateful, Paul says, for this person or that person. And sometimes some of us who work, we're not called I'm not called to like the elders of our church or my dad to lead a church or to preach. I love being a humble brother in the church. Just walking in and all of any title accomplishments are left at the outside the door. But you can find a small place
If you have a gift, the music, maybe you can play an instrument. Maybe you can be a greeter that greets people at the church. Maybe you can host meetings at your home. Whatever the resources the Lord has given you, whether it's time, whether it's talent, whether it's treasure, right? Those are three T's we can all give of. Time, that's what we're doing today. And I believe as I've gotten older, my biggest obligation is to give back to the younger people. That's why we're doing a webcast like this. Talent, if the Lord's given you a talent, share it with others. And certainly the Lord's given you treasure, which is money. Find a way to bless others. So with that, I just want to share very quickly. You've heard some of these before, but I want to reinforce. Several decades ago, I'm in my 50s now. As I began to start in my career and the Lord started to bless my career and I started to rise in the organization, I said, "Lord, I want to set down values for myself that I will look at every year. They're not going to change, okay?" You know, it's a little bit like my Ten Commandments. I'm going to write them down and guide me on what I can write here. So I will reflect on them every year, maybe every decade. First, I want to live by them and then I want to share them with others. And I wrote them down. I'm going to say it probably 20 years ago, maybe even 25 years ago, when I was in my 30s. And many of these points I've said for 25 years. So I want to read them again for you. Hopefully they inspire every time I read them one by one. So we'll run through these 1 through 10 and then I'll say some closing thoughts and then we can take some questions.
Okay. So, number one, we're in the start of 2026, brothers and sisters. Is it a guarantee that we'll end December 31st and we'll all be here? Don't know. Maybe. But our life is like vapor. I've had many young people, okay, in my workplace who unfortunately pass away. Sometimes older, they die in their sleep. Sometimes it's very sad, but we don't know when the Lord, like I said, one of two events is going to happen. We're either going to meet the Lord or we're going to die. And how we pass away might be cancer, it might be a heart attack, it might be old age, whatever happens, our life is like vapor in the grand scheme of things. Whether we live 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, unlikely. Many, not many people get to 100. That's like a fraction of eternity. It's a vapor. It's a small piece of it. The more important thing is not to lay up treasures on this earth. It's like I said, being good and faithful is about laying up treasures in heaven. So we have to act like we are a citizen of a foreign country. What does that mean? Imagine you go on a visitor's visa to another country. Okay? And maybe it's a country you're not sure you're safe in. Maybe you're in India and you go to some country you may not know, in the United States you go to another country. You'll keep thinking in your head, I can't wait to get back to my home country because I'm just a temporary citizen. I'm on a visitor's visa. That's how we are on this earth. We are on a visitor's visa on this earth. So, if you're on a visitor's visa on this earth, it doesn't matter if you have made all these accomplishments and you can all read these verses or write them down, read them and they're all references to our life is like vapor. Never forget that, brother. Because the more important thing, I tell myself this and you know the easiest time to tell yourself this is when you face a disappointment at work. When things are going well at work, it's easy to think, oh, you know, life, I'm not, this is my citizenship on this earth. I'm doing well. And when you're going through a disappointment in life, it's the best time to say, Lord, my citizenship is not on this earth, my life. But I also want to in 2026 start telling myself this when things are going well. It's easy to say it when things are not going well. When things are going well and say, Lord, okay, that's good. Thank you for that blessing. Thank you for that accomplishment. But I don't want to get preoccupied with that because, and you know, who are the things that can on this earth help you bring yourself down back to earth? Your family and your church.
They can always, my children don't care that I'm CEO of Cohesity. And when I was before this at VMware, one day I was the COO of VMware. That was the number two position there. And they had a search going on for the CEO of VMware. And I was one of the candidates to be the CEO of VMware. And they did a search for five months and then I was not picked. Okay. Somebody else was picked. And I remember telling my children, you know, it's disappointing, but it was the same week. I remember that thousands of people were dying of the Delta strain of COVID in many parts of the country, in many parts of the world, especially in India. I remember telling my children about this. I said, "Okay, they didn't pick me. That's a first-world problem. The many people dying." You know what my children said? We could care less whether you're the CEO or not. And for me it was a reminder. Our children can bring us down to earth. They don't care. And that's a little bit like the Lord saying, "Okay, thank you. You're so excited you got this promotion." He says, "Hey, let me remind you your citizenship is in heaven." So, we need often these things. I call them, they're like things that bring us down. They're ballast that bring us back down to earth in our life that can remind us as you work and especially as you go through adversity in the workplace whether the Lord rewards you or not. But also remember this, brothers and sisters, when you are being successful, okay.
Number two, I will work hard in all I do and the Lord grants me success. I will follow my needs and you. So I talked about that middle part, Lord, help me to be faithful even when you give me success. But a lot of the things we have to do require hard work and it should not be said of us as Christians in the workplace that we're lazy. Okay? I don't think we should be workaholics. Sometimes I work too hard. But you know, God says go to the ant and learn from the ant. You start with. Have you seen these ants in both the US and India? We have ants. Often they're going a long distance with one grain of sand that's like, you know, bigger than themselves just to take that one grain of sand into a nest for the queen ant or for the rest of the family. And little by little, they all do that. And they're just hardworking little by little. And I think that's what it should be said of us, that we find ways where we say, "Lord, let all slothfulness be moved away." And they were hardworking and discipline is an important thing to learn at a young age. You sow an act, you reap a habit, right? I often tell my children if you want to do something consistently at the start of the year, keep doing it for three weeks. You'll probably, you know, you'll be able to last you the rest of the year. Keep doing the same thing. Maybe you want to exercise or you want to start every day with prayer or you want to, you stop doing it for three days, you'll probably unwind that habit very quickly. Okay. So, it's really important to learn discipline at a young age. And it's not just discipline of the work, but there's certain other things that you do. So, I've, you know, now in this season, I've been taking my children to school. And we try to make it a habit to listen to the daily devotional every morning. It's 10 minutes. I really, by the way, let me say from some of you on this webcast, you are people who help on the audio visual ministry. I thank you from the deepest part of my heart for the hard work you put into the AV ministry to allow the daily devotional to be available to us across the world. About four or five thousand people watch that every day. If you look at the number of views, it's a tremendous ministry what you're doing there. But it blesses me and my children every day to listen to 10 minutes. So you can all find, but find ways by which we're faithful in sowing an act and reaping a habit.
Number three, I will be a light on a hill, salt and food, keeping my Christian behavior. So we have been going through a study of the Sermon on the Mount at NCCF. It's been tremendously blessed to me. A Sermon on the Mount, if you listen to it in its entirety, they call it a sermon, right? But if you actually time it and imagine you were listening to Jesus, it's a 17-minute sermon. It's like a TED talk, right? All the TED talks are 17 minutes on YouTube. And it's one of the most powerful sermons in the Bible. Every verse is packed with, you know, incredible meat that we can live on. And for me, it's been tremendously blessing to read the Beatitudes. We have some of the children in our church who are memorizing the Beatitudes. It's amazing to hear these three, four, five, seven, eight-year-old kids, boys and girls memorizing it flawlessly. One of these verses in the Sermon on the Mount is this verse. And it's a very good picture of how a Christian can either be a light or salt. And there are two different constructs, right? A light is very visible. A salt is not visible. But all of us Indians, we know if you're on this call, I'm assuming there are many Indians, but there's also others. But most of you have taste buds that they're very sensitive to food that does not have spices or food. We like spicy food. And if the food doesn't have it, hey, you ask, "Can I get the salt or where is the, you want to add some chili to it or whatever have you?" So even if you're invisible, you can still have an impact. And to me, this is an example of two different brothers and sisters. One, the Lord has called to be visible in the workplace. So as my visibility has grown, I feel like, Lord, I need to be a light on a hill. I'm not going to put my light under a bushel, right? It says hide it under a bushel. No, let your, this little light of mine, others, you may not have the boldness to be a light, that's okay, but then be salt and food. What does that mean? In your smaller circle, you're faithful and you stand out in that smaller circle, or you're faithful in your home. How does a mother who is at home, is not working, she is salt and food because every day she's working on these bricks called children and she's making them a cathedral. Little by little by little she's doing that. And when those children get up, who was the hero of my life? My mother. She was a doctor, but then she gave up her job and then she was at home. And many of the lessons I've learned in my life, even lessons in my workplace, I learned from my mother. How to value humility more than anything else. How to value the outcast and the poor of the world more than the rich of the world. I learned that from my mother. So, you can be, even if you're a mother here on this webcast and you don't feel like you're making an impact and you're working on these kids who are young and they feel just like a few bricks, you can make that a cathedral. You can make that a castle. So, whatever your calling is, and certainly if the Lord's given you boldness to be a light, be light to your faith. You don't have to get up. I don't use my platform at Cohesity or VMware anytime I speak to convert everybody to become a Christian. That's not my calling. But I want people to know by my godly attitude and my behavior, okay, that they can point and glorify God. Of course, the Christians in my, there's about 5,800 people at Cohesity, there was about 30,000 people at VMware, there was about 100,000 people at SAP. There's a subset of them who are Christians who I could have more fellowship with. But the point is not where our calling is not to, and it's often, you know, not appropriate to use the platform of work to convert everybody, but you by your behavior. Now, if the Lord gives you boldness and you're able to share the gospel, that's totally okay. But I don't use the all hands of my company at Cohesity, all hands of when we get a town hall, we get the whole company together. I don't share this top 10 values. My, this sermon is not for Cohesity or VMware or SAP, the company I worked at. But let me tell you what I do talk about in, if you were sitting in my meeting, you will hear things like this. Do unto others as you'd want done to you. Okay, where do you think I got that? Right? So I'll often slip in these things that I've learned from Proverbs or Sermon on the Mount and the Christians in the company, they know where I've got that. So the Lord will give you guidance even to speak, but certainly by your behavior, you can be witness. Okay.
Number four, there's so many decisions I've had to make and I make often where I don't know what to do. It feels like a choice. Should I go here? I got to, during the Q&A, Jeremy and I will discuss some of these questions. I can tell listening to them, should I do this? Should I do that? How do I handle this? How do I handle this? I've got a boss who's political. There's no, you can't go to the Bible and say, what should I do in this situation when a boss of mine is political and is undermining me or whatever have you, right? So I thank God first off for godly brothers and sisters in the church. They may not be in your same workplace, but they are running the race with you. Right? Behold a great cloud of witnesses. Hebrews 12. But if you feel lonely and even those people, there's the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit can guide us. And I often have prayed, Lord, I have decisions to make here and there's possibly two or three or four paths. Would you close three doors and open one and make it very clear to me or close all the four and then I know this is not the right way, whether it's whatever the decision, and pray the Lord will, that the Holy Spirit will guide you in whatever you speak and whatever you act. If you're getting ready to give a presentation, before you do that presentation, you have to prepare. It's to an audience of maybe five, ten people in a room, maybe it's over Zoom. Do a short prayer before, say, Lord, I need your help today. Give me clarity of thought, give me clarity of purpose and give me clarity of words so I can, give me, and the Lord will give you. He absolutely will be faithful to you.
Number five, as the Lord blesses you, seek to be generous. Give more than you get. Right? I tell my kids this story as a bedtime story. It's a very good picture. It stayed in my head. Some of these pictures of my life are often like bedtime stories I heard early or told my kids. At the end of every day, you can measure often what happened during the day by water in a bucket. Okay? Did you pour, did you expect people to pour into your bucket or did you pour into other people's bucket? Okay. And some people in life, they're always grabbers. They're always looking to get other people to fill their bucket. They're grabbing. They're grabbing. They're grabbing. They're focused on what they get. Right? Early in life, you want to teach your children, no, it's okay. Pour water into other people's pocket. Let give, right? And it's hard. Children early when they're young, maybe it's okay. But you hear selfishness, you see selfishness coming into children at a very young age. It's very important that we learn generosity at a very young age and teach our children that it's much more blessed to give than receive. Now, in accordance to the means that you have, this doesn't mean that this is not saying that everybody should be giving lots of money, but there's time, there's talent, there's treasure. We all have time, we all have talent, we can give. Even the Lord has given you enough treasure, but if the Lord has given you more treasure, find ways to bless, but do it in a way that you don't get a name for yourself, right? Jesus talks about giving in secret. The world values this big philanthropy where you get a name for yourself and that's, that's, that's you. So, it's okay. I'm not judging that. But you want to be able to give. And if you give, make sure the name is for the Lord. Okay. Okay. Number six.
This is a tough one. How is Daniel supposed to become the number two person in Babylon and Syria and whatever have you? Or how am I supposed to, I asked my dad this, you, I'm sure when you enter the Navy, you had an ambition to be the admiral of the Navy. And as we're growing, we want to be the best. We have, the Lord's blessed me, I'm now leading. But you know, what should be the way in which we balance ambition, which is important to do what we need to do, because we have to set a goal and achieve it. I do believe there was ambition that Daniel had. I'm sure Joseph had ambition. But how do you do it in a way that balances Christian character? And I think the key word there is selfish. Selfish. There's a lot of the way the world works, which is if you see crabs inside a bucket, right? They're all clawing one on top of the other, get out of the bucket. That's how the world works. One stepping over the other. If they see somebody in their group, okay, that's succeeding, they tend to, I call it kiss up and kick down, okay, people below them, they kick, people above them, they kiss. And that's selfish ambition. That should never be said of a Christian that we kiss up and kick down. We have to be the opposite. Say, Lord, I want to do the best. Yes, I would like to do the best I can. If you help me rise in my job, that's great. But I am not going to do this at the expense of others. I'm going to help build up. Now, does that mean you're a doormat and people walk all over you? No. There are times where you have to be assertive, but do it in a thoughtful, good way. And the Lord has, this one is the sixth one I've really struggled with. How do you do it in a way? And the other thing that's helped me in number six here has been my family, balancing the time. You see a lot of the things that we have to do take time and you take time often away from your family. And the checks and balances in my life have been my family, my children, and asking them, okay, should I not do this? And if you have to sacrifice something for your family or the church and you don't get that promotion, don't rule over that, meaning don't regret it and, you know, live morose about it. The more important rewards in heaven.
Okay, number seven, I will be a servant leader. Talked about this a lot in my work. I use this description a lot in the last twenty, thirty years at SAP, at VMware, and at Cohesity. And I'll show you some pictures that I use in my workplace in a second. I will not seek my glory. We honor God, encouraging those that are more about encouragement in a second. But who is the picture of the servant leader? The one we follow. Think about this, right? Washing people's feet. That's not how, as you rise up in a company, that's not what you're taught to do. You want other people to wash. Most executives expect other people to wash their feet or managers expect the employees to wash their feet. I don't mean literally, but, oh, you're supposed to make me look good. That's washing the feet. No, it's the opposite. My job is to invert the pivot. So, this is the picture I show at work. Some of you have seen this before because if you look at the slide here, you see a CEO bird that's at the top of the tree and then you have the vice president, you have the directors, you have the managers, and then you have the individual contributors at the bottom of this tree, okay? And this is just poop, okay? Just coming down on all these people. And often the poor bird at the very bottom looks up and all they see is a whole bunch of poop coming down, flowing downhill. And this is often how the army works. An army, the general says, you do it. Okay. Sergeant says, you do it. This is called a top-down command and control way of which, and many companies, they operate this way. Sometimes sadly even churches operate this way. The elder and the pastors at the top and, you know, so this is the picture I show of how I seek to run a company. Invert the pyramid. We serve customers and partners in my company and I consider the people who are the true heroes, that individual contributor engineer and the sales rep. In a software company like ours, the two biggest parts are people who write code and people who sell code, engineers and sales reps. I love, often I skip many of these people in the middle and I want to go and spend time with people here. Where do you think I learned that principle from this picture? From this picture, brothers and sisters. It's not, some people think, oh, it's some nice good concept now, it's Gandhian or whatever have you. Okay, this is the way I learned. I learned servant leadership from my master, from the Lord. And I'm telling you, it's so refreshing to be a servant leader who learns that it's more blessed to give than receive. There's a joy in being a servant and that all of us can do.
Okay, number eight, I will be careful with all my words and actions. Every time you say something and do something, there are people watching. In my case, the higher you go, everyone's watching. Everyone's watching what I post on LinkedIn. People watch what I say when I'm in a company meeting. Now, many of you may not be in that state, but as you grow, everything you do, you have to assume there's a camera, okay? Or an audio recorder. So, you know, the Lord will give us, and I've made many mistakes. I'm not at all perfect. There are many emails I've written that I've had to apologize for or words I've said. And I'm not talking about cursing. Ah, you know, I didn't need to say it. I apologize. But the Lord teaches me that. But what's the counter to this is what I described there. Be a chief encouragement officer. All of us can do that. Everyone can do it. And if you've said things that you feel you should take back, okay, there's a wonderful piece of advice I'd give you. And by the way, this is not just words. It's emails can be just as bad. Some people are not very eloquent, but man, you should see the emails they send. It's just, it can be extremely po, like sticks and stones and swords. Okay, you're frustrated about a topic. Write down your thoughts in an email. There's a wonderful part in the folder of email called drafts. Okay, keep it in the drafts and then delete it. It's okay to write down your thoughts, maybe your frustrations, but don't send it often before you really thought and prayed about. There's many emails that don't have to be sent. Just put in the drafts and ask yourself, okay, but there's other times, listen, being an encourager and being a servant leader does not mean you're a doormat. I want to be very clear. You have to be times where you're assertive. And I don't believe, you know, that Christian should be walked all over and taken advantage of. Okay? You speak up, but after that if you're still persecuted, but speaking up where you need to in thoughtfulness and in careful words, in articulate, you know, description, whether it's in words or in writing is appropriate. You've all seen this. I don't have time to play this video, but you've all seen this wonderful video of the Brownlee brothers. It's a beautiful picture of encouragement. And I've shown this video at my workplace, and you know what? Often thousands of people in the room. At our kickoff, I'll share this at the end of the video. I see people crying. Okay, it's a very, very moving video. This has its place, brothers and sisters, in the church. It has its place in the workplace. It has its place in the family. Think about how you can build someone up and let them win the prize. The best races in your early days, the ones you win. Okay? Then you start to realize the best races, the team races you win as a team because you know you can't win it on your own. I think the best, best races are the ones who you help somebody else win. Okay.
Number nine. I will seek godly counsel frequently, making the godly my heroes. Okay, this is tough. Who do you find at work that's a godly person you can see? It may not be, but I can tell you, brother Jeremy, some other elders in NCCF, my father, brother Ian, I've sought their advice on topics of what I should do and maybe all they did was pray for me. Okay, and the effective prayer of a righteous man or woman achieves much. So they may not be able to do anything other than, brother, can we pray? And I believe that godly saint praying for me is going to achieve incredible. So don't feel shy to go to the godly counsel and don't, you may not get an answer. Okay? They may just get a prayer. That's okay. And make those godly people your heroes. See, I have a lot of famous people in the world I know and I've talked to and I respect them. But I have really sought my life to make the godly people more my heroes, more than just people I respect and learn from the world. And then finally, I will be on fire for God, seeking to be a change agent. That means you're not satisfied with what happened in 2025. You want to change and make 2026 better. This has certainly helped me in my workplace. Every time I start in my workplace in 2026, at Cohesity, our fiscal year starts in August. So, I was telling my team last week, it's the start, first week of a new year. I like the fact that we have a beginning of the year and the middle of the year. Our real fiscal year starts in August. So, we can have like two opportunities to review our goals. And I'm really excited about 2026 of what we could accomplish at work because there's many things in 2025 we need to fix and get improve. And it fires me up to do things. And I hope that same desire to improve will be what also allows us to sharpen a saw in the kingdom of God. Pressing on to perfection.
Before we take questions, I want to encourage every one of you that the Lord has a plan for your life, a divine plan. And you have moments in your life where you get to see it's a little bit like a shock moment where you say the Lord has a plan in life. This was one of those moments in my 20s. I was 25. I was about to go to business school and one night I was driving back home and I fell asleep for all of 10 seconds and my car hit the telephone pole. Those are the days that cars did not have airbags. Fortunately, you can see the driver is on the left-hand side, the driver's not, but this entire right side is completely, this is me in my 20s looking at the car and thanking the Lord pointing at it. I just had, you can see my ankle is strapped up. I broke my ankle but nothing else. But it was a wakeup call in my, say, Lord, I could have died. Okay. And every time I see this picture, I say, "Lord, you had a plan for my life." I have not had a close call as close as this. Well, I've not an accident. This was probably the biggest. And I'm very grateful the Lord saved my life there. And there'll be other times like this where the Lord reminds you. We have this picture in our church at NCCF. It's a beautiful picture. Sits at the back of our church. Every time I see it, it's also the background screen on the Zoom. I see a picture of the Lord giving me a hug. I say, "Lord, one day when I get to, I want to." It's obviously the picture of the prodigal father here. But every day the Lord has a plan for your life, brothers and sisters. Doesn't matter what happened in 2025. Press on to perfection. And if you've had those types of events where it's a shock, you got close to, or it's a moment where maybe you lost your job and you're in a moment, use that moment to say, "Lord, you have a plan for my life. I'm not going to allow anything else to come in the way of that." And then the Lord will help you to be a Christian. The whole discussion this morning or evening is about being a Christian outside of Sunday. Right? This isn't about what we do on Sunday. It's about Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And some of us also work on, and that's really where we're tested being a Christian. Not on Sundays. It's practicing for the rest of the week. But you can all see them one at a time. I won't go through all of them, but I'll read them. Why life is like vapor? Work hard in all you do. Be a servant leader. Be an encourager or be on fire for God. Nothing out of selfish ambition. Careful with the words. Seek godly counsel. Amen.
