Great Value Gospel

Introduction

Praise the Lord Everybody. For the Bible declares that I will bless the Lord at all times and his praises shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make her boast in the Lord. The humble shall hear thereof and be glad. O magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together.

Tap the person next to you and tell them neighbor, it is a blessing just to see you this morning. Amen. Tap someone on the other side and tell them neighbor, the best place you could be today is right where you are. The Devil has been after you all your life. He chased you all throughout 2020 and is trying to follow you into 2021, but he slipped up and let you walk into the House of God. And because you are here, I come to let you know that a shift is taking place and if you just lift up the name of Jesus right where you are, I believe that before this service is over, whatever you need from God will make itself available to you. Amen.

I must say that I honor the Lord on this morning. For without him I would be nothing. I also count it a privilege to be amongst the saints just one more time, Amen.

To those who came to support me, God bless you. I give honor to the ministers of the gospel, the elders, pastors, bishops, deacons, and simply to everyone in their respective places, Amen.

Several scriptures are relevant to my teaching here this morning. In total, I used Acts 8:4-13 and Galatians 1:8-10.

Read: Acts 8:4-13

Acts 8:4–13 KJV 1900

Therefore they that were scattered abroad went every where preaching the word. Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and preached Christ unto them. And the people with one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did. For unclean spirits, crying with loud voice, came out of many that were possessed with them: and many taken with palsies, and that were lame, were healed. And there was great joy in that city. But there was a certain man, called Simon, which beforetime in the same city used sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one: To whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, This man is the great power of God. And to him they had regard, because that of long time he had bewitched them with sorceries. But when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Then Simon himself believed also: and when he was baptized, he continued with Philip, and wondered, beholding the miracles and signs which were done.

Prayer & Subject: Great Value Gospel

Background

I read this scripture and God was talking to me about what he wanted me to do with this scripture. Then I was walking around in Walmart and as I was looking at a row of peanut butter and that is where God began to talk to me (sometimes he chooses the weirdest places and times). And I was looking at the Great Value Peanut Butter in comparison with the Peter Pan brand peanut butter and at that point I began to wonder what was the difference between the two that the price tag was so dramatically different. Of course, the brand itself was worth some portion of money but realistically, their had to be a difference.

Then in an act of confirmation, I was watching a YouTube channel that I follow called Business Insider. They do videos that talk about common business practices and they often address interesting topics that are little spoken about in the world of business. Examples include; Fall of the Hummer, Rise & Fall of Victoria Secret, and many others. One day I was watching one about the rise and fall of K-Mart stores which talked at length about the history of Walmart.

Walmart is a publicly traded company that was started 1969 as a privately held corporation that has since been transformed by an IPO and several decisions that have made it the success that it currently is.

They are the largest private employer in the entire United States

They are the 3rd Largest employer globally; including both the US and Chinese Governments and Military respectively.

They generate more revenue than any other business on Planet Earth

The family that owns the company (Publicly Traded but the family has a stock majority) is the wealthiest on Earth by over $100 Billion.

It is important to realize that this success was by no accident and was driven by a series of decisions made by Samuel Walton and those who have led the company since his passing.

One such decision was made in 1993 when Walmart launched a new brand of consumer goods.

In the year 1993, Walmart launched Great Value products, what industry professional call a “private label” brand.

Great Value is a brand of goods that includes food and other household products, including; Paper plates, paper towels, and etc.

The Walmart Corporation launched Great Value to serve as a discount option that allowed people to acquire “name-brand quality” at discount prices.

Upon manufacture, these discount goods are distributed by Walmart Corporation and sold in Walmart stores, often times in direct competition with the other goods on the shelves.

Now, a common misconception about private label goods, including; Great Value, Mainstay, My Essentials, Onn, etc. is that the company (in this case Walmart) creates these products.

Their are even some people who have a degree of enlightenment concerning the issue of discount brands who think that the goods are manufactured by inferior companies who produce secondhand goods for use by companies as discount brands.

However, this conception would only quantify as a half-truth.

The truth is that the same companies responsible for making brand-name products, have been quietly supplying retail corporations and rival manufacturers like Walmart, to successfully manufacture discount brands.

Examples include; Sara Lee, Pepsi, Nestle, ConAgra, Ole, Cotts, and many others.

I have only given examples of food producers and distributors but the same is true for the fabrics, electronics, cleaning supplies, and everything else.

These companies listed represent some of the largest producers and manufacturers of retail/ grocery goods on Earth. Together, they produce over 80% of all goods sold in major retailers worldwide.

I found this very interesting because I personally was under the belief that a third-party manufacturer manufactured these products to compete with the “name-brands,” something that is simply not true at all.

Now see, this puzzled me because I am a business-minded person, so it led me to start thinking about why such actions were preferred by the manufacturer. I understand why Walmart would prefer to sell Great Value products because when you understand how retailers like Walmart work, you can understand why they do not want name brand products on the shelves.

You see, for many years I thought grocery stores made their money by purchasing products and then keeping the profit from their sales, in which case they would write off the purchase cost as Cost of Goods Sold.

This to me made the most sense because it meant the grocery stores could easily calculate profit and manufacturers made profit upon delivery.

However, I learned that the way groceries make money is not by selling products but is instead by selling the shelf space in their stores.

Someone I know worked in retail for a long time and she blew my mind as to how retailers make money.

They sell space in their stores for a rate, based on; the amount of space bought, the location of the shelf (or display) relative to the store, and the location of the shelf relative to customer point of view.

The more shelf space your product requires, the more shelf space your company requests, the more popular the aisle your product is located, and the closer the shelf is to the eye level of the target consumer the more that shelf will cost the distributor to buy and subsequently sell their product.

For example; if you manufacturer Snickers and I own a Grocery Store, you would come to me requesting two rows at each register where you can display your Snickers. Those two rows, at 6 inches each row, will cost you $300 per month and it is your responsibility to get me the product to display and my responsibility to put the product on the shelf.

If I fail to get the product on the shelf an auditor can come in and show that I am not fulfilling my contractual obligation and fine me for not giving you what you paid for.

So long as we both do our job, your ability to make money is predicated on the popularity of your product.

In this scenario, I take the money people pay me for your snickers and at a later date, I forward you the revenue from that sale...

As such, YOU get to keep all the profit and I only made money from the shelf space.

With these facts in mind, it makes perfect sense why Walmart would introduce a store brand. With a private label brand, Walmart gets to keep the post manufacture profit, internally and can use their own shelf space free of charge. This means they can put Great Value products in opportune places that compete with the other brands and they can discount the price significantly because the break-even point is lower on a product when you control everything from its manufacture to its distribution. So instead of taking a small amount from you while passing you the profit, I can keep all the money. This also saves money on credit card transaction fees, distribution costs, ACH fees, and a host of other things that can save millions over the course of several million transactions.

However, all of this still left me with questions unanswered. I understand almost perfectly why Walmart and companies like it would sell private label goods. Its profitable and its more simple than the other process. But what I cannot get through my head is why would these major Food Manufacturers and Distributors help companies like Walmart by repackaging their own products or selling resources for the manufacturer of competitor products.

Put simply, what is the difference between store brand and “name-brand” products that makes this a profitable business venture?

I began to do research and I came across several things;

Through my research I found that companies such as Sara Lee, often use less stringent Quality Control mechanisms for their products...

To help understand what exactly this means, I want to define Quality Control.

Quality Control is defined as a system of maintaining standards in manufactured products by testing a sample of the output against the specification.

In other words, the product being sold/ or created is compared with the standard established in the recipe/ or blueprint.

They still have to pass FDA specifications but the time and dedication taken to maintain name brand products is not applied to store brands.

That’s why sometimes you will find store brand products may taste a bit different between batches or store brand bread may not be sliced all the way through.

They decrease Quality Control

Then I found that sometimes companies like Con Agra will use higher quantities of Cheap Ingredients for discount brands that produce a good flavor but at greater health risk…

Common examples of cheap ingredients include items such as salt and sugar (specifically high fructose corn syrup) which our body needs but can be unhealthy in high amounts

Cheap ingredients like sugar contribute to health problems such as obesity, hypertension, heart disease, and others.

Cheap ingredients like salt contribute to high cholesterol, hyper tension, compromised immune systems, kidney stones, and others.

Furthermore, both salt and sugar have been scientifically proven to have addictive qualities that rival Cocaine and Heroin.

Once again, these ingredients; though cheap, unhealthy, and addictive are completely legal as part of your diet but legal does not mean good.

They use more Cheap Ingredients

Then I found, companies like Nestle will sometimes use Waste and Byproducts from other unrelated items to give the appearance of freshness despite the products being secondhand and over processed.

When they use waste and byproducts, their goal is to make something fit into a plan or recipe for which it was never intended.

So they process the ingredients trying to reduce it down to something more manageable

They rewrite the recipe to include these secondhand ingredients, all in the name of selling you more product

For example, when making store brand Oreos, the will often use the old cookies that were misshapen and improperly made to recreate the cookies.

Sometimes they will use older products that are beyond the dates or times accepted for the name-brand ingredients to make secondhand products

This all falls within FDA regulation because the commonly accepted expiration date of most foods is not actually the expiration date at all.

Instead that is the date by which the product has maximum freshness for consumption by the general public.

These products are safe for you to consume but ultimately is not in it’s best state because it risks being over processed to be incorporated in the private label product.

They use Waste and Byproducts

And so, they cut corners on certain products to save themselves some money and pass on part of that savings to you…

These companies leverage your desire to save money so they can increase sales and present you with the illusion of choice when the reality is no matter what you choose, you are still lining their pockets.

Without quality control you get an inferior product.

With cheaper ingredients you further compromise your health.

When they use waste and byproducts you get over processed left overs.

And as I came to this realization God began to speak to me about the status of the Church which is not unlike that of Walmart and their private label products.

The Church today is lacking in quality control.

Many people are doing work in the Church but no one is taking the time to check behind the people of God.

You have people preaching but the Word is not going forward.

People are teaching but no one is being edified.

Some folks are praying but no one is talking to God

A lot of folks are doing church but they are not following God.

And preachers and members alike, across the country, are scared to rebuke, scared to preach, scared to call out people in God’s house who are abusing what God has given us.

We have no quality control because we are letting anything pass as anointing.

But the truth is these people are not anointed they are gifted.

We NEED QUALITY CONTROL in God’s house…

Then the Church is using cheap ingredients.

You got preachers in the pulpit, who only want to talk about prosperity.

I believe in a Gospel of Grace, but grace is not always about houses, cars, land, and money.

Sometimes God’s Grace is enough to pay your light bill on time.

Sometimes God’s Grace is as simple as waking you up in the morning.

And sometimes God’s Grace is only unto salvation

But preachers out there would have you to believe that you can gamble your life away on Sunday and be a Billionaire by Monday. The Devil is a liar.

They take out the substance of the Gospel because its too hard to preach, you don’t get enough Amens, the offering may go down for a few weeks.

You can’t preach prosperity without preaching patience!

You can’t preaching finances without preaching forgiveness!

You can’t preach riches without preaching righteousness!

You can’t preach about being honored without being holy!

God is calling his people to a higher standard, to a greater anointing, to use ingredients WORTHY of his kingdom.

We NEED BETTER INGREDIENTS in God’s house…

Finally, the Church is using waste and byproducts.

Rather than offering a fresh word, we have people who take stuff they heard off the street and try to make God’s word to it.

They think about what they want to preach and then work out how to make God’s word fit their sermon

They think about what they want to teach people and cherry pick God’s word to make it fit.

Sometimes they will take something inspirational that sounds real good and then preach it as God’s word.

Churches out here are making commodities out of God’s word and his people as they seek to leverage it for their own devices.

Putting together things that God never intended so they can make a point.

We as the Church have an obligation to give people a FRESH WORD from GOD’S WORD.

We NEED TO CUT OUT BYPRODUCTS in God’s house.

This leads me to my text for this morning, as we find the Samarians in a peculiar spot.

Acts 8: 4-13

In Acts 8 we find the people have been bewitched to believe something that they themselves know to be a lie.

The Samarians have met Christ before, when he passed through the city of Samaria on his way to Jerusalem.

When he passed through he ministered to a woman who called together the people of Samaria and they sat at Jesus’ feet as he preached the Gospel to them.

They had sat with Jesus as he mentored and taught them about the errors of their ways and the necessity of Jesus in their life.

They had sat with him as he gave them Name-Brand ministry.

I imagine he preached deliverance

I imagine he preached salvation

I imagine he preached himself crucified

I imagine he preached his own resurrection

He did not give them Cheap Ingredients, He did not give them waste or byproducts, and he was the ultimate Quality Control.

But yet, we see here in Acts 8, that Simon the Witch has used spirits and charisma to fool the people into worshiping him as the Power of God.

Many theologians speculate that Simon had engaged in Messianic proclamations, which is to proclaim himself as the Messiah.

This would seem to be a ridiculous notion because they had literally met Jesus, so surely they knew what he looked like and sounded like.

Simon went to the people and he started speaking to them, using spirits to fulfill his false prophesies.

As he spoke people gave the appearance of being healed

He made the people FEEL free

They began to worship Simon as the great power of God never realizing, that as he spoke over them, Spirits began to take root.

They found themselves bound by the very thing that appeared to free them.

They found themselves under the oppressive influence of Simon and the Spirits he used to accomplish his will.

And we see all of this and think ourselves above and removed from the same problems that the people of Samaria had faced. We see this and think ourselves better than the Samaritan people. Ya’ll not gonna like me today, but it is the truth, the Samarians were wrong YES… But, we have to be careful that we check our own selves because if you are not too careful we have allowed prosperity gospel, western privilege, capitalism, materialism, and other doctrines and ideologies to creep into our own lives and warp our values and beliefs.

You may not be worshipping Simon but I guarantee you their is a Simon in your life and you try to hide it away and pretend its not there. But when you are by yourself, you nurture that thing and allow yourself to become enamored with a Great Value Gospel that you preach to yourself. And if that is you, I do not want you to feel bad because we have all been there before. When you allow your faith to come secondary to other things in your life and you sometimes relegate God to the backseat when he needs to be the Driver.

Let me put it simply for you as a question...

Who or what is the Simon in your life?

For some of you Simon is money

You have allowed people to get into your head that your money can save you but it cannot

I am not accusing you of worshipping money but what things in your life do you compromise so you can have money…

For some of you, your Simon is material objects

You have allowed things to creep into your heart and take root

What objects in your life do you allow to control you and what you do on a daily basis, just to keep them...

For some, Simon may be a relationship in your life

You let people take up residence in your spirit

What have you given up in your life to keep someone around, despite what it costs you or how they forced you to change.

Maybe you do not have a Simon in your own personal life… But what do you allow to go on in your home? What do you allow to go on at your Job? What do you allow to go on at your School? I’m not saying hold a revival in your cubicle but you cannot afford to allow God’s Gospel to be misconstrued and tampered with on a daily basis if it is within your power to change the situation or represent God better. You may not be able to minister to the atheist at your job, but you can live a NAME-BRAND Gospel in front of them that causes them to question what they do in their life. We have a responsibility to serve as brand ambassadors for God’s Kingdom. Not our Kingdom, not Holy Temple’s Kingdom, not the Pastor’s Kingdom, not the United States’ Kingdom, not even the Church’s Kingdom… But it is God’s Kingdom.

Where have WE as the Church allowed Great Value Gospel to take up residence in our Churches, Homes, Jobs, and Spirits?

Conclusion

The time has come where we start doing quality control checks on people.

For far too long the Church has been run on compromise and comfort. We cannot continue taking the easy way out to get out of our duties to spread the Gospel.

People are speaking for God when he has not said a Word

Believers are silent when God would have them to speak

Philip came to Samaria and it was only after preaching the Word of God that the people were made to be free.

You see, that is the difference between Great Value Gospel and the Gospel of our true and risen savior.

Great Value Gospel cant deliver you

A Cheap Gospel cant save you

A Cheap Gospel cant lighten your heavy load

Cheap Gospel cant redeem you of your sins

Cheap Gospel wont save you from the fire

A hollow Gospel has no power behind it. When you preach a hollow gospel, it takes away the power

But when the Gospel is preached, people can be saved, delivered, made free, and redeemed.

Closing

What is the Gospel...

For the Gospel says simply what can wash away my sins.

The answer is nothing, but the blood of Jesus who died on the Cross that I might have life and it goes on to say I can have life more abundantly.

The Gospel says, that Jesus died and gave me power;

Power over unclean spirits.

The power to speak to my storm.

The power to move mountains.

The power to speak to my situation.

The Gospel says that God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but can have life everlasting.

A hollow gospel has no power to get you out...

You see a hollow gospel will tell you that no one loves you.

A hollow gospel will tell you that you need people.

A hollow gospel will tell you that you have no power.

A hollow gospel will have you to believe that you are stuck in your situation.

It will have you to believe that God has abandoned you to the world.

But the Bible declares he will never leave you, nor forsake you.

Don’t be fooled by a good story.

Don’t allow false advertisements to get in your way.

Don’t fall for cheap Gospel.

The time has come for the Church to stand firm on God’s word.

I come to encourage you… Go out into the word and minister

Spread the Gospel until hell is nervous.

Preach until demons tremble.

Teach until lives are saved.

Serve until the Word has been spread to the four corners of this Earth.

The time of Great Value gospel, made with cheap ingredients, with no quality control, and without power…is over. 2021 is the year, where we as God’s people must be vigilant and responsible to preach, teach, evangelize, and share the blessings that God has rained down on us.

Benediction Galatians 1:8-10

Galatians 1:8–10 KJV 1900

But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.