Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to God. If you're ever in the Madison area, we'd love for you to stop by and study the Bible with us on Sundays at 5pm or Wednesdays at 7pm if you have questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, you can find us online@madisonchurch.org be sure to subscribe to this podcast as well as our Sermons podcast, Madison Church of Christ Sermons. Thanks again for stopping by. I hope this study is a blessing to you.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: All right, so we're finishing the decision that we talked about last week and we got about halfway through the material and that was this next decision, which is to choose today who you're going to become tomorrow. And before we get into that, I did want to mention this. At 7:30 to 7:30 35, I have to leave to go to Cam's class because they're supposed to ask me questions like they're in the temple. So also pray about that because my child's in there, so I also don't know what he's going to ask. So I'm really nervous. And if somebody asks me anything about the afterlife again and you see me sweating, that's what it's from. So this was the decision we talked about. And with this, one of the things that I gave as a reference is we all like the idea of wondering who one day we're going to be like, what we're going to be like, what job we're going to have. But one of the things we talked about with that idea of choosing today who we're going to become and why that is such an important idea to talk about is the future is not really that mysterious. Yeah, there's certain elements that we don't understand and really know of what it's exactly going to look like. But as a person, who we're going to become is a direct result of who we are right now. We talked about that statement. Future you is just an exaggerated version of current you. So then that begs the question, do you like who you're becoming?
Do you like the person that the trajectory of your life is set to become? And so with that, we talked about this aging Booth app being why it got so popular. In fact, for a year and a half it was one of the top five most downloaded apps because People ask that question, I wonder what I'm going to be. And again, future you is just an exaggerated version of you. And so here's what Brent Hanson in the book said. Who we become is a direct result of what we pay attention to. And I want you to think about that word and phrase for just a second as we move forward. Pay attention to. So I asked you guys this question and last week's class had such great discussion. And the question I asked is, what is something you would tell past you today to pay attention to? And you gave some great things about the little details, the little behaviors, the little attitudes. Maybe it was a spirit of anger that you never addressed, something you might have swept under the rug. And so we talked about the example of Samson and the different things that he put in front of him. We talked about how God had put the parameters around his life of what is called the Nazarite vow. And we talked about how he was not supposed to drink, he was not supposed to touch anything unclean, and he was also not supposed to cut his hair. And what we looked at is very quickly in his life he violated all of those. But all of those things had really one thing in common, is that he kept being around the wrong people or in the wrong place at the wrong time. But what you'll also notice is there's two phrases before we even get to the one in Judges 16 where it says this, Samson went down to so and so, or Samson went down to so and so. And if you look at those places he went down to, it was kind of like one of those decisions that along the way he thought, this is not where I'm supposed to be. I'm not supposed to be with that kind of people and I'm not supposed to be around them. And, and even his parents, if you read in the narrative, kind of didn't really stop him, kind of enabled that bad behavior to some degree. And so little by little, he made one poor decision after another poor decision.
And so we looked at his life though, and talked about that he didn't ruin it all at once. He did one step at a time. And so we gave this example in Judges 16.
It says this in Judges 16, verse one, one day, right? One day Samson went down to Gaza and that was about a 25 mile walk. And he saw a prostitute and he went into her. But if you go right to the verse before this, which will be the very end of chapter 15, it says this, that he had judged faithfully for 20 years.
How in the world can you go from leading well for 20 years to all of a sudden just one day making a poor choice. And what we talked about was men do it all the time. We've done it in our own lives, right? We've exchanged or risked sometimes many years of faithfulness for a high. We've risked many years of faithfulness and maybe hurt family because of one poor decision. Right? We have to always be on guard. And so because of that, we talked about the importance of how to lead ourselves. And I put this graph up here, which I told you is kind of interesting that Harvard leadership in their institute, they put this together. But I think it's really good. Not just because it has faith in there, but what I love about it. And I want us again to think about this like we did last time. When you think of how you spend your focus, your energy, but also what your main driver of being better is, is it really because you want to make a name in the community? Is it because you want to achieve something great? But the thing that they were talking about is you can't lead the community well, you can't lead the group we talked about. The group could be your family, your immediate circle, until you have led yourself. Well, leadership does not really happen from this way, that way, right? In fact, usually what happens is if we try to lead here first, we're not really a leader. We're more of like a manager, a boss. Right? Leadership is not about a title, Right. You and I all know people that have the title boss, but they're not a what, a leader. Right. It's not about that title. But once you really have this down and know how to lead yourself well, then you're able to lead well. And so we talked about that in light of this verse, Colossians 3, and we spent a lot of time on this verse and I asked different questions and was some really good discussion about things that you noticed. And this is a really well known passage where it tells us to set our mind on things above. And all these things that we mention here, you guys made the point to say, man, these are things that we as men struggle with. Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil, desire, covetousness, which is idolatry. Right? We talked about how we struggle with those things and put them all away. Anger, wrath, malice, slander and obscene talk from your mouth. But I wanted to give some context, that before we even think about that, here's what we have to understand is what is in verse one, if you remember verse one, he says this. If you have been raised with Christ, then seek, right? He's basically saying something that we have to remind ourselves of that sets us apart as Christian men than just men. There is a difference in just a man and a Christian man. And the difference is what he's saying in verse one is that as a Christian man, we have been raised with Christ. And so what we're basically operating from is we are operating from a place of power. We are operating from a place of victory. And we talked about, even if, you know, going into a game, if you knew going into something that you've already won and you're on the side of a victory, there's a confidence about you, right? It's attached to something real. And so that's why I was encouraging us to think about all of those things in light of our raising, how Christ raised us from the dead. And so then we put it back on Christ and we asked this question, well, when Christ was raised, what was his first things he did? Well, we talked about, he served people, he encouraged people, he had ministry with people, he sat around a table with people, right? And to kind of connect that with us as men that there is. And he talked about in the book, and I read that quote, that there's a direct connection between our raising and our getting to work to lead us and other people. Well, so this is where we ended last week.
Because in this verse, if you go back to this part when he says put to death in the Greek, what that means is to make dead. It's not sweep it under the rug. It's not dismiss it. It's a very active word to say. You're making a point to get rid of it, to wipe it out. And so what I asked you guys last week, and this is where we want to begin and get back to this week, is what have you been suppressing that you need to wipe out? Maybe for some of you, it's an attitude. It's how you handle your emotions. And maybe you've said it's because of this or it's because of that and kind of putting it on something else, or maybe even because of that, maybe not thinking it's that big of a deal. Maybe it's something that you're addicted to. Maybe it's something that even Satan has told you. Like one person said he's been telling me, trying to convince me that I'm not addicted to something when I know I'm addicted to something. You know, he works that way, right? And so what is it in our life we've Been suppressing that we need to wipe out. So now we transition to the next section of this portion where he gets back to the idea of what you and I choose to pay attention to. And I told you to hold on to that phrase, pay attention.
Because in the book, one of the things that he talks about with paying attention is this. He made this statement, when I'm paying attention to something, I'm buying a ticket so my brain can attend.
I love that phrase because he's basically saying, paying attention is basically your currency. When you pay attention, he's basically saying, you're paying for it. You're inviting something in.
And I know this. I was trying to think of different ways to. I've experienced this, or ways we could explain it. Maybe a way to explain it. And I don't know why anybody would be tempted with these. But the illustration he talked about in the book is if you're addicted to Funyuns, you probably wouldn't get on YouTube and watch a bunch of Funyun videos and advertisements. Another example you could say is if you are struggling with your anger and little things setting you off, you might not want to watch the news.
But the other way that, for me personally, that I was kind of thinking about this, about how I've suppressed, but also not paid attention to, how things really do impact me, is when I was growing up, my parents said a phrase somewhere along, you know, be careful what you listen to, what you watch, because you know those things are going to impact you. And I kind of told them, no. I have this ability to, like, watch something or listen to something, and it not impact me at all. I don't know. Does anybody. Has anybody ever said something like that? Like there's this special gift that only one human has gotten, evidently, that can do that. Right. The reality is we're all impacted by that. And so here's the example that I think of that happened with me.
There was a show that I would watch. We had. And they used this word that was a no, no in our house. Shoot. Okay? Couldn't say shoot under any circumstance. Okay. And also part of it was because of what that word could also sound like. And so, again, this was something that was a rule of my parents. So you couldn't say that. Well, I'd said, it's not that big of a deal. I know I'm not going to say something like that. So here's what happened during the soccer game. This is my senior year. Coach Mitchell, the coach at Faulkner, was coming to watch me play. So I was trying to do really, really well.
And we got a PK and I was in the box, kicked it and hit off the post and I yelled, shoot. Like that.
Well, from there it did not sound, as the sound traveled, like that word.
So then after the game, Coach Mitchell's standing there and my mom's waiting, and I don't even want to look at her because I said that. But then after the game, Coach Mitchell, he said, hey, enjoyed watching you play and everything. He said, one thing we got to work on is we got to work on that anger a little bit and we got to work on our words, what we say. And mom said, yes, that's exactly right. And so I had that as an example of, you know, in a moment of pressure, guess what came out? That very thing, right? But then the problem was it wasn't even. It was even worse than what I said around me. And I say that to say that that's kind of how things work, right? That when the things that we maybe have suppressed that have said, that's not that big of a deal. When it does come to the surface, it doesn't just hurt us, but it hurts other people around us too.
And the two things that. I think there's two verses that I had. One of those is a more well known or both of them are, but it's this one, Proverbs 23:7. It says this, for as a person thinks in his heart, so is he. As a person thinks in his heart, so is he. Here's the second one, very well known. First Peter 5.
And y'all know how this is when you've read scriptures your whole life, maybe, but yet you just miss sometimes one word or two words. That's this one. 1 Peter 5, 8. Any men's retreat, any thing I went to is just the boys growing up in the youth group. This verse was always used, right? First Peter 5:8. And what was the part we highlight? Right? What is Satan doing?
He's a roaring lion trying to what?
Devour us. But you know what I didn't really focus on is the part before this in verse 8. Look what it says before. He talks about how Satan is a roaring lion trying to devour us. At the very beginning of verse eight, he says this. Be sober. What?
Be sober minded, be watchful. Then he says, your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. I looked up the Greek for that. It was really interesting that one of the English translations put it like this. When he says, be sober minded. He's saying, be free from intoxicants, both literally and metaphorically. He's basically saying things that can intoxicate you literally and metaphorically. And so I started to deep dive into that a little bit. Like, what does he mean metaphorically and literally? He's saying those things you do put into your mind and the literal things, maybe it's things you listen to, maybe it's things you watch. Right? And we even talked about that when we talked about the pornography stuff. And we looked at Wilson's book, which was called Pornography on the Brain. And we talked about how the behavior of abuse from people who regularly watch pornography. We even talked about the having ed in teenage boys. Like, we looked at all of those studies about how the things that are being watched are impacting us physically. He's saying that in the idea of being sober minded is what you're literally putting in. But then he also, by saying metaphorically, he's also saying those rabbits that we chase in our mind.
And kind of the way I think about it like this, and maybe y'all struggle with this, like I have too, is, well, what if this happens? And then this happen and this, oh, man, then I messed up this. I'm probably gonna mess up this again. You know, those are those metaphorical ones. There's ones, there's thoughts we put in there, literally, of maybe secular things we listen to, we watch. But then there's ones where we kind of let our mind. Right. Chase a lot of rabbits. We've seen both of those be dangerous. So with that in mind, why do you see that that's an important thing before he just says, hey, listen, you need to watch out Satan, you know, he's roaring around, but he first says to be sober minded. We can't even talk about Satan until your mind is not intoxicated, literally or metaphorically. Why is that so important?
[00:17:25] Speaker C: You can't recognize Satan for what he is if you can't see. See things clearly.
[00:17:30] Speaker B: Yes, that's right. Yeah. So in case you didn't hear that comment, you may not recognize Satan if you can't see clearly. Here's an example that maybe, say, you had a really rough day, or maybe there was a pressure at work, but then you take it out on your wife, Right? And then sometimes it might be easy to think she's the enemy or he's the enemy, Right? But it's really a behavior there that was the enemy, not the person. Right? All right. Another example, that's a really good one, the impact of being sober minded. Before we can even be watchful, More.
[00:18:10] Speaker D: Likely to point fingers at other people and then not look inward.
[00:18:16] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah, that's true. All right. Thinking about, in case you didn't hear what Craig said, thinking not more, not less about what other people, but more about me. Like how, you know, because you can't control other people, but you can control what comes in your mind.
Two examples of this, about the importance of putting your mind in the right place before you can do anything else. One of the examples he gives is about learning a new language. And I thought this was a good one, because I remember when we were getting ready to go to Peru, I did duolingo, and I was trying to speak Spanish with my family. And I did once at Old Mexico. Didn't go well. Was not received well either. But I was trying a little bit, but then it was crazy.
I was trying it of my own accord to learn it, memorize it. I had completed, like, several levels, but it still wasn't sticking. But then I go to Peru, and then I hear them talk, and then all of a sudden, it kind of starts to click more when I'm listening to their conversations.
And so what happened for me is I had to get out of my own head and have another source. I had to have somebody else to kind of listen to in order to get my mind in the right track. And I think that's kind of what he's trying to get at here, is we have to try to figure out how to get out of our own mind and to get into another type of atmosphere. And here's why that's important. And I have to. I've only got about six more minutes left. I want us to think about both of these statements. One is from Scripture and one is from psychologists. Okay, here's the first one.
Psychologists estimate that we make 35,000 decisions a day.
Also. Second Corinthians 10, 5. Take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ.
Now, I don't know about y'all, but it kind of scares me a little bit.
And it also is like, oh, man, how do I. If I'm making 35,000 thoughts a day and decisions a day? Right. But I'm supposed to take every thought captive. How am I going to do that? But also, two things. Number one, doesn't that speak to the importance of the mind? Right. If we're making 35,000 decisions a day. But let's backtrack. Imagine making 35,000 decisions a day from a skewed perspective from the very beginning.
So I want to pose the question, how do we take thoughts captive when we're making 35,000. Also simultaneously making $35,000 decisions a day? I love that verse, by the way. How to take. To take my thoughts captive. But how do we do that? Any thoughts I don't want to be.
[00:21:14] Speaker E: Where half or more of those 35,000.
[00:21:18] Speaker F: Decisions have to do with the people.
[00:21:21] Speaker E: Around me who may not be dressed.
[00:21:23] Speaker B: Or doing the right things.
[00:21:25] Speaker E: So what crowd I'm in or what.
[00:21:27] Speaker F: Scenario I put myself in, much, much harder.
[00:21:32] Speaker B: Okay, so I'm glad you mentioned that one, because that's similar to one of the ones I had is two guys that to me did that really well. And what I call. I don't think this is even a word, but pre decisions, they had already had their mind made up about what they were going to do. It's kind of like if you're growing up, I used to hear, don't decide who you're going to be on the date. Decide who you're going to be before the date. Right. It was the idea of how do you have in your mind? And that Joseph and Daniel were two people to me that made a lot of pre decisions. I'll give you an example. Joseph, you can tell that there was other moments that he had depended on God, trusted in God. So when moments of pressure came, when Potiphar's wife was saying, hey, lay down with me, he didn't say, hey, let's pray about it. He got out of there. Right.
There was already a part of his heart that already knew to obey. The other part I think about is with Daniel, like when Daniel was told to not pray anymore, to open up his windows, pray three times a day. If you remember in the Bible, it says that what did he do as he had already been doing?
So what I'm saying is the crisis for Daniel did not create the discipline. The crisis revealed what Daniel had already been doing.
And so maybe that's part of it is making pre decisions. All right, when this moment happens, when this moment happens, I'm going to go ahead and start to decide. Any other ideas kind of goes along with that. But making habits. Habits. If you're in the habit of getting up every morning and reading your Bible.
[00:23:10] Speaker F: Praying that, you know, when you get.
[00:23:13] Speaker B: Up, it's not really a decision to be happy.
[00:23:15] Speaker D: Are you going to do it? You just already basically trained yourself to.
[00:23:19] Speaker B: Yes. Awesome. All right.
Yes.
[00:23:23] Speaker G: Throughout the day, this frustrating day, I just try to, you know, stay, I guess, in prayer, analyzing my thoughts and like, just Praying to God about those feelings. I might know that if I'm frustrated or something like that, you know, that's like. Can lead to bad things. Thinking about those things. Texas, God's captive.
[00:23:42] Speaker B: Awesome. Awesome.
[00:23:44] Speaker E: So what do you guys be about? Taking swords? Captivity. Do we like to divide into the thoughts?
[00:23:49] Speaker B: Yes. Well, we can't. It's give to me and I'll. I was going to get a little bit into this if I had time. It's the idea of taking captive is giving them over to God because if we're going to try to deal with our mind on our own, we're going to be in trouble. It's the idea of giving him those thoughts.
[00:24:13] Speaker E: I saw. Tries to close it hard to take.
[00:24:15] Speaker B: So it's captive.
[00:24:19] Speaker E: So for what takes on capture. I feel like other people. He would have somehow gave me hard time.
[00:24:28] Speaker B: Yes, that is a very good idea. Yeah. And so you're saying get the help of other people too? Is that what you're saying?
Get the help of other people. All right, well, let me because I've got to go to. Here's the ones that I had before I go to go over there.
Ways to take your thoughts captive. First you got to accept responsibility for your thoughts. We can't just say, well, that happened. Well, we have to take ownership of it. The other thing is this. Our mind, not our behavior, only has to change. This is kind of what repentance is. You know, you can say, I'm repenting of this sin, but it's not just changing your behavior. It's changing your mindset about it. Because you can get rid of all the things. You can walk away from all the things, but if there's still a part of you that is still hanging onto it, but you don't really truly see it as it's hurting God and hurting others, then it's not really going to. You're just going to get back into it. The other thing we could do is to think through our problems rather than just reacting to them. And I was thinking, you know, as men, this is probably a big one we need to focus on is it's okay to take time to say, I don't know right now, Let me think on it. But not to, you know, react, but to think. And the next thing is this, to take your disabling thoughts captive through confession. And maybe that's what some of us need to do. There is. So the Bible talks about there is power in confession. So I encourage you to do that. The book gives this advice if you want to be who you need to be.
Number one, don't hang out with fools. Don't hang out with fools. Number two, ask God for wisdom. Number three, get busy in the Lord's work. And number four, wipe out. Don't suppress. So I want to end with this because I thought this would be a good segue as Peter gets up here. And since this is going to be it for me teaching this part, I thought this would be a really good one to end on. What kind of man do you want to become in your old age? A, a secure, peaceful, strong man who has good humor and attentive to others, who listens intently, offers insight, and is a source of wisdom and hope. Or B, one of those cranky old guys who smacks you with a shopping cart at Walmart. So I'm going to leave it there and let you guys decide what you want to do. All right, it's yours now.
[00:26:58] Speaker F: Great.
All right, so which one do you want to be?
Old guy with the shopping cart or a. A secure, peaceful, strong man who has good humor and attentive to others and listens intently and offers insight and is a source of wisdom and hope.
I know Craig wants to be this.
When I first saw that, I was thinking of.
I was thinking of the old man from. What was the movie up. After he lost his wife and all like that, he became a cranky old man and he finally, finally came through.
So going forward from there, see if I press the right one. So becoming a man without fear. So can we get somebody to read or find these three verses? And somebody read Mark 4:35, 41, and somebody else get Philippians 1:21 and then follow up with Luke 12.
[00:28:03] Speaker H: On that day when evening came, he said to them, let us go whole drink and side. Leaving the crowd. They took him along with them in the boat just as he was, and other boats were with him. And there arose a fierce gale of wind, and the waves were breaking over the boat so much that the boat was already filling up. Jesus himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, teacher, do you not care Care.
[00:28:34] Speaker B: That we are perishing?
[00:28:36] Speaker H: And he got up and reduced the wind and said to the sea, hush, be still.
And the wind died down and it became perfectly calm. And he said to them, why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?
They became very much afraid and said to one another, who then is this that even the wind obey him?
[00:29:05] Speaker F: All right. Philippians 1:21.
[00:29:08] Speaker D: For to me to live as Christ and to die as gain.
[00:29:16] Speaker F: And then Luke 12:25 32 who of.
[00:29:21] Speaker C: You, by worrying, can add a single hour to your life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest? Consider how the wildflowers grow. They do not labor or spin.
Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you, you of little faith?
And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink. Do not worry about it. For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well. Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.
[00:30:08] Speaker F: So I guess we follow up. So what can we learn from these passages about how we lead as men?
Y'all are going to have to help me out here because I got thrown into this not too long ago, so my preparation was not much.
[00:30:24] Speaker H: It seems that from both the Mark and the Luke passage, that both of them lead us towards dependency on God to resolve our problems and not ourselves.
[00:30:37] Speaker D: So in Luke 12, depending on which translation you look at, verse 25 is different.
Like, for instance, the American Standard says, and which of you, by being anxious, can add a cubit unto the measure of his life? And then other translations like ESVs, talk about adding a single hour to his life by worrying. And Peter, you were. We were in a class one time that you, I think you were actually teaching, and we talked about this idea of taking time versus making time.
And this passage tells us that we cannot make time. So the idea that if we, if we're going to be leading, that we have to make time to do things, that's an impossibility.
And what we have to do is take time, right? God gives us time, and we have to take it and prioritize those things that we need to do.
So we have to take time, not make.
[00:31:36] Speaker F: So going back to the question here of what kind of man do you want to be in your old age?
So one of the things that's highlighted, highlighted here, which actually goes kind of with Craig's saying, is we don't all of a sudden become a cranky old guy, or we don't all of a sudden become a peaceful strongman.
We create ourselves over time.
Again, it's the little steps going one thing leads to another as going back to the up Analogy what I remember of the movie, I mean he used to be an outgoing person and then one thing led to the other and ultimately lost his wife and he became a cranky old man until the boy, not boy scout, whatever he was, came into his life. And then they took the house to a better place.
Here's another quote that he used in the book and this came from CS Lewis said hell begins with a grumbling mood. Always complaining, always blaming others, but you are still distinct from it. You may even criticize it in yourself and wish you could stop it. But there may come a day when you can no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticize the mood or even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself going on forever like a machine. It's not a question of God sending us to hell.
In each of us there is something growing which will be hell unless it is nipped in the bud. So again CS Lewis is pointing out it's not all of a sudden one thing. It's just our actions, our thoughts over time build up. So again that's why we need to suppress those thoughts.
Again, as we were talking, I know several weeks ago a keeper of the garden is a man who knows how it all ends. That nothing can separate us from the love of God.
I guess my question is what else do. Does anybody else have anything to add to our discussion?
Both what Andrew went over earlier and then the last few verses we talked about.
[00:34:15] Speaker E: I'd just add you thinking about fear. Men fear failure, but also fear not measuring up. Whether it's measuring up in our wives eyes or measuring up in our work, people's eyes, not measuring up somehow being counted as being not quite good enough. And I think the passage we looked at really emphasizes not we don't have to worry about that. God says he gives him great pleasure to be us the kingdom and he, as this passage says, the confidence we have in knowing how God cares about us and that he has us in his hands, that's intended to help us become the man that lives without fear. Because we don't have to worry about measuring up, meeting somebody else's expectations. So I think that's no small thing. But it's a. There's something to the screen are really well aware of and they emphasize it over and over and over again.
[00:35:16] Speaker D: You know, I can't help but look at that verse. You know, a keeper of the garden is a man who knows how it all ends. You know, I think for men, you know, it's not up to us to End it.
[00:35:28] Speaker F: Right, right.
[00:35:29] Speaker D: You know, it's death that truly ends it. So for us, we need to keep tending that garden and keep working and keep sharing our faith and keep, keep growing our faith until our dying day. You know, sadly, I've seen men that are good men of faith and, you know, and at some point it's like, you know, I don't need to be teaching anymore. I've done that. You know, there's younger people that can do that and pick up that ball and run with it, but those are some of the men that have got some of the most wisdom and some of the most life experiences, you know, can't help but think of John Walton who was at the senior retreat, you know, and was there, and the wisdom that he provided to the kids and to me and encouragement and, you know, I don't know if he's in here, you know, but it was just great to see him there, you know, and provide that level.
[00:36:16] Speaker F: Absolutely. Yeah, that's similar. What I was thinking is one of the, one of the things I've been doing for last two, three years has been going to the men's prayer breakfast every Tuesday. And one of the things I was thinking was like, okay, who do you surround yourself with?
And what I mean by that is, do you just hang out with guys your own age, your own peers and stuff like that, or do you also seek out younger men, older men?
What I've found is with the. Why I bring up the prayer breakfast is most. The majority of the men there are 50 plus, probably more, 60 plus, but there are quite a few. I mean, one of the youngest ones that comes that's there regularly is Brandon, Robbie's son. And then, but. And then we also. Curran is there quite a bit. And ever. If you've ever listened to Curran give a, give a lesson, you can tell he spends a lot of time putting, studying it and preparing for it. He got asked off the cuff, hey, can you do lesson this? Well, it's not quite polished. And everybody else, like, if that was not polished, I would hate to, I would hate to see when you just started it. I mean, it was, it was ready for Sunday morning.
But the, the thing I get out, the other thing I get out is the, the conversations I have with, with a lot of the older men. I mean, it's like, like it leads me to, I mean, seeing how they are living their lives and, and the, the wisdom there. So again, like you said, find.
Seek out the wisdom from your elders or your peers. And I mean, not just don't just hang out just with your one group.
Expand your sphere of both of who you're influencing and who is influencing you.
[00:38:31] Speaker G: I think one of the two biggest differences between A and B is the usefulness of that person.
And I was along the same exact thought pattern as David a second ago when he said that fear seems to be what tied all those verses together.
And when you ask the question, what you know out of those verses, what does that say about how we should lead as men? It tells me that a man that leads from fear is useless, is going to become useless because of what it does to control him in his life. Not that you can't be afraid. You know, we can be angry and we cannot sin. We can be afraid and not leave from fear.
[00:39:18] Speaker F: All right, thank you, guys.
