The Four Roles You Were Made to Master

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[Music: Crossroads Music, That's Who My God Is]

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- Well, hey, welcome to Crossroads.

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Whether it's your first time or your thousandth,

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we are so glad you're here.

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Now Crossroads is one church with locations

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all over Ohio and Kentucky, plus people joining online

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in communities all over the world.

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My name is Andy. I'm pastor of Crossroads Anywhere.

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I'm here with Shanna.

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- Hey, I'm Shanna and I'm with our Crossroads Students Team

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and I'm so excited to be here.

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- Love it. So. Shanna, you are coming up on staff

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like almost one year. - Yeah.

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- Just tell me like what's maybe like

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the most surprising thing to you about Crossroads

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over the last year?

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- Let me tell you, you Midwest besties really love camping.

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There's so many camps that Crossroads does

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and I was so shocked by that.

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And right now there's actually 1800 women

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who are at Woman Camp.

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And you and I are not there, obviously.

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We're here at Crossroads, so we are going to

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throw to our friend Jen,

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who is going to tell us all about Woman Camp.

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- Hey, Jen. - Hey, girl.

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- Hey, Shannon. I heard you say city girl.

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You are -- You're going to be here next year.

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Is that what I just heard you say?

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- Uh, yeah. Maybe.

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- Yes. I am here in Neville, Ohio.

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We have over 800 acres of land,

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and we've had these women out here

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just we're talking about

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lighting up this year was our theme

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and how oftentimes as women, we struggle with control

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or carrying burdens that we were never meant to carry.

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And we already have so many stories of women

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who are just leaving here on the land

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burdens that they've been caring for years,

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some of them decades.

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You've got 18 year olds to 80 year olds.

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And I've lost my voice. Can you tell?

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Because we have been having a blast singing and dancing

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and just doing a bunch of girl things.

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- Oh, that's so good. - Awesome.

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- And so it's Sunday, and so that means like

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baptisms are about to happen, like right now, right?

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- Yes. Right now, in the main tent happening here,

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you can see the tent, women, at least 20 or 30 women

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just stood up for the first time to accept Jesus

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as their Lord and Savior for the very first time.

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And then many are about to walk down to this pond

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to get baptized. It's going to be amazing.

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- Oh, fantastic. Jen, thank you so much.

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Hey, whether you're watching online,

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we are going to celebrate.

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We're going to spend some time with worship right now

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as Jen and the Woman Camp team lose their voices singing,

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we're gonna have our own time to not just hear songs,

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but to connect with God through worship right now.

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- God, we offer up praise to you.

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God, I ask that you would raise the level of our faith today.

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That you'd help us to see that in

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the midst of the things that we're going through

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in this life that you are still there

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and you are still good.

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I know some of us in this room feel like critics right now,

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because we're unsure if this thing is real, God,

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if you are for real about us.

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So my prayer, God, is that you would encounter us

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in a special way today.

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That you'd help us to see that in this world

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we are not alone, because the one who created it

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is both on the throne and here with us at the same time.

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I thank you, and what our eyes be more open to you today.

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It's in Jesus's name I pray. Amen. Amen.

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Come on. [applause]

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So good to sing together in this room.

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We're not alone.

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You've been singing next to someone for a little bit now.

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Why don't you turn to somebody around you,

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we're one big family. Introduce yourself.

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Tell them your name and then you can have a seat.

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- Hey, I'm Brandon

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and I volunteer at Kids' Club 1st grade room.

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- I'm Amanda Neely and I volunteer

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in the Kids' Club in the preschool room.

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- We moved here the day COVID started.

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We knew in Chicago all of the people

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because we used to own a coffee shop,

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so we knew everybody in the South Side.

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But coming here, we're like,

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all right, we don't know anybody.

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We started at the coffee team.

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Kids' Club asked, "Hey, we need some volunteers."

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And we're like, it makes sense for us to serve

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in a place that's also helping us.

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- I volunteer because it's so much fun.

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It's the highlight of my week. It fills my cup.

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God's going to use that. We just show up.

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Friday, I'm still at the office. It's starting to rain.

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I get in the car and lightning strikes across the street.

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I'm like, whoa, this is a serious storm.

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Then I get home and I open the garage door,

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pull in the garage, and water's just flooding in.

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- It's coming up fast. The car was lost.

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I mean, it was five feet of water.

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We were cleaning, and I'm like, "I think --

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I think we need help."

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We're the ones that serve. We don't ask.

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And I felt like we always serve and make deposits.

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Taking withdrawals is hard and calling and saying,

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"Hey, I need help."

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- An hour or two later, Masters of Disaster

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started showing up and then they just kept showing up.

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We saw that they didn't just help us,

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we saw that they helped our neighbors.

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I actually said to Brandon, like, "You know,

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we're volunteering tomorrow."

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And he's like, "No, we're not."

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I was like, "We're signed up."

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"You know, we don't have to go."

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And I'm like, "No, we should go. I just think we should go."

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- Neelys show up, we serve

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because we make Crossroads happen.

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- Gosh, I'm so encouraged by the Neely's.

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I can't imagine going through all of that

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and still getting dressed to get ready to go volunteer.

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And what's so remarkable about their story

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is the fact that they just wanted to continue to show up

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for a place that they loved, they have fun,

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that continues to pour into them.

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And when things got tough, we were able to show up

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for them when they needed it most.

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And here's the thing, the Neelys help run Crossroads.

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This whole building is run by volunteers.

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It's something that we say all the time.

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And one time a year we get really serious,

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really serious about our invitation.

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Because here's the thing, we we need you to get in the game.

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And you might be wondering, what do I --

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What do you mean by that?

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We're a big church. It's true.

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And you might be wondering, like,

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they're a well-oiled machine.

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Like there's no way that they need me.

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But you and I know that

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that could not be further from the truth.

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- Yeah. We have another saying around here.

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It's that we get our jerseys dirty.

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Like we don't want to be the people who end the game

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with a nice, squeaky clean jersey

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because we were riding the bench, or worst case,

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like we never even stepped onto the field.

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I got my Crossroads jersey on.

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You got your students jersey.

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And while it's not always easy or convenient,

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it is so good and so worth it.

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Over the years, I regularly have conversations

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with folks and volunteers who say, "Man,

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I thought I was helping Crossroads out,

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but I've gotten so much more out of this."

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And I've got three quick reasons

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why that might be true for you

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and why I think you should consider volunteering.

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So one, everybody wants their life to have an impact, right?

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But very few of us can point to anything on our calendar

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and say, well, yeah, that, that is where I'm having an impact.

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Man. This could solve that for you.

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You could know, hey, with 90 minutes, twice a month,

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you would be making an impact on people's lives

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for generations to come. It's incredible.

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Second, man, you want to grow spiritually.

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There's just something that happens

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when we take Jesus at His Word and follow his example

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in serving other people where we grow.

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And third, man, maybe you want to meet other people

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who are also trending

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and bending their lives towards Jesus.

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That all happens when you surf.

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- Absolutely. And if you want any of that for yourself,

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any of it, we're just asking you to consider

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signing up to volunteer. And it's so easy.

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So you might be wondering, so how do I do it?

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Well, you get out your phone,

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which you're probably already on,

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and you're going to text 301301

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and you're going to send the word "more".

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And you're going to get back two links.

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And you're going to click the top one

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and it'll say sign up to volunteer.

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You'll fill out the form.

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And no matter what site you attend,

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including our Anywhere folks.

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Hint, if you live in Colorado, you're in Anywhere folk

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because you don't attend a physical site.

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That is where you would sign up.

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And we have a bunch of different ways to volunteer

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and we can just give you all that information

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to help figure out where you're going to go.

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- Yeah. So I'll give you a second.

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Take your phone out right now. We'll wait.

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Text the word "more" to 301301.

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Got that quick form.

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And you're not signing up for a spam list.

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You're not going to get a timeshare invitation.

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You're just signing up to go to Volunteer 101,

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which is basically just a behind the scenes tour

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of four of the different areas,

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or one of the four different areas

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where we need your help and where there's room

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for new people to experience Jesus

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in a language they can understand.

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So I'm going to give you those four areas right now.

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- Let's do it. - So the first is Kids' Club.

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I've got three kids, two of them are in Kids' Club right now,

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and they know more about who Jesus is

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because they've grown up in and around Kids' Club.

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You can help shape minds and hearts

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to know the truth about Jesus.

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And you don't have to be a seminary grad or a Bible expert.

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And eventually, like my oldest,

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they'll graduate out of Kids' Club into Crossroads Students.

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- And they'll come hang out with me. Let's go.

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We all know that middle school and high school

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are some of the most tumultuous years

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of a young person's life.

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It's confusing, it's difficult, and you just feel awkward.

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And we want to help students to not navigate that alone.

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We want to tell them the truth about how God sees them,

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how God sees them, and who he is to them,

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so that the trajectory of their life

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can be forever changed and geared towards Jesus.

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And we have so much fun while we do it. Like so much fun.

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- I hear about it every week.

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So much fun. I'm jealous.

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And hey, maybe you remember what it's like

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to be new around here or around any place,

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and the difference of what it takes

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for one person to make a big place feel smaller.

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That is what our Connections Team does.

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Whether it's getting you into the parking lot

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or answering your questions online or at the info center,

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or hand you a cup of coffee, holding a door.

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These are amazing, amazing people people

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who make a big place small.

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- And lastly, I'm talking to my people

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who are behind the camera who are helping you

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actually engage with us right now.

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And in the auditorium, people who are on stage singing,

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playing instruments,

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these people are all actually volunteers,

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and you can be one of those volunteers.

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So we need you and we need you to text "more" to 301301,

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if you haven't already, to sign up

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for any of those four areas.

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And when you do, someone is going to follow up with you

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from your site immediately.

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- That's right. And again, texting "more" to 301301,

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it's not a timeshare invitation.

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You're not going to get 30 texts.

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It's just one way for you to connect.

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And many of us give our time

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and our energy to serve around here.

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A lot of people also give financially.

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That fuels everything from that coffee

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to the work that's going on at Woman Camp

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to the stuff halfway around the world

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in places like Nepal and South Africa and India.

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All of that happens because people are faithful

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and trust God with their finances.

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So if you want more information about how to volunteer

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or about how to give, or you got questions about

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what Crossroads believes about money,

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just text "more" to 301301.

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- And listen we are in a series right now called Raw.

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And we're continuing on in that series

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where we're talking about real and raw things

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that come up when you're dealing with life

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and faith and pursuing God.

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We're taking an honest look at some really big topics.

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We're looking at life, we're looking at sex,

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love, purpose, identity, all of these things.

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And we are jumping in with our Senior Pastor, Brian Tome,

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who's going to talk to us about living a life of purpose.

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So let's jump in with him.

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- Well, good morning, everybody.

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You know, for purposes of just expediency,

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I've got a -- this is a talk that I've given before.

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This is a different version I'm going to give right now.

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It's also a book that I've had in process

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for quite some time that'll come out someday.

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And the basic title is this: The Four Core Callings of a Man.

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Four Core Callings of a Man.

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Now, now, let me tell you a secret,

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it actually is for women, too.

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These things actually work for women too.

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But for expediency's sake and just sort of rawness,

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raw punch, it's helpful for me to just think about

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kind of one pronoun, he, today.

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So most of my stuff is going to be around that.

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But ladies, this is for you

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and you're in these four core callings as well.

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Let's pray before I go any further and get into them.

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All right. God, I thank you for giving us a space

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to detach from the rest of our world,

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detach from our other pressures,

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or maybe bring our pressures into here,

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because maybe you're going to speak

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to our pressures this morning.

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And I pray that that's what happens,

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that you are going to equip us,

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you're going to give us a fresh touch of yourself

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or the first touch of yourself ever,

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and we would sense your love and your empowerment.

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And I pray that you would help me do that

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and to honor you in the process.

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And I pray these things according to

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the character identity of Jesus. Amen.

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My opinion, the two most important people

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in the Old Testament and then in the New Testament

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In the Old Testament, of all the people,

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there's a lot of great heroes.

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My personal opinion, I think David, King David

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is the most important person in the Old Testament.

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He has the classic story that everybody knows,

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even if you're an atheist, you've never picked up a Bible,

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of David and Goliath.

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He's penned more of the Old Testament

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than probably anybody else.

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You take a look at all the Psalms that he wrote.

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He's just an amazing figure.

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And then his great, great, great, great,

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great, great, great, great, great,

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great, great, great, great, great,

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great, great, great great great great

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great great great great great grandson

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is Jesus of Nazareth.

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God comes to David and says you're going to have a son

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and he's going to have an everlasting kingdom.

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He might have thought that's going to be his son,

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Solomon or somebody else.

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But really it was on in his lineage,

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Jesus, who was going to start a new kingdom.

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And that kingdom was going to consist of Jews and Gentiles.

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It was going to be ever expanding.

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These two men, Jesus was more than a man, He was also God.

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These two men had four things

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that ran throughout their entire lives.

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And these four things run through the life of every man,

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or should run through the life of every man.

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Truth be told, they don't run through life of every man,

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and that's why men's lives don't work.

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These are core callings, core callings

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that every man and every woman actually has.

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Now let's talk about the foundation for just a moment,

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because Kyle did a great job with this last week.

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The foundation, before you get into the calling

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or your purpose, the foundation is that

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you are a treasured child of the Most High God.

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David was constantly pelted with doubts about his parents

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and how much they loved him.

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Jesus had an earthly father whose name was Joseph,

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and people constantly pelted Jesus,

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at least the religious enemies that he had,

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pelted him with doubts over whether or not

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he was a legitimate child.

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He was accused of being a bastard.

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Both of these people had to be secure

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in their identities of being children of God.

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And this is where you and I start.

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We start with that idea that we are

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treasured children of the Most High God,

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that anybody who has received Jesus

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comes into his family.

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In the book of John, chapter one, it puts it this way.

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Notice this language which is really, really important.

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It says this: But to all who did receive him,

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who believed in his name,

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he gave the right to become children of God. The right.

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There's very few times in the Bible you have a right.

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Most of the time we have a right to suffer.

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We have a right to obey.

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This is the right to become a child of God,

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who were not born, not of blood

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nor of the will of the flesh nor the will of man,

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but born of God.

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It's really important that you have to understand this,

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that when you come relationship with God,

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you have a right to be in the family of God.

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Therefore, to have his love. That's profound.

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And I'd love to spend a whole series on that.

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But I just have to say this about that.

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These four callings I'm going to get into,

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you do not earn your way into relationship

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with God through these four callings.

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Some people try to do these things to impress God.

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It doesn't work that way.

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Sometimes people do these things

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in order to get themselves to heaven.

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It doesn't work that way.

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These are the things that you do when you're in the child --

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And in the family of God, they're core callings.

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You ready for them? You ready? Here we go.

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I'll tell you this right now, just getting ready for you.

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One of these is going to tag you.

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I don't know which one it is, but one of these four

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is going to hit you right between the eyes.

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And you had you heard this talk two years ago,

00:32:07

it probably would have been a different one

00:32:09

because there's different things that God works with us

00:32:11

in different seasons.

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So let's go. The very first one.

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These are not numerical order, just --

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Well, they are numerical order,

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but not numerical order of importance.

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Number one, which would I guess be numerical order.

00:32:21

Number one. Number one. Friend. Friend.

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Every man has to learn how to be a friend.

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Every man has to learn how to have a friend.

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Every man has to learn how to operate as a friend.

00:32:34

I believe friendship is the most important

00:32:38

spiritual discipline for a man. Period.

00:32:42

I know someone say, "Woo, man, preacher man saying that,

00:32:44

don't you believe in the Bible?"

00:32:45

Yes, I believe in the Bible, yes I do.

00:32:47

And until the printing press was invented,

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for 1500 years, godly men grew with Christ

00:32:52

before they ever read a paper Bible or a digital Bible.

00:32:56

Friends are the way that Jesus extended his kingdom

00:33:00

and extended his ministry.

00:33:01

His friends became his disciples.

00:33:03

And then he had 12 and then he had 72

00:33:07

and then he kept expanding from there.

00:33:09

David, it was his friends that enabled him

00:33:11

to have the potency of his life.

00:33:14

Here's a crazy verse. Get a load of this one.

00:33:16

2 Samuel 1:26. We see David's best friend is Jonathan,

00:33:21

and here's what he says about him.

00:33:23

I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan;

00:33:26

very pleasant have you been to me;

00:33:28

your love to me was extraordinary,

00:33:31

surpassing the love of women.

00:33:34

Now, this is a verse that some people look at

00:33:37

and say, "Well, David and Jonathan were

00:33:39

some combination of gay or bisexual,"

00:33:42

and I've heard this increasingly over the years.

00:33:44

Let me say, if you read verses like this

00:33:47

and you see sex in this, two things,

00:33:50

one, you're too sexually fixated,

00:33:53

and two, you know nothing about friendship.

00:33:57

There is a kind of love that a male friend can give me

00:34:02

that my wife can't give me.

00:34:05

Last service I had a one of my closest friends

00:34:07

sitting right down here.

00:34:08

It was like there was a friend.

00:34:10

There's a kind of love the Law give me

00:34:13

that Lib can't give me because he understands

00:34:17

organizations and things I deal with that Lib doesn't.

00:34:19

He understands kind of unique temptations of men.

00:34:22

My love for Libby is far beyond, far beyond him.

00:34:25

But there's a kind of love.

00:34:27

You have a calling as a man to have people around you

00:34:31

to make them better, and those people

00:34:33

are going to make you better.

00:34:35

And if you think you can do it alone,

00:34:37

you cannot do it alone.

00:34:38

You will never achieve the redemptive potential

00:34:40

God has for your life.

00:34:42

Jesus says to his friends, he says this:

00:34:45

I no longer call you servants

00:34:48

because a servant doesn't know his master's business;

00:34:51

but I call you friends because everything I've learned

00:34:53

from the Father I've made known to you.

00:34:57

God actually calls -- God actually calls his friends,

00:35:01

not servants, He calls them friends.

00:35:04

It's a sad thing, our culture is hurting -- male friends.

00:35:07

This is written about very, very heavily,

00:35:09

men are lonely, more lonely than ever.

00:35:12

And why is that?

00:35:14

It's because men are doing fewer things than ever.

00:35:17

We go to work and then we stream.

00:35:21

And I stream a lot, I stream probably more than,

00:35:23

maybe more than -- I stream a lot.

00:35:25

No, I'm not cracking on streaming,

00:35:27

but I'm saying that when you stream

00:35:29

you have no chance of building any friendships

00:35:31

because men build friendships

00:35:32

when we do things with each other, women the same way.

00:35:36

I think not as commonly,

00:35:37

women are a bit different in this area,

00:35:39

but men, we do things together

00:35:41

and that's how friendships form.

00:35:43

So if we're not doing anything with any other men,

00:35:46

how are we going to like, have friendships?

00:35:49

Books. Read books. Great. Awesome.

00:35:51

Get in a book club.

00:35:52

If you get in a book club

00:35:53

and you talk about these things,

00:35:55

then you might have a friendship.

00:35:56

I don't care what it is.

00:35:57

For me, it's hunting.

00:35:59

I'll talk about that today a bit.

00:36:01

For me it's hunting or other things like that.

00:36:03

Maybe it's Dungeons and Dragons for you.

00:36:05

Maybe it's cooking for you.

00:36:08

Maybe it's being in a chorus for you.

00:36:10

I don't know what it is, but you have to find people

00:36:13

and things that understand your world and want to be in it.

00:36:17

Now, David, his passion was --

00:36:21

Well, how about how I say this,

00:36:23

doesn't sound very churchy, but his passion,

00:36:25

his passion was killing things.

00:36:27

That was his passion. He was a warrior.

00:36:29

He killed Goliath.

00:36:31

God anointed him to do a lot, a lot of stuff.

00:36:33

He killed wild animals that were coming on his dad's flocks.

00:36:37

And guess who he attracted to him?

00:36:39

He attracted to him people who wanted to kill things,

00:36:43

people who were into adventures.

00:36:46

He had this whole band of people

00:36:48

known as the mighty men.

00:36:49

These are people who had a proclivity for adventure

00:36:52

and just doing extreme things.

00:36:54

One of my favorite stories that shows

00:36:56

the depth of his friendships

00:36:58

and how David was more into God than his friends,

00:37:01

comes from 2 Samuel 23:15.

00:37:04

David is on the run from Saul, who is the king of Israel,

00:37:07

who is searching out David to kill him

00:37:10

because he's threatened by him.

00:37:12

And David leaves the Israel confines,

00:37:16

and he basically goes to where the arch enemy of Israel is,

00:37:20

the Philistines.

00:37:22

And he's hiding out in their territory.

00:37:23

And he just starts musing out loud with his friends,

00:37:26

who are these mighty men.

00:37:28

And here's what happens.

00:37:29

And David said longingly, "Oh, that someone would give me

00:37:33

water to drink from the well of Bethlehem, that is by the gate."

00:37:37

He's just processing. He's a verbal processor here.

00:37:40

Then the three mighty men broke through

00:37:42

the camp of the Philistines and drew water out

00:37:45

of the well of Bethlehem that was by the gate,

00:37:48

and carried it and brought it to Bethlehem.

00:37:50

And when David had this water, he poured it out

00:37:52

and said, "This is only worthy of the Lord,"

00:37:55

and pours it out.

00:37:57

These mighty men, the people around him were like,

00:37:59

"Oh, that sounds like a challenge.

00:38:01

Go behind enemy lines and carry

00:38:03

the heaviest thing you can, which is water."

00:38:05

They didn't know about Mercury back then.

00:38:07

I think mercury is heavier in the water, right?

00:38:11

You have stupid people here. [laughter]

00:38:15

I'm one of you. I am one of you. I am one of you.

00:38:17

I look at one of my friends, female friends, went to MIT.

00:38:20

Is Mercury heavier than water?

00:38:22

She doesn't know. - [indiscernible]

00:38:27

- Let's move on. It's a -- it has nothing to do with this.

00:38:30

But anyway, they go on and.

00:38:32

It's hard to carry like water

00:38:33

when you're in enemy territory.

00:38:34

You might get killed.

00:38:35

They come to David and he goes, "Dudes,

00:38:37

you shouldn't have done it.

00:38:38

I was just verbally processing. It's like --"

00:38:41

He takes the water and he pours it.

00:38:43

He goes, "This is an offering only worthy of God.

00:38:46

I'm not worthy of this."

00:38:47

And all his friends, you just have to imagine,

00:38:49

his friends go, "And that's why you're my guy.

00:38:53

That's it. Because you're about God.

00:38:56

You're not about your kingdom or anything else.

00:38:58

You're about God."

00:39:00

When you find people who are about God

00:39:02

and have interests that you have,

00:39:05

you can have the start of a potent, potent friendship life.

00:39:09

This is raw. We're in the series called Raw.

00:39:12

So the rawest thing I can talk about

00:39:13

as I weave throughout the rest of my time today

00:39:16

is my recent trip to Alaska to hunt moose.

00:39:20

I don't know if you ever been to Alaska,

00:39:21

but Alaska is the largest state by far in the country.

00:39:25

It's the longest distance to get to.

00:39:28

You get to Anchorage, it's like three x

00:39:31

the amount of distance from Cincinnati to Key West.

00:39:34

And as you're getting there, every time you get there,

00:39:37

every successive flight, the plane gets smaller

00:39:40

and smaller and smaller and smaller.

00:39:43

Until finally the last landing strip I was in

00:39:47

and my friends were in, we got in planes that were one seat.

00:39:52

That's one seat per guy, and those big tires

00:39:55

just land in the frozen tundra of Alaska.

00:39:58

And we went out, there's nothing, there's nothing,

00:40:02

like there's no roads, there's no power lines.

00:40:03

Like if you break your leg, I don't know what happens,

00:40:06

but it's not good.

00:40:07

And here's the friends and my son

00:40:09

who went with me on this trip.

00:40:11

We're all there. And it was amazing.

00:40:14

And we're there because we have a special interest.

00:40:16

I would never try to recruit someone to a trip like this.

00:40:18

Like, "Hey, you should try hunting someday."

00:40:21

No, that'd be a horrible trip for you. Horrible.

00:40:24

It was the most uncomfortable,

00:40:26

uncomfortable two weeks of my life, and I liked the camp.

00:40:29

It was very uncomfortable.

00:40:30

But what made it was the friendship bonding.

00:40:34

We were doing something together.

00:40:37

David had his warriors,

00:40:38

that's the second core calling of a man,

00:40:41

of being a warrior, being a warrior.

00:40:44

That's what his friends were into.

00:40:46

Now, my friends, none of us have served in the military.

00:40:48

By the way, if you've served in the military,

00:40:51

male or female, would you raise your hand

00:40:53

right now in all of our sites right now?

00:40:55

Let's thank these people. [applause]

00:40:56

Now see, all of you -- All of you.

00:41:02

Yeah, you've been literal warriors,

00:41:04

whatever your thing was.

00:41:06

Like, I never had the privilege

00:41:09

or honor of serving the military.

00:41:10

I never did that.

00:41:11

I wish I did because I felt I should have earlier in life,

00:41:14

but I never have.

00:41:15

So maybe, maybe that's the draw of hunting for me.

00:41:18

It's like the closest I'll get to kind of warrior thing.

00:41:21

It's definitely not the same, but I don't know,

00:41:24

maybe there's something that draws me to it.

00:41:26

But David had his friends, were operating with who he was.

00:41:30

He is a warrior.

00:41:31

Men, you may have zero interest in guns. That's fine.

00:41:35

Men, you have zero, ladies,

00:41:37

you may have zero interest in hunting. That's fine.

00:41:40

Zero interest in MMA. Great. Fine. No, no.

00:41:44

But, but here's what this means, there are things,

00:41:47

men, that you're going to have to fight for.

00:41:51

There are things that you will only have

00:41:53

if you exert energy and you exert yourself

00:41:57

to make those happen.

00:41:58

Boys wait for somebody else to take care of their fight.

00:42:02

Boys wait for the government to swoop in and take it.

00:42:04

Boys wait for somebody else to do it.

00:42:05

Boys play the blame game.

00:42:07

Boys wait for the the CEOs to take care of them.

00:42:10

But men, we say, "Hey, there's a thing that I have to do.

00:42:14

It's going to be hard. And by golly, I'm going to do it."

00:42:18

And it's a fight and it's difficult and it's backbreaking,

00:42:22

maybe not physically backbreaking,

00:42:25

but man, it can be emotionally backbreaking.

00:42:28

It can be spiritually backbreaking.

00:42:32

God says of himself in Exodus 15:3:

00:42:35

The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is his name.

00:42:41

When it says the Lord is his name, it means

00:42:42

he's the owner of battalions

00:42:45

and companies of angelic warriors and soldiers.

00:42:49

It says right there. It says right there

00:42:50

that the Lord is a man of war.

00:42:54

It doesn't say the Lord sits around petting kittens.

00:42:58

God is on purpose. God is on mission.

00:43:00

There is a cosmic battle that God has enlisted in,

00:43:03

and God wants you in the fight.

00:43:06

He wants you to take advantage of the opportunities

00:43:09

before you and push back against the realms of darkness

00:43:13

that are in all of our lives.

00:43:17

This is where this classic story

00:43:18

that everybody in America knows.

00:43:20

If you've never been to church,

00:43:21

you've never read the Bible, and you're an atheist,

00:43:23

everyone knows the story of David and Goliath.

00:43:26

David is a warrior.

00:43:27

By the way, Jesus is a warrior.

00:43:30

We don't have any record of Jesus picking up a weapon.

00:43:33

He never picks up a weapon, but he is at war.

00:43:36

He's at war against demons.

00:43:39

He's at war against powers and principalities,

00:43:42

and there's a shuddering and a quaking

00:43:44

in the spiritual realm, and there is conflict there.

00:43:47

Now, David is more the classic physical warrior.

00:43:51

He's killed lions and tigers and bears

00:43:55

while they've been coming on to his dad's sheep.

00:43:58

And then he goes to take lunch to his brothers

00:44:00

who were in the army, who are the sort of literal warriors.

00:44:03

He goes to take lunch to them, and he's shocked

00:44:07

that for 40 days,

00:44:09

a giant has been taunting the nation of Israel.

00:44:13

40 days, interesting. 40 days has happened.

00:44:16

And Jesus had 40 days in the wilderness

00:44:20

where he was being taunted by the evil one.

00:44:26

It's the Valley of Elah. It's behind me here.

00:44:29

I've been there.

00:44:30

It's this place where the armies of Philistia and Israel

00:44:34

are up on these hill crests and down below,

00:44:36

no one wants to charge because then

00:44:39

you can throw spears down and get them easily.

00:44:42

So no one wants to make the first move.

00:44:43

So Goliath comes out, Goliath comes out

00:44:45

and he's like one on one, mano a mano, giant on giant.

00:44:48

And here's what scholars are pretty united on.

00:44:50

As the 40 days is happening, he's coming out

00:44:52

banging his shield, taunting the nation of Israel.

00:44:55

"Come on, send me a man. No man wants to fight?

00:44:57

Is there no man who's a warrior?"

00:45:01

Every day he would step closer.

00:45:03

Every day he would step closer and taunt.

00:45:04

And here's the spiritual principle for you and I,

00:45:07

men and women, every day you don't warrior up

00:45:12

against your problems, they get bigger.

00:45:16

Every day you sit back and you assume

00:45:19

it's going to take care of itself,

00:45:20

the problem only gets bigger.

00:45:24

You have to understand this is a core,

00:45:27

a core identity of yours.

00:45:31

This is the core to who - you are this.

00:45:34

But no one may look at you

00:45:36

and think of the traditional warrior.

00:45:37

But no, this is who you are.

00:45:40

This is -- if you are in the lineage of Jesus,

00:45:42

if you're in the lineage of David, you have this in you.

00:45:47

You have the ability to be a friend

00:45:49

and you have the ability to get into a fight,

00:45:52

whatever that fight might be.

00:45:53

You have the ability to get into a financial fight.

00:45:56

I'll tell you, I'll give you an example.

00:45:58

I know I don't want to get personal here,

00:46:00

I just want to give us examples here.

00:46:01

Man, when Lib and I were massive credit card debt,

00:46:04

my gosh, that was a fight.

00:46:06

We first married, massive, massive, massive fight.

00:46:10

And if you're in deep credit card debt,

00:46:12

consumer debt, deep school loans,

00:46:15

you're not sure what to do about them.

00:46:17

You know, you're in bondage.

00:46:19

You don't like going to the mailbox.

00:46:21

And so there's times, you know,

00:46:23

"I'm not going to get the mail today.

00:46:24

I'm going to get bummed out and get depressed."

00:46:26

Guess what happens?

00:46:27

The longer you put off going the mailbox, the worse things get.

00:46:31

You have to look at this not as,

00:46:33

oh, it's a financial discipline thing.

00:46:35

This is a financial war that you're in.

00:46:38

You're in a fight and you need to fight for your freedom.

00:46:40

You need to warrior up. You have this in you.

00:46:43

Well, how would you warrior up with this?

00:46:45

Well, how many streaming services do you have?

00:46:48

You have one, that's too many.

00:46:50

If you're in credit card debt

00:46:52

one is too many streaming services.

00:46:54

Like get -- change that money like,

00:46:57

well, how many times do you eat out? Stop eating out.

00:47:00

In fact, I know people have gone on oatmeal for a year.

00:47:03

Put all that money, they warrior-ed up,

00:47:05

put all that money, said, "I got to get out of this."

00:47:07

I'm not saying you have to do any of these things.

00:47:09

I'm not saying you're a bad person

00:47:10

if you have a monthly balance and you have Netflix.

00:47:12

I'm just saying, I'm just trying to say,

00:47:14

hey, hey, friends, if you want something different,

00:47:16

you got to warrior something different.

00:47:19

You got to say, this is personal

00:47:20

and I got to reach something inside that Jesus has given me.

00:47:26

I will get personal, more relevant.

00:47:29

You know, I still have the same sex drive

00:47:31

I had when I was younger.

00:47:32

For the most part, that's been good.

00:47:34

But it wasn't good for Lib.

00:47:36

You know, if you're in a marriage with somebody else

00:47:39

and like you're in different places sexually,

00:47:41

you have a battle.

00:47:43

That doesn't mean

00:47:44

you're supposed to fight each other over it.

00:47:46

It means like, you've got to do

00:47:48

some really vulnerable conversation

00:47:50

and problem solving of like, what do we do about this

00:47:53

to get to the same place and have this happy connection?

00:47:56

What is it? Because if you don't,

00:47:59

it's a problem that's only going to get bigger

00:48:02

if you don't solve it.

00:48:03

It's very possible someone is going to create

00:48:05

a real, real big problem in your marriage.

00:48:09

I could go on and on and on and on.

00:48:11

I don't -- I got to breeze by this one,

00:48:13

but I'll just say, hey man, some of us

00:48:15

it's okay to be stressed and be in a fight.

00:48:18

You're created for this. You're a warrior.

00:48:21

It's who you are.

00:48:22

Now, when I was hunting in Alaska.

00:48:24

This is so trite, I hate to say it.

00:48:28

It's metaphorical. You know,

00:48:29

I'm basically going to war with moose, trying to find moose.

00:48:33

And they are big. They are massive.

00:48:36

It's the massive, most massive thing in North America.

00:48:39

And if you've seen one in Canada,

00:48:41

it's nothing compared to all the ones in Alaska.

00:48:43

Interesting enough, the further north you get

00:48:46

from like, like you take a deer in Florida,

00:48:50

they're like guinea pigs.

00:48:52

The further north you get all the way through Canada,

00:48:55

every species gets larger and larger and larger and larger.

00:48:59

It's like these species need the harsh elements

00:49:02

to wean out the weak, and only the big and powerful survive.

00:49:06

So when you get to Alaska, like, we saw this black bear,

00:49:09

most massive black bear I ever saw.

00:49:11

If you ever seen them down in Gatlinburg,

00:49:13

no, no, those are not black bear.

00:49:18

Had a grizzly bear stand up 50 yards away from me.

00:49:20

It was the one time I didn't have a gun with me,

00:49:22

and 50 yards away, he would take me down in about a --

00:49:25

I mean, he would run that distance in a second

00:49:27

and take me down.

00:49:29

So I just backed away, backed away, and shoo, shoo.

00:49:32

So we're hunting and this guy pops up,

00:49:35

this guy pops up and I called this guy,

00:49:39

uh, old Hank is what we decided to call him.

00:49:42

Now for the sense of size, a full grown moose in Alaska,

00:49:47

like, I want to be somewhat graphic here.

00:49:48

It's called Raw.

00:49:49

If you took this finger and want to put your finger

00:49:51

in his butthole, it would be this.

00:49:58

So they have laws in Alaska about how big

00:50:01

the moose has to be before you take it down.

00:50:03

It has to be a 50 inch spread.

00:50:05

I looked at what we called old Hank.

00:50:07

He looked real old to me, but I thought,

00:50:09

"Huh, I don't I don't know it's 50 inches.

00:50:11

I don't want to get penalized."

00:50:13

And so we passed on him. We went back.

00:50:15

My son pulled out that picture.

00:50:16

We looked that picture and studied it and said,

00:50:18

"Oh, man, he was 50 inches. Darn it."

00:50:20

I thought, well, that could have been my shot.

00:50:22

You never know how often it's going to come by

00:50:24

and came this way and kind of kind of blew it, so I thought.

00:50:27

The next day, the next day we had another shot at it,

00:50:30

which I'll finish that story in a little bit.

00:50:33

But I'm saying I was drawn to that with the friends

00:50:36

because we're kind of -- we're doing something,

00:50:37

we're trying to solve a problem.

00:50:39

We're trying to accomplish something

00:50:41

and we want to do this when we could.

00:50:44

David, in the book of 1 Samuel 17:48,

00:50:47

he wanted to do something when he could.

00:50:49

It says this: The Philistine arose and came

00:50:51

and drew near to meet David,

00:50:53

David ran quickly toward the battle line.

00:50:58

Friends. Run! Run to the problem.

00:51:02

Run to the problem.

00:51:04

Run to your mailbox.

00:51:06

Run to cancel subscriptions.

00:51:08

Run to a conversation with your wife.

00:51:10

Run to a conversation with your husband.

00:51:12

Run to your teacher, your kid's teacher,

00:51:15

who doesn't seem to be helping them in school.

00:51:17

Run to them.

00:51:18

Run to your kids who've got behavior problems

00:51:20

No, they're all that way. No they're not.

00:51:23

Run to it. Run to it.

00:51:25

Run to the HOA president who's dysfunctional,

00:51:28

making everybody's life hell. Run! Run, run,

00:51:32

run and say, we're adults here.

00:51:34

Whatever it is, I've been given all kinds of things.

00:51:37

Again, this is who you are.

00:51:40

Just like you have the capacity to be a friend.

00:51:44

By the way, speaking of this talk in Man Camp,

00:51:47

this is a verse that I think is especially appropriate,

00:51:50

Psalm 144:1: Blessed be the Lord, my God,

00:51:53

who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle.

00:51:59

This is maybe the most popular song we do at Man Camp.

00:52:02

By the way, I'd love to have you Man Camp.

00:52:05

We have one week to to sign up and,

00:52:07

you may find great, great friends there.

00:52:09

You're like, "Oh, I don't know, I don't know anybody.

00:52:11

I don't have gear." Well, I handle you. We'll help you.

00:52:13

We have people designed to help you and fold you in,

00:52:16

so please check that out.

00:52:17

It could be the most important weekend of your life.

00:52:20

It's the most important weekend I do every single year,

00:52:23

no second place. That's it.

00:52:25

I'd love to have you there and see you there.

00:52:27

Number three. Number three.

00:52:28

Third core calling of a man is to be a king, a king.

00:52:35

When I say a king, I'm not talking about being

00:52:37

an elected official in the United States.

00:52:39

I'm not talking about being a megachurch pastor.

00:52:42

I'm not talking about being a CEO.

00:52:44

I'm not talking about leading a nonprofit.

00:52:47

I'm not talking about being an HOA president.

00:52:51

Any of those things may happen.

00:52:52

But when I say a king or a queen,

00:52:55

I am saying there is territory that God has given you.

00:53:00

There is territory that you are meant to oversee.

00:53:04

When I was living in my parents house,

00:53:06

that territory was my room.

00:53:09

And my room was always smelly, disgusting

00:53:12

and destroyed and messy, always was.

00:53:14

So my parents would just keep the door shut.

00:53:17

They wanted to ignore it.

00:53:19

Not a bad idea. Walked by it.

00:53:20

It didn't bother me at all,

00:53:22

because I was a boy. I wasn't a man.

00:53:24

I wasn't operating in the four core callings of a man.

00:53:27

And one of them is to be a king.

00:53:28

And what do kings do?

00:53:29

Kings do two things. Queens do two things.

00:53:32

One, they bring order. They bring order.

00:53:37

I hate messes now. I can't stand it.

00:53:39

My favorite places to be in the world is in my garage

00:53:42

and I'm not going in there until I have

00:53:44

two hours to clean the thing because

00:53:46

it stresses me freaking out.

00:53:48

I got screwdrivers, I got --

00:53:50

It's just not good because I need to bring order to it.

00:53:54

When there's not order, I just go [whines].

00:53:57

That's what kings do, they bring order.

00:53:59

You know, you bring order to your marriage.

00:54:00

You bring order to your family.

00:54:02

You bring order to your business.

00:54:03

You bring order to your finances.

00:54:05

You bring order to your apartment. You bring --

00:54:08

That's what kings do. Kings come in and bring order.

00:54:11

The second thing the kings do is the kings bring expansion.

00:54:17

Kings expand.

00:54:20

Kings are always wanting to expand their territory.

00:54:24

By the way, David becomes king at age 30.

00:54:27

What time -- when does Jesus become King Jesus

00:54:30

and start doing ministry? At age 30. Age 30.

00:54:33

This is the way it is with men, by 30 you've got to be --

00:54:37

You got to be well on your way.

00:54:38

You can do it way, way before then.

00:54:40

But this is very, very important.

00:54:44

Jesus has a kingdom.

00:54:47

He is a king and a kingdom,

00:54:49

and he is ever expanding his kingdom.

00:54:51

He's bringing order

00:54:52

and he's bringing expansion to his kingdom.

00:54:54

That's why he says to his friends at

00:54:55

the very end of the book of Matthew

00:54:57

and also in the book of Acts, "Go into all the earth,

00:55:01

baptizing, making disciples, baptizing them

00:55:03

in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit."

00:55:05

In other words, "Hey, we haven't just had

00:55:07

a good thing that was good for us. I want to expand.

00:55:10

I want people to be blessed.

00:55:12

I want people to be helped."

00:55:14

And this is what the church has always done.

00:55:16

The healthy New Testament churches has always done this.

00:55:20

David has a downfall

00:55:21

and his downfall is when he stops kinging.

00:55:25

David, his worse thing that he does

00:55:27

is the next four core calling.

00:55:29

All of us are going to have probably one of these

00:55:31

that we're never going to be great at.

00:55:34

The one that David was the worst at

00:55:37

was the next one I'm going to get into,

00:55:39

but it started with him being a bad king.

00:55:43

He was a good king, until he wasn't.

00:55:46

His worst mistake, in my opinion,

00:55:48

wasn't that he had an adulterous affair with Bathsheba,

00:55:51

who was a wife of one of his best friends,

00:55:54

who was one of his mighty men.

00:55:56

That's horrible in and of itself.

00:55:57

That's heartbreaking. Really, really bad.

00:56:00

But really, his problem started before that.

00:56:04

In 2 Samuel 11:1, it says: In the time of year

00:56:08

when kings go out to war, David stayed at home.

00:56:12

David stayed in Jerusalem.

00:56:13

David stayed in his castle.

00:56:14

What does that mean the time when kings go out to war?

00:56:16

During the springtime, the ground thaws,

00:56:19

you can mobilize your army, and you got to go

00:56:21

and beat people off your lands and expand your territory.

00:56:24

That's what kings do.

00:56:26

And David was really good at that when he was on point.

00:56:28

Really good at that because he was a warrior.

00:56:32

So he understood might and he could do it,

00:56:35

but he just got tired.

00:56:36

He's like, [sighs] he said, "I'm some just --

00:56:39

I'm tired of the expansion thing.

00:56:41

I'm tired of order. I'm just --

00:56:43

I'm just going to stay home and just stream.

00:56:48

You know, I'd rather watch Lioness.

00:56:49

That's what I'd rather do."

00:56:52

Which is an awesome stream, by the way.

00:56:54

Uh, not as good as 1923,

00:56:57

which is the best love story I've ever seen.

00:57:01

Yeah, it was. Where was I?

00:57:05

Stay at home. Stay at home. Sorry.

00:57:06

I told you I liked the stream. I do love streaming.

00:57:09

Uh, and I talk to my friends about it.

00:57:10

You're all my friends, so.

00:57:15

He stays back. He gets off point.

00:57:19

Eyes wander, mind wanders,

00:57:21

and the rest of his life is not the same.

00:57:24

It starts because he stops kinging.

00:57:28

There is territory that God wants you to oversee.

00:57:31

He wants you to bring order to it,

00:57:35

and he wants you to expand it.

00:57:37

1 Corinthians 6:3 says this. Check this verse out.

00:57:40

I've never heard this before.

00:57:42

Do you not know, you, that is children of God,

00:57:45

daughters and sons of God.

00:57:48

Do you not know that we are to judge angels?

00:57:51

How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life!

00:57:55

Do you understand that you are more important to God

00:57:58

than an angel?

00:58:01

Do you understand that God loves you

00:58:03

more than he loves an angel?

00:58:04

And an angel is just a tool for him.

00:58:07

They're not created in his image. It's mind blowing.

00:58:10

We're so fixated on the spiritual

00:58:12

and these things we don't understand

00:58:13

we lose sight of the fact that the most crazy thing

00:58:16

is that you and I are creating the image of God,

00:58:18

and he loves you and you're more important than any angel.

00:58:21

In fact, you're more potent than an angel

00:58:23

because at some point we're going to judge them.

00:58:26

Now, I have no idea what that means. No idea.

00:58:29

Judge them how? Like, well,

00:58:30

you didn't hit that C sharp on your trumpet right.

00:58:33

It's a mystery of the Bible.

00:58:35

I don't know, I don't understand how that's going to play out.

00:58:39

All I'm saying is God has that in your future and my future,

00:58:43

so therefore you have the ability to rule

00:58:47

a territory he's given you right now.

00:58:51

Start bringing to order the things

00:58:52

that you're responsible for.

00:58:54

Start expanding the things that you're responsible for.

00:58:56

When I was a -- Crossroads started Lib and I

00:59:00

were just spazzed and freaked and burnt out

00:59:03

and it was just man, s we put off having our third kid.

00:59:06

And then Crossroads was about five years old

00:59:08

or something like this, something like that,

00:59:10

or four years old, and things started getting settled.

00:59:12

"Should we have a third kid? I'm just not sure."

00:59:14

I'm unsure of whether to do that or not.

00:59:17

And we went to -- I went to a conference

00:59:19

and I was looking at this book table

00:59:21

where there were these different books.

00:59:22

And I saw one,

00:59:24

it was called Point Man.

00:59:25

Same guy had a book called Anchorman and Finishing Strong.

00:59:29

I saw the guy in the picture in the back and I went, huh?

00:59:32

Steve Farrar interesting, huh? Interesting guy.

00:59:34

Well, I didn't have anyone to have lunch with that day.

00:59:37

And right out my corner of my vision, I saw --

00:59:39

That's the guy I just saw on the back of the book.

00:59:42

And I used to do this thing in high school

00:59:43

just to have fun and be, and college.

00:59:45

You know, you see a crowd, a group of people,

00:59:47

you just start calling out Bill, Jane, Barney, you know?

00:59:53

You keep calling out names and someone's going,

00:59:55

"Hey, good to see you again."

00:59:57

They go, "Yeah, remember we had coffee?"

01:00:00

Well, you know, fun things you have to figure out

01:00:05

to do when you're not abusing alcohol

01:00:06

when you're a Christian before 21.

01:00:08

So it was -- it was fun stuff to do.

01:00:09

So I did that with Steve.

01:00:11

Steve was walking away, I went, "Steve."

01:00:13

Turned around and looked around and said,

01:00:15

"Hey, you want to have lunch?" He went, "Sure."

01:00:19

We went lunch and I told him about my kid thing.

01:00:22

And he said, "Absolutely, you should have another child."

01:00:26

I said, "Really? Why?"

01:00:27

He said, "It's the only thing you're going to have

01:00:29

that's ever going to outlast you."

01:00:32

And he didn't use these exact words,

01:00:34

but it was some of the effects that

01:00:35

you need to expand your territory,

01:00:37

expand your territory.

01:00:38

So glad we have Mariah. Massive, massive blessing.

01:00:41

I would say this, if you're a parent and you're not sure,

01:00:43

should we have another one?

01:00:45

Should we not have another one?

01:00:46

If you're not sure, have another one.

01:00:49

Expand your territory, expand your influence.

01:00:51

And most of us who have adult children,

01:00:53

we didn't feel this way when they were six maybe,

01:00:55

but when their adult children, we're like,

01:00:57

"Darn, I kind of wish I had another one."

01:01:00

It's the long game and it's a fight, by the way.

01:01:03

It's a fight, but that's what kings are up for.

01:01:06

We're up for things that are hard

01:01:08

because we're responsible for it.

01:01:10

You have this in you.

01:01:11

Number four, the final one is that of father.

01:01:15

Father, a core calling of being a father

01:01:17

or of being a mother.

01:01:19

Every man takes responsibility for another life.

01:01:23

That's what being a father is,

01:01:24

you take responsibility for another life.

01:01:26

Danny Patton wasn't my father,

01:01:28

but he took responsibility for me,

01:01:31

when I was in high school

01:01:32

he took responsibility for me spiritually,

01:01:34

and that's why I'm here today

01:01:36

and who I am because someone took responsibility for me.

01:01:40

People who --some are being fathered and mothered

01:01:44

in Kids' Club by people who are not their own mothers

01:01:47

and fathers, but they're developing them spiritually.

01:01:49

They're taking responsibility for that life.

01:01:53

There's a cap that will be to your spiritual development

01:01:57

that very few people will ever be able to push past

01:02:00

who aren't literal parents.

01:02:03

I don't talk to this much, but let's go here.

01:02:06

Very few, there are exceptions. There are exceptions,

01:02:09

but there's very few exceptions.

01:02:10

There is a sacrifice barrier, there is a maturity barrier

01:02:20

that can only be broken through when you have kids.

01:02:26

Because when you have a kid, you have to say no to yourself.

01:02:29

You don't want to do a lot of things,

01:02:32

you don't want to do a poopy diaper

01:02:33

and you do a poopy diaper.

01:02:36

You don't want to get up in the middle of the night

01:02:38

and you get up in the middle of the night.

01:02:40

You don't want to pay for that, and you pay for that.

01:02:44

You don't want to go see

01:02:45

a stupid four year old play soccer.

01:02:47

That's one of the most ridiculous things.

01:02:49

It should be outlawed. I mean, come on.

01:02:52

I'm not anti soccer.

01:02:53

I'm anti four year olds playing soccer

01:02:56

and wasting my Saturday afternoon pretending it's fun.

01:02:58

No, it's not fun. It's stupid.

01:03:02

Do I get an amen? - Amen!

01:03:04

- See, all the soccer coaches in here going,

01:03:08

"But that's my kingdom. That's my kingdom.

01:03:10

I don't--" [laughter]

01:03:19

But it's a life of constant sacrifice.

01:03:23

This was the area that David was the weak at.

01:03:25

He was a horrible father.

01:03:26

I don't want to go into all the stuff, but it just --

01:03:28

It was failure after failure.

01:03:30

He tried to pull it together at the end of his life,

01:03:32

gave his son Solomon a little charge,

01:03:34

and he did his best, but he was very, very weak in this area.

01:03:37

Jesus was never a physical father,

01:03:40

but he was God -- There God the Father,

01:03:42

He and the Father are one,

01:03:43

but he took responsibility for people.

01:03:46

I'm not saying he enabled them, but he nurtured them.

01:03:49

He honored them. He was with them.

01:03:54

This is the thing that's most important in my journey.

01:03:56

In a little bit here I'm going to have you stand up

01:03:58

if you want a blessing in each one of these four areas,

01:04:01

the area that you feel like God

01:04:03

is calling you to take new territory in.

01:04:06

This is the one for me.

01:04:12

My son was on the Alaska trip with me.

01:04:14

This is a picture of him when he was a little kid

01:04:16

and his sisters.

01:04:19

This is about the age he was when he told me

01:04:23

a story several years ago I had actually forgotten about.

01:04:26

And my memory of it is formed by his memory

01:04:28

of telling the story.

01:04:29

We were in a discussion, he's with some of my friends

01:04:32

and we were talking about early childhood memories.

01:04:34

And he said, "My most profound memory was I was

01:04:37

at the beach with my dad.

01:04:39

And I said to him, said to me, "Let's take a race,

01:04:43

I'll race you to the water."

01:04:44

And apparently I said, "Okay, you go first. You can start."

01:04:47

He said, "No, we got to start at the same time."

01:04:49

I said, "No, you go first."

01:04:50

So he said I was tearing off my little legs

01:04:53

as fast as I could, and I was looking back and looking back,

01:04:55

and I hadn't even gotten up yet.

01:04:57

He was like, "Oh, I'm going to beat dad. I'm gonna beat dad."

01:04:59

He said, all of a sudden --

01:05:00

I'll get a little emotional here just because

01:05:02

I got to finish the story in about two minutes. Okay?

01:05:05

He said, all of a sudden there was this force,

01:05:10

this like superhuman force that came out of nowhere

01:05:13

behind me, swept me up, swept me off my feet

01:05:19

and tore with amazing speed I've never experienced before

01:05:22

and dove into the water.

01:05:24

He said, "That was my dad." Just a little kid.

01:05:28

And, you know, it was like at that moment, I was like,

01:05:30

I was like a -- You know,

01:05:33

I was like Superman with him, you know?

01:05:36

But eventually Superman dies, for all of our parents,

01:05:40

eventually Superman dies.

01:05:42

I don't know when exactly I died for my kids,

01:05:44

when I wasn't -- when I wasn't God anymore.

01:05:46

But I had a Superman moment. It was a beautiful moment.

01:05:49

A really beautiful moment on this hunt.

01:05:52

So the next day after we passed on Hank,

01:05:55

said we're not going to do it.

01:05:56

The next day, Hank presented himself,

01:05:58

and I took Hank down, 217 yards and he dropped.

01:06:02

It was -- It was a good --

01:06:03

It was a good -- It was a good shot.

01:06:04

Here we are, everyone gathers around as a team.

01:06:06

All the friends, we're like, "Okay, all right, let's,

01:06:09

uh, let's start taking his skin off and all that stuff."

01:06:11

So we worked until nearly 1:00 in the morning

01:06:16

taking his skin off, taking his quarters off,

01:06:19

getting all the rib meat off him, all the meat off,

01:06:22

hung it in bags, and it was too late

01:06:23

and just too heavy and we're too tired to take it back.

01:06:26

So we're going to come back the next morning.

01:06:28

Came back the next morning.

01:06:29

Fortunately, wolves and bears hadn't gotten to it.

01:06:31

We got out, got it. Every man had a quarter.

01:06:34

I had a rear quarter, which I'm going to guess

01:06:37

was about 150 pounds in my backpack going uphill

01:06:42

because the plane's going to land

01:06:44

on the top of this flat thing.

01:06:45

It wasn't long, but it was brutal. It was really hard.

01:06:47

We all got up there like, whoo, great.

01:06:49

The last thing you do when you do this is the cape.

01:06:52

That is the thing you're going to have a trophy with,

01:06:56

the antlers, the head, the skin.

01:06:58

It's actually Alaskan law to do that.

01:07:01

It's actually hunter code, no matter what state you're in.

01:07:04

Because you honor the life of the animal first,

01:07:06

and you honor the life of the animal

01:07:08

by making sure that protein extends the life

01:07:11

of other entities that are you and I.

01:07:13

So that goes out first.

01:07:14

And then if you have energy and time,

01:07:16

then you go get the trophy.

01:07:17

So I'm looking forward to this.

01:07:18

I go down, this thing it's big, it's heavy.

01:07:21

And so I get down, I get down.

01:07:23

You got to lie down like this, put on your backpack

01:07:28

and then you get a hand, get to sitting position.

01:07:31

And unlike the previous load,

01:07:33

which takes a half hour to try to figure out how to get up,

01:07:36

I just, I just we're not -- I can't figure it out.

01:07:40

I go, I go onto my all fours.

01:07:42

This -- I think I have a picture of it, don't I?

01:07:45

One picture. I eventually do get up.

01:07:52

All right. We'll wait for it. Wait.

01:07:55

So I'm sitting there. I can't get up.

01:07:57

So finally, finally we figure the way to do it

01:08:00

is my son is a beefcake. He's a musclehead.

01:08:04

And um, he, uh, he stands above me

01:08:07

and he basically curls and I do a chin up at the same time,

01:08:11

holding on to, holding on to his forearms.

01:08:14

So he curls, I use all my might, I do a pull up

01:08:18

and I get up and I go about,

01:08:21

I don't know, 30 yards, here I am.

01:08:23

Here's the picture. Now there it goes.

01:08:24

Go about, I start going

01:08:28

and not long after this picture I stopped.

01:08:32

It was too much. It was too much.

01:08:34

I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. Couldn't do it.

01:08:37

I mean, I probably could have gone longer,

01:08:39

but I went, I already tweaked my knee on the first run.

01:08:43

If I keep going on this uneven tundra and bushes

01:08:46

and creeks, I could really jack myself up

01:08:50

and then I can't get out of here.

01:08:52

So I -- it was the first thing in my life

01:08:54

I ever wanted to do, I couldn't do.

01:08:57

I've been primarily a warrior,

01:08:58

and the first thing physically I want, I could not do.

01:09:02

Now you're in the weight room and you can't do a rep or two.

01:09:05

Yeah, that's part of the weight room is.

01:09:07

But I mean, in the real world,

01:09:08

the first thing I want to do, I couldn't.

01:09:10

So I had to, I had to tap out.

01:09:14

And the tears are over. It wasn't like,

01:09:17

"Oh, I couldn't do it."

01:09:18

I was like, I had somebody who could, my son.

01:09:21

He was there. So Jake took the weight. [cheers]

01:09:26

Jake took the weight. He was honorable.

01:09:29

He was honored. He let -- he walked behind me

01:09:31

as I did that, there was two other bags of meat.

01:09:34

We get to the top and then here's the last part,

01:09:36

I'll show you up the top of the mountain.

01:09:37

Here's what happened.

01:09:50

- Oh, hardest thing I ever did. Hardest thing.

01:09:58

- Now it was successful. It was good.

01:10:01

It was a great, great, great memory.

01:10:02

But I shared that to say that's raw.

01:10:04

And here's the thing, these four things, they're hard,

01:10:09

they're hard, they're hard, they're difficult,

01:10:13

which is why the weenie boys don't want to do them.

01:10:17

Keep trying to have excuses why I'm not going to do it.

01:10:19

Oh I'm fine. I don't need other people.

01:10:21

I'm a lone wolf. Oh, no, no. It's okay.

01:10:23

Someone else will handle it.

01:10:25

Oh, no, no, no, no, kids, family. No, put that off.

01:10:28

No, I don't need to be a father.

01:10:30

Oh, no. No, no, I'm not responsible for this.

01:10:32

I'm not -- That's someone else's responsibility.

01:10:34

These are hard things. There really hard things,

01:10:36

which is why there's very few men in our culture anymore

01:10:41

who want to do the hard things.

01:10:43

This is something God has for you

01:10:45

because it comes out of his character.

01:10:47

It comes out of his identity.

01:10:49

So here we go, we're gonna end our service with this.

01:10:51

If you know, man, God's tapping my chest on friend,

01:10:54

I want you to stand in all of our sites right now.

01:10:57

Just stand right now, friends, here, wherever you are.

01:10:59

If you know God has something for me in friend,

01:11:01

that's my next run, just stand right now.

01:11:03

Men and women stand right now,

01:11:06

and we're going to do something for you.

01:11:08

Okay, here we go.

01:11:09

So this is a sacred moment between you and God.

01:11:10

I want you to say something.

01:11:12

I'm going to pray something over you.

01:11:14

I want you to say this:

01:11:17

God, I will be a good friend.

01:11:23

Lord, I pray that you would put a blessing on these folks.

01:11:25

They want to be like you. They want to be like you.

01:11:28

They want to be like your son.

01:11:29

They want to be like David.

01:11:30

Bring the right people in their life

01:11:32

and give them the right conversations to have

01:11:34

with the right people at the right time.

01:11:35

I pray for this blessing in the name of Jesus. Amen.

01:11:39

Alright, go ahead, sit down.

01:11:40

Those of you who go like, man, I was here today

01:11:42

because I need to warrior up,

01:11:43

that's like the next run for me.

01:11:45

I'm dealing with something that's a war.

01:11:46

I gotta fight for something.

01:11:47

The warriors where are the warriors?

01:11:49

Stand up men and women warriors.

01:11:53

Okay, good. All of our sites, good.

01:11:55

Okay, here's what I want you to say:

01:11:57

God, train my hands for war.

01:12:04

Lord, there are things that are not right

01:12:06

around these people's lives,

01:12:08

and you've put them there to fight.

01:12:10

And I'm asking that you would bless their hands

01:12:13

to push on the things they should push on,

01:12:15

to listen to the things they should listen to,

01:12:19

to love the things they should love,

01:12:20

to spend themselves and money on the things

01:12:24

they need to spend money on.

01:12:25

Help them get in the fight and do it well. Amen.

01:12:30

All right, kings, kings, kings and queens,

01:12:33

it's your next one, king and queen.

01:12:35

Stand there, you know, like king, queen, that's me.

01:12:37

All right. I want you to say:

01:12:42

God, I will bring order and I will expand.

01:12:49

God, I pray for these kings and queens right now,

01:12:52

they oversee domains that have been underutilized,

01:12:55

but they're about to go to the next place.

01:12:58

I ask for extra grace on them,

01:12:59

a new feeling of your spirit on them.

01:13:01

I pray for good things to happen as they go out of here.

01:13:04

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

01:13:07

All right. Fathers, next round.

01:13:09

You know, I gotta -- I gotta father, some father,

01:13:11

fathers, fathers and mothers.

01:13:13

Go ahead. Stand up. Fathers and mothers.

01:13:18

Here's what I want you to say:

01:13:20

God, I will sacrifice for those who are under my care.

01:13:28

God, bless these lives and lives that are under them.

01:13:31

Do a good thing in them, and may they feel the joy

01:13:35

of being like you as they father and mother.

01:13:37

And I pray these things in the name of Jesus. Amen.

01:13:41

Hey, uh, that's it.

01:13:43

One last thing, hey, you know, one way

01:13:44

to be a father and mother around here is through Kids' Club

01:13:47

and students and other stuff.

01:13:48

So we got one on one right outside all of our atriums

01:13:50

if you want to go check that out.

01:13:52

Thanks for being here. We'll see you next week.

01:13:56

- Man, I love that.

01:13:58

I love the reminder that I don't know

01:13:59

what your calling, what your identity,

01:14:02

what your calling, what your identity,

01:14:04

what territory you feel like God might be

01:14:06

speaking to you about stepping into.

01:14:08

I just I love the reminder that God just always has more for us.

01:14:12

And we've been like He always has something more

01:14:15

for us to step into, to experience more of his goodness,

01:14:17

more of his authority,

01:14:19

more of the good things he's placed in us.

01:14:21

So we want that for you.

01:14:22

Any way we can help encourage you in that,

01:14:24

that's literally what we're here for,

01:14:26

whether it's praying for you, processing with you,

01:14:28

helping you find your next step.

01:14:30

That's what we're here for.

01:14:31

- Absolutely. And here's the thing,

01:14:32

if you are looking for that next step,

01:14:35

because of those core four callings

01:14:38

that Brian just talked about, and you're like,

01:14:40

hey, volunteering is one of those ways

01:14:42

that I want to step up.

01:14:43

Then again, text that number 301301 for more.

01:14:47

Or if you want prayer and you want to process

01:14:49

more of what Brian said, there is someone

01:14:52

who is waiting on the other side

01:14:53

who would love to connect with you and pray with you.

01:14:56

And listen, we'll be back here next week

01:14:59

with Chuck Mingo to talk about friendship.

01:15:01

So we can't wait to see you here.

01:15:03

Same time, same place. - That's right.

01:15:05

- We're out for today. - See ya.

The Four Roles You Were Made to Master

Welcome to the Weekend-Follow Up!

Prayer

Bonus Questions

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