Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Glad you're here.
[00:00:08] Well, what an absolute joy it is to be here with you. And I don't care what nobody says, it's freezing chocolate. People weren't built for this kind of weather.
[00:00:19] Absolutely. You can laugh at that. All right, let me just say thank you for the invitation to come and to be here with you. I've been looking forward to this for quite some time. If you have your Bible, I want you to meet me in two Timothy chapter one. Two Timothy, chapter one. As you're making your way there, let me just say thank you to the pastor of this church, Pastor Robbie, and the incredible ways that God has used him and the whole team and staff and so many people who have played a role in putting this event on. There's so many behind the scenes people who have been laboring for such a long time. Can we just express a word of appreciat to them?
[00:01:06] Absolutely, absolutely.
[00:01:09] And I want to be very. Okay, There's a ticker.
[00:01:13] One minute, 51 seconds. That's wonderful. I'll be respectful of your time. Whenever I'm a guest somewhere, I always ask, how long do I have? I was just preaching at a Presbyterian church in Charlotte and I was sitting backstage with the pastor of the church and I said, pastor, how long?
[00:01:32] How long do I have to preach? He says, oh, dear brother, we are a spirit led, spirit filled church.
[00:01:38] Time means nothing here.
[00:01:41] You let the Lord use you, but the people leave at 12.
[00:01:47] So I am definitely, absolutely going to be respectful of the time that we have together. 2 Timothy 1. Let me tell you why I am reading this to you. There are probably so many who are here, either in this room or at one of the various locations, wondering why in the world would I pick a passage in second Timothy chapter one? And so many people who would even say, I don't even necessarily call myself a follower of Jesus Christ. But you are here. Like so many of us, we all have the felt need as men. We want to get better. And I want to draw your attention not to a piece of sociology or ancient literature. It is the Christian conviction, and we make no apologies that this is the God breathed word of God.
[00:02:37] It is a relationship that is between an older man named Paul who is writing these words. In fact, Bible scholars tell us this is Paul's last documented letter prior to his death.
[00:02:52] According to church history, not long after this, Paul will be beheaded under the Emperor Nero and he decides to write his young son in the faith. They don't share physical DNA, but they do share spiritual DNA.
[00:03:12] Verse 1 Paul writes Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God, according to the promise of the life that is in Christ Jesus Christ. Hear how he refers to Timothy, verse two.
[00:03:30] To Timothy, my beloved child.
[00:03:33] Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father in Christ Jesus our Lord.
[00:03:42] I thank God whom I serve, as did my ancestors, with a clear conscience as pay close attention to these phrases. I remember you constantly in my prayers, night and day. I remember your tears.
[00:04:00] I long to see you that I may be filled with joy.
[00:04:05] I'm reminded of your sincere faith. Verse 5. A faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice. And now I am sure, dwells in you as well.
[00:04:17] For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands.
[00:04:26] Why Paul.
[00:04:28] For God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power and love and self control.
[00:04:35] If you could endure me for just a few more verses over. In chapter two, verse one, he says to Timothy, you then hear these words again, my child.
[00:04:45] Be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus and what you've heard from me. In the presence of many witnesses, entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.
[00:05:09] An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules and the Buffalo Bills. Pastor Robbie, It's a long time before they get crowned.
[00:05:19] It is the hard working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops.
[00:05:25] Think over what I say. Last verse.
[00:05:28] For the Lord will give you understanding in everything. God, would you speak to us tonight?
[00:05:33] These brothers don't need to hear from a middle aged man. They need to hear from an eternal God.
[00:05:40] So in the same way you spoke to a 80 something year old Moses through a bush that was burning but was not being consumed.
[00:05:51] I present myself as that bush tonight. Would you set me ablaze and so choose to speak to these, your brothers, your sons, those who are far from you even.
[00:06:06] Help us Father, to be the kind of men we were created to be.
[00:06:11] In Jesus name, Amen.
[00:06:16] Courage.
[00:06:19] Courage.
[00:06:22] It's been defined as doing what you have to do even when you don't want to do it.
[00:06:31] Courage.
[00:06:33] It's been defined as doing what you have to do even in the face of opposition.
[00:06:43] I want to ask you tonight, men, what is one of the most courageous things you have ever done in your life if courage is doing what you have to do in the face of opposition, even when you don't want to do it. What is one of the most courageous things you've ever done in your life?
[00:07:04] I'm a bit of a history buff. I love reading on history. And in World War II there in America, it is known, quite well known, that the most courageous group of men to fight together was the famous E Company.
[00:07:22] E Company has captured the attention of Americans for decades.
[00:07:28] There's a guy, an author, by the name of Stephen Ambrose. He's a bit of a historian. He actually wrote a whole book about the famous E Company, and it's called the Band of Brothers. If you want to just read a great book on courage, that's that book.
[00:07:44] They were so well known that not only was a book written about them, but there was a HBO series done on them by the same title, Band of Brothers.
[00:07:54] If you were to ask the men of E Company, what is the most courageous thing you've ever done, maybe some would conjecture to say, oh, that's easy. It was enduring the cruelty of our drill sergeant there at Camp Toccoa Falls as we were training, getting ready for World War II.
[00:08:14] Other men would say, oh, no, no, no. It was when we landed on the beaches of Normandy on D Day. That was the most courageous thing we ever did. Others would say, no, it was the Battle of the Bulge. Still say, no, it was when we raided Hitler's famous Eagle's Nest.
[00:08:31] They were synonymous with courage.
[00:08:34] Doing what they had to do even when they didn't want to do it in the face of great opposition.
[00:08:40] I want to ask you, brothers again, what is one of the most courageous things you've ever done in your life?
[00:08:46] I'll just be straight up honest with you.
[00:08:49] I don't really resonate with the famous Band of Brothers of E Company. I've never fought in a war. I do have a son in the military, and. But I. I've. I've never gone to battle.
[00:09:03] But I like what one woman said about courage. She says, you know what? Courage doesn't always roar.
[00:09:11] Instead, she says, courage often times is the silent decision that says, I will get up and try again tomorrow.
[00:09:21] I love that.
[00:09:23] Courage doesn't always roar.
[00:09:26] It's the silent decision that says, I will try again and get up tomorrow.
[00:09:32] For some of you, the most courageous thing you've ever had to do is to absorb the news that your sweet, precious, unwed daughter is pregnant.
[00:09:44] And instead of emotionally detaching from her, you said, no, I'm going to actually lean in and walk with Her.
[00:09:53] For others of you, courage is quitting your job without another one lined up because what the company was asking of you, what they were trying to get you to do, just conflicted with your deep seated convictions and morals.
[00:10:08] It's a huge step of courage to say, you know what? I'm going to go with integrity here, and I'm not going to just be swept away by the current of compromise.
[00:10:20] For others of you.
[00:10:22] For others of you, courage is not getting caught in the affair. It's confessing the affair.
[00:10:32] It's watching those words tumble out of your mouth and looking your wife in the eye and absolutely devastating her.
[00:10:42] And then you do something else courageous. You actually say, no, no, I'm asking you to forgive me. And I want to actually stick and see if we can rebuild this. That's courage.
[00:10:58] For others of you men, the most courageous thing you've ever done is to say, I need help.
[00:11:05] The alcohol's gotten the best of me.
[00:11:08] The pornography is wearing me out.
[00:11:15] Courage doesn't always roar.
[00:11:19] It is the silent decision that says, I will get up and try again tomorrow.
[00:11:25] So, men, I ask you again, what is one of the most courageous things you've ever done in your life?
[00:11:34] To be a man demands courage.
[00:11:40] I have no doubt that when I get to heaven, there's a list of people I want to sit down with and just go over some questions with. And Timothy's on my list.
[00:11:53] When I get to heaven, I want to ask Timothy, timothy, tell me, invite me in. I mean, by the time Paul writes you, you're about 30 years of age.
[00:12:04] We don't really hear much about you in the scriptures. We catch some snapshots here and there. Timothy, tell me, what is the most courageous thing you've ever done in your life? And I have a good hunch what he will say.
[00:12:18] You need to understand that according to church history, Timothy, who is the pastor at the Church of Ephesus, that's where Paul plants Timothy. He is leading that church. It's a big metropolitan city, one of the marquee cities of his day, according to church history. Long after Paul dies, Timothy gets news that there are a group of people who don't know Jesus coming into town and they're holding a pagan festival and they're doing all sorts of ungodly, immoral things. And again, according to church history, Timothy rushes out and confronts them with the truth of the word of God. He calls them out on their sin. You talk about courage, they don't like it. This mob now turns on Timothy and literally beats him to death on the. On the steps of the temple there.
[00:13:07] Talk about courage.
[00:13:10] Now, let me just back up a little bit, because you need to understand that Timothy is just not naturally wired as a courageous person. He's not naturally an alpha doll of individual. In fact, we caught a hint of this in our text, didn't we?
[00:13:26] Paul actually tells Timothy, timothy, I want you to understand God hasn't given you a spirit of fear.
[00:13:34] I think Paul, relationally, he spent so much time with Timothy, he knows that Timothy is not predisposed towards courage. In fact, he's kind of predisposed in the opposite direction.
[00:13:48] Earlier on, Paul tells Timothy, it's a verse that American Baptists absolutely hate. He says, drink a little wine for your stomach.
[00:13:59] Oh, man. Score. If I can get Canadians to laugh at me, man, Jesus, take me home right now.
[00:14:06] Again, I'm a chocolate preacher. I'm used to people talking to me. You're not going to bother me at all. In fact, you'll actually encourage me. If you want to just shout, amen. Hallelujah. Preach it, brother. When you're ready for me to end, if you want to say, land the plane, bring it home, we can land the plane and bring it home. All right? But if you sit there silent, you're begging for a long sermon, because I don't know if you're getting it all right?
[00:14:27] So make me feel at home.
[00:14:30] Very good. That was your first time. I can tell by the way you said that it was your first time. Let's give him a round of applause.
[00:14:36] I love it, love it, love it.
[00:14:40] So Paul tells Timothy, hey, Timothy, drink a little wine for your stomach. Why would he tell him that?
[00:14:46] Because Timothy was given to fits of worry and anxiety.
[00:14:52] So I just want you to understand, Timothy helps to teach us. Watch this now.
[00:14:59] That courage isn't necessarily something that I'm born with.
[00:15:05] It's not necessarily inherent, but courage.
[00:15:10] Courage seems to be something that is imprinted through relationships with other men.
[00:15:21] So I want to talk to you some about the importance, men of you having and fostering deep, intimate, godly friendships with other men.
[00:15:41] Because in the journey of life, friendships are not an elective.
[00:15:48] They are required.
[00:15:50] They are core curriculum.
[00:15:53] I've got three sons.
[00:15:56] My oldest just came off the payroll. Hallelujah.
[00:16:01] One down, two to go.
[00:16:05] Some of our best moments were sitting around a fire pit in our backyard.
[00:16:11] That was our time.
[00:16:14] And I just remember one time just talking about the importance of. Hey, guys, one of the things I'm praying for you is that God would just drop into Your life.
[00:16:23] Other men who don't just say they're Christian, but other men who have a deep, burning passion for Christ.
[00:16:31] And I'm telling them this as we're looking at the fire pit, and there happens to be three logs there, and they're leaning into each other. They're all set ablaze. And without making much of it, as I'm talking to them about the importance of friendships, I just kind of remove one of the logs from the other two logs. It's by itself. And we know what happens. Sure enough, the fire goes out.
[00:16:54] What's going to happen to you brothers?
[00:16:56] Over the course of our few days that we have together, God's going to do amazing things.
[00:17:01] There's going to be a fire that is burning in your heart. And if you want to keep it going, you got to be around other men who share that passion, that fire with you.
[00:17:15] So I want to just say that friendship, among other things, it is the umbilical cord to courage.
[00:17:24] That friendship is what nourishes me to step into all that God has called me to be.
[00:17:34] I need other men in my life.
[00:17:37] So this is the relationship, the friendship between Paul and Timothy. Let me just give you a quick overview here, if you want to read more. It really begins in Acts, chapter 14.
[00:17:48] In Acts, chapter 14, Paul walks into a town called Lystra. He, in courageous ways, preaches the gospel of Jesus Christ. The people don't like it and they stone him. Scholar Ray Van der Linde says that when you were stoned back in the day, what that meant was you were pushed off an elevated platform at least 30ft high in the air. The fall was many times enough to kill you. Here is Paul. They push him off, and then they pelt him with. With stones, with rocks.
[00:18:15] Paul, miraculously, by the power of the Spirit of God, survives.
[00:18:19] And then two chapters later, this joker is back in Lystra.
[00:18:24] Now, I gotta tell you, I love you guys, but you got one time to try to stone me, and if I survive, that not coming back.
[00:18:34] But you talk about courage.
[00:18:37] Two chapters later, Acts 16, he's back.
[00:18:43] When he comes back the second time, he meets a guy named Timothy.
[00:18:50] Now, you caught it the first time, but I want to read these verses into your hearing again.
[00:18:56] And you just pick up as we just kind of read what Paul says about Timothy's lineage. Pick up what? Missing verse five, second Timothy, chapter one. Paul says to Timothy, I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice. And now I'm sure dwells in you as well. What's missing? What's missing is a godly dad.
[00:19:25] So what does Paul say? Paul says, I'm going to step in and fill in the gaps. Hey, Timothy, I want you to apprentice under me. So much more I could say, timothy, I want you to actually spend time with me. And for the next 15 or so years of Timothy's life, that's what he does.
[00:19:46] Parenthetically, someone needs to hear this because Timothy's journey into godly Christlike courage was in spite of the fatherhood deficit in his life. And that is mean. You need to stop using the excuse that my dad wasn't there and I didn't get that, or whatever. God's grace can fill in the gaps.
[00:20:12] So, Timothy, come hang with me.
[00:20:15] I'm going to fill in those gaps by the grace of God and call you into Christlike biblical manhood now.
[00:20:26] So grateful for this church, for helping me with this prop or whatever. That would have been really hard to get through TSA PreCheck.
[00:20:36] Outside of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which I'll talk to you about that some in just a few moments.
[00:20:41] The most transformative talk I ever heard was in the spring of 2003. It was by a guy named Dennis Rainey. There's a group of us young leaders together, and he just. All of us were men. He just gave us a framework and a vision for the journey of manhood that so profoundly influenced me.
[00:21:03] It is the most transformative talk I ever. I ever heard outside of the good news of Jesus Christ. And so to really understand what Paul is unleashing in Timothy, you have to. And I want to just kind of give a framework for you to understand your journey as a man.
[00:21:24] Our journey as men, it begins in boyhood.
[00:21:30] We're born into it. If I can just give you a description of boyhood. Boyhood is the age of adventure.
[00:21:37] It's the age of discovery.
[00:21:41] It's the age of wonder.
[00:21:45] We boys, we come into this world as boys, and we are adventurous people. I just. So I got three boys. My wife, she grew up. It was just her and her sister. And so she was constantly having her mind blown at the creative stuff my boys would do, their imaginations. I remember one time, my wife, she's screaming, who did this?
[00:22:09] My middle son, miles was about 6 at the time. He said, I did.
[00:22:13] Miles wanted to know if he could save up enough urine to pee in a circle and hit all the walls in the restroom.
[00:22:29] My wife's mind is blown. She's Like, I never thought of that as a girl.
[00:22:33] Well, welcome to boys. They're right. Takes courage. I love it.
[00:22:39] Same kid, Miles, I'll never forget. I'm sitting in my front room there in Collierville, Tennessee, and I just kind of watch him just go by out on the main road. And I'm horrified because Miles had decided to take a bungee cord, hook it to the bike of his, to the back of his best friend's motorbike, while he got on a skateboard and told his buddy to floor it.
[00:23:05] Holding on for dear life, no helmet on. He hits a rock, goes flying into the air.
[00:23:11] And you need to understand that our wives, their basic core driving thing in life is security.
[00:23:20] And so what women tend to do is they want to shut down everything. You're not going outside anymore. That's it for the rest of your life till you graduate from high school, you're gonna sit around and help me cook every single night.
[00:23:34] That's where they need a relationship with a man. A man who will come in, watch this now. And not kill a boy's sense of adventure, but will set appropriate boundaries.
[00:23:48] You know, the difference between a river we flock to and a flood we flee from?
[00:23:56] Borders, Boundaries.
[00:24:01] Something beautiful turns into something deadly with the absence of boundaries.
[00:24:07] By the way, you should know boyhood doesn't have an age to it.
[00:24:18] Do you know where you can find boys who never had boundaries set up for them in jail or in the grave?
[00:24:31] This next stage is adolescence.
[00:24:36] Let me give you a definition of adolescence. You need to write this down.
[00:24:42] Adolescence is wanting the privileges of adulthood without the responsibilities.
[00:24:49] Adolescence is wanting the privileges of adulthood without the responsibilities.
[00:24:57] You need to understand that adolescence is really a Western thing.
[00:25:02] When Paul writes Timothy, there was no such thing as adolescence.
[00:25:06] Many of us are familiar with a rites of passage ceremony that the Jews held. It's called the bar mitzvah. And you were 13 years old. It means son of the commandment.
[00:25:15] The age of 13.
[00:25:18] The age of 13. What happened? You had finished school, and then you immediately got a job in the family business, where you started saving up for the bride price.
[00:25:30] You typically got married between the ages of 18 to 20. So at 13, you got a job.
[00:25:36] You're saving up for marriage.
[00:25:39] You had a vision for your future.
[00:25:41] There was no 7, 8 year Mulligan called being a teenager where you got a pass.
[00:25:49] Adolescence is a recent Western phenomenon, by the way. This doesn't have an age limit to it either.
[00:25:57] In the west, you need to know. Sociologists have said, we're in an Age of extended adolescence where adolescence has extended to age 35.
[00:26:10] Listen, some of you are in this boat, and I don't say this to shame you. Thank you for coming. But let me give you an example of adolescent behavior.
[00:26:18] It is a male who won't marry a woman, but will cohabitate, live with her.
[00:26:25] You need to understand. Boys play house, men make homes.
[00:26:32] Some of you are here and you're 14, 15, 16 years old, or here's adolescent behavior.
[00:26:38] Instead of you just doing the chores and taking out the trash, your mommy and daddy have to tell you to do what you know to do.
[00:26:50] Someone has to be looking over your shoulder, demanding you do your homework. It's adolescent behavior. All while you pitch a fit as it relates to why you can't go out and why you can't get the car.
[00:27:01] It's wanting the privileges of adulthood without the responsibilities.
[00:27:07] I remember one time, it's a famous story my dad tells. I don't have time to get into all of it, but he tried to get his mother to allow him to get out of a chore that his dad said he needed to do. My dad was 12 at the time, and he was the only boy in his family, the youngest child. So his mom was really sweet on him. And finally my grandfather said to his wife, my grandmother, Sylvia, in a very stern and firm way, he says, sylvia, that boy at some point is going to be someone's dad. He's going to be someone's husband. And he must learn to do what he has to do, even when he doesn't feel like doing it.
[00:27:49] So in America, we have a huge problem.
[00:27:53] Passive dads, coddling moms, extended adolescence.
[00:28:01] So what that adolescent needs is a man in his life who calls him up to embrace responsibility.
[00:28:12] Next stage is manhood.
[00:28:16] Let me give you a description of manhood. It's from Robert Lewis. He wrote a wonderful book. He was a pastor at one point, Wrote a wonderful book called Raising a Modern Day Knight.
[00:28:27] He talks about manhood is rejecting passivity, embracing responsibility and leading courageously.
[00:28:39] Manhood is just.
[00:28:41] We're just doing this all the time.
[00:28:43] We're just stepping up all the time. Stepping up on our jobs, stepping up with our finances, stepping up at home. And I hope this is a safe place because I went through a period of time where I kind of resented my wife.
[00:28:59] My wife, she wanted to be home full time. And yes, I support that. And so I'm out busting it and working several jobs and trying to get things done. And we went through a season where I had Resentment towards my wife because I'm stepping up, stepping up, stepping up. And it seems like she's just giving me problem after problem after problem after problem with no solutions.
[00:29:25] And in this stage of stepping up, I just need other men around me who are going to say to me, don't let your feet get tired. Keep stepping up, keep stepping up, keep stepping up.
[00:29:40] The next phase is the mentor phase.
[00:29:44] Mentor.
[00:29:45] That word comes from Greek mythology. Some of you know this already.
[00:29:50] In classical Greek literature, there's a story about a dad who has to go off to fight in war, but he's worried about his young son. He had a young son named Telemachus.
[00:30:01] What would happen to his young son Telemachus? He was really concerned about him and his manhood journey. And so as he's about to leave to go off to war, he recruits an older, wiser man to pour into his young son, Telemachus. That older, wiser man's name was Mentor.
[00:30:19] The idea of mentor, it's a person who invests, influence and impacts, who takes the wealth of all of their experiences in life, their successes and their failures, and says, look, let me just give you some life hacks. Let me just give you some cheat codes here. Let's just sit down together. I see something in you and let me just make some deposits. Deposits in your life.
[00:30:50] Every single man, you need to be entertaining the idea of mentoring. And so many men don't embrace this because you have the wrong picture of mentoring. You think in order to mentor, I needed to have had everything done right, when honestly, some of the best learning what endears us to one another isn't batting a thousand. But it's when we've struck out and saying, listen, let me help you from my own failures.
[00:31:22] My experience is younger men. Oftentimes you'll have to initiate this, you'll have to recruit this.
[00:31:29] In fact, I think this is exactly what Paul is calling Timothy into.
[00:31:34] Second Timothy, chapter two, verse one. He says to him, you then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus and what you've heard from me in the presence of many witnesses. Here it is entrust of faithful men who will be able to teach others. Also Paul is saying, listen, Timothy, I poured some things in. You don't let it just sit there, turn around and pour into others.
[00:32:00] It's actually getting into something that we in the church call discipleship.
[00:32:06] The Great Commission is not the great suggestion.
[00:32:10] We have been called men to produce reproducing followers of Jesus Christ and God forgive we dads who Spend more time teaching our kids a jump shot than teaching them the things of God.
[00:32:30] Final stage is patriarch.
[00:32:33] This is where my dad is. My dad says tongue in cheek. Oh, yeah, you get to this stage simply by outliving everybody else.
[00:32:41] Not true.
[00:32:42] Let me give you a definition of patriarchy.
[00:32:46] See, the problem with the church of Jesus Christ today is we have way too many old people and not enough patriarchs.
[00:32:59] There's a difference.
[00:33:01] A patriarch is a person who leverages the odometer of their journey with Jesus, investing ends the succeeding generations, calling them up to Christlike faithfulness for a time they will not see.
[00:33:18] Give that to you again.
[00:33:20] A patriarch is a person who leverages the odometer of their journey with Jesus, investing in succeeding generations, calling them up to Christlike faithfulness for a time they will not see.
[00:33:38] In other words, if you are an older person of seasoned saints, we need you holding court at the local coffee shop, at some breakfast place where there's young people lining up to glean pearls of wisdom from you. God has not called you at this stage of your life to just be out on the golf course all day long trying to lower your handicap or pay for amazing vacations with your grandkids. Those things are fun. But God didn't leave you on this earth to simply play Disney World or Santa Claus. Grand granddad, you gotta catch a bigger vision for your life.
[00:34:23] It's one of the best things that my dad does.
[00:34:26] Brings tears to my eyes.
[00:34:29] When our boys turned 13, we did a rites of passage thing for them. Two years before, when they were 11, dad would buy a Bible and for the next two years, he would just do his quiet times and preach out of and. And write prayers for that kid who in two years he's gonna give that Bible to. So when they turned 13, they got this Bible from Pop Pop, their granddad, filled with prayers and how he's been praying for them and a vision for their lives. And it would. First page of the Bible, just talk about the godly lineage they came from. Man, my boys would get that and they would walk on cloud nine. Now, don't deify my kids. Cause then they'd turn around and fart on their brother or do something crazy like that.
[00:35:19] But if you think your job is to just spoil your grandkids, you're missing it.
[00:35:27] So here's what I want you to see. In all these steps to step up. There's courage here.
[00:35:34] Each step is just courage. I'm just going to step up. I'm just going to embrace it. This is where I'm at right now in my own life. I'm stepping up. I'm a mentor. That's what God's called me to do. There's great joy in that. And stepping up to patriarch and patriarch and mentors need to take some steps to encourage men. And men gotta step and encourage kind of adolescents to come out of adolescent behavior. Because I'm telling you, when you've got teenagers in your house, there's two temptations. One, they're gonna wanna pull away from you and you're gonna wanna pull away from them.
[00:36:06] But it takes courage to say, now I'm gonna lean in. Takes courage to say, listen, son, I gotta set some boundaries right now. You don't like this, I don't wanna kill your.
[00:36:18] In each and every step, you need courage to step up and you need relationships with other men.
[00:36:28] As we round third and head for home, let me give you three quick things about your relationships with other men, all from Paul and Timothy.
[00:36:38] Because I'm really concerned for the state of manhood.
[00:36:41] Because I think if you put two men next to each other, our natural default is not to lean in towards friendship. It is to compete with one another. Another number one, friendships are intentional.
[00:37:00] Friendships are intentional.
[00:37:06] Timothy just doesn't show up with Paul.
[00:37:09] Paul knocks on the door there in Lystra. He's heard some things about Timothy. He sees a manhood void. He's like, Timothy, I want you to just come with me, man. Let's just flow. Let's just do life together.
[00:37:21] And they go off on what many scholars believe to be a 15 year adventure. And Timothy's just watching. And Paul then is having Timothy do some things. Hey, Timothy. Go to the church at Philippi and encourage them. And he sends them to Corinth. And later on, he's encouraging the body believers that known as the Hebrews. And they have this wonderful relationship that is built on the grounds of intentionality.
[00:37:45] There's another friendship in the Bible. It's probably the most well known friendship in the Bible. If you're here or one of our locations and you would even call yourself a Christian, no doubt you have still heard of a guy by the name of David, of David and Goliath and his great friend Jonathan.
[00:38:04] They first meet each other right after David kills Goliath. I imagine David is literally holding the head of Goliath in his. In his hand.
[00:38:14] First Kings, chapter 18, it says this.
[00:38:18] As soon as he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David. And Jonathan loved him. As his own soul. Key phrase coming up. Don't miss it. Then Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as his own soul. See the intentionality. Made a covenant. Made a covenant. It made a covenant.
[00:38:45] I grew up down south in Atlanta, and I think this is an Atlanta thing. We used to do a really gross thing when we were boys, man, out just kind of running around in the streets. And if there's another guy that we just really clicked with and we said, man, there's something here. We would do something called becoming blood brothers.
[00:39:04] We'd take a little pocket knife. It's amazing I didn't get some kind of virus or tetanus or something. And we cut my finger and he'd cut his finger and then we'd kind of press it into each other's fingers. We'd, ah, we're blood brothers now, man. So gross.
[00:39:22] But you know, covenants in the Bible, they always involve blood.
[00:39:28] I'm not saying they did the same blood brother thing. Here's what I want you to say. Here's what I want you to see. I think both of them are looking at each other and just going, man, there's.
[00:39:36] There's a sense of affinity here.
[00:39:39] There's a connection here.
[00:39:43] Let's just commit to one another.
[00:39:49] Why don't you put this picture up on the screen?
[00:39:55] I'm a pretty driven guy, very type A personality, and my 20s and 30s. I was sprinting up what I call Mount Significance.
[00:40:10] Let me tell you how driven here, sick I was.
[00:40:15] I remember the first time getting my author's copies of my first book.
[00:40:21] 28 years old. You know the first thing I did, I go to the shelf and I take my dad's first book off the shelf.
[00:40:29] And I look at the publishing date and I go, do the math. He was 31, I'm 28. Got him.
[00:40:37] Pray for me.
[00:40:43] Flying about 150,000 miles a year, making all this status.
[00:40:50] And yet every time the gate agent, as I'm getting on that next Delta flight thanks me for my status.
[00:40:56] I just feel like something's missing.
[00:41:00] At the age of 40, my dad and I, we have the exact same birthday. He likes to joke. Yeah, he was born on my birthday and I've never had a birthday since.
[00:41:11] Me and my dad were on a golf trip out in California and I had gotten up early, very introspective. And I just said, I've produced a lot, but I'm incredibly lonely.
[00:41:26] Small group of guys you're looking at.
[00:41:29] We were in this small group back in the 90s and I made up my mind, when I'm 40, man, I just. I need to reconvene this gathering. And I just. We just kind of reached out and got our calendars out. We had kind of kept in touch and we met a little resort down in Orlando. And all of us love Jesus, all of us trying to figure this thing out. And great food, great fellowship. And then we just kind of sat there and looked at each other and just says, what are we doing here?
[00:42:02] I'd love to lean in.
[00:42:04] You're looking at my pallbearers.
[00:42:09] Every year we get together.
[00:42:14] Listen, I know this is weird for a pastor to say, but. But when I've felt attracted to another woman, they get a phone call.
[00:42:30] When I felt like I was going to do something crazy and stupid, they get a phone call.
[00:42:37] Here's what good friendship is.
[00:42:39] Good friendship is this.
[00:42:41] And this.
[00:42:48] Who are your friends?
[00:42:53] Not on Facebook, not on social media.
[00:42:56] Who does this?
[00:43:01] Friendships are intentional. Forgive how elementary this sounds, but secondly, friendships are relational.
[00:43:07] Friendships are relational. I want you to hear again just the incredible terms of endearment that Paul uses to talk to Timothy again. What just blows my mind. Paul is sitting in jail, and you just think of all the people in churches he could have written. But he decides to write Timothy. Why? I think the terms tell us why. Verse two, he calls him my beloved child. Verse three, he says, I remember you constantly in my prayers, night and day. He goes on to say, verse four, I remember your tears. He says, oh, how I long to see you. What you get here is, is that Timothy wasn't some intern on the org chart just to get a bunch of things done for pa.
[00:43:46] There was a close relationship there. And here's the problem with men.
[00:43:52] The problem with men, especially highly successful men, is that we, some point in our life, we readily trade relationships for productivity.
[00:44:08] And we produce and we produce and we produce and we produce, but nobody knows us.
[00:44:17] Every single man that I know who has had a moral implosion, they're at the same time isolated, lonely. High producers.
[00:44:31] Isolated and lonely.
[00:44:36] One of the first things God ever says in the scriptures is it's not good for man to be alone. Alone.
[00:44:44] So one of the guys in that picture, this clown dropped on us, oh, by the way, guys, I'm getting divorced.
[00:44:52] What?
[00:44:53] We got on planes.
[00:44:56] We pulled up at his house.
[00:45:00] We were righteously ticked off. How does that happen? And we don't know.
[00:45:12] Finally, let me just say one more thing.
[00:45:20] The number one excuse you will have for having relational, deep abiding friendships. And you're going to have to go to war with this.
[00:45:27] It's busyness.
[00:45:31] One of the best leadership exercises I ever went in my journey of manhood. I had a mentor, guy named Dennis. Dennis said to me, I'm just talking about how busy I am. He says, well, send me your calendar. Next time we get together, we're gonna go over your calendar.
[00:45:47] I sent him my calendar. We sit down together for the next appointment. And he said something to me that changed my life. He says, brian, your calendar mistake is the mistake so many men make. And that is your calendar is task driven, not priority driven.
[00:46:06] If you don't prioritize and make space for friendships, it won't happen.
[00:46:15] Finally, friendships, as we round third and head for home are inspirational.
[00:46:21] They, they inspire you. Godly friendships inspire you.
[00:46:28] Step up in your relationship with Jesus. This is exactly what Paul is doing with Timothy. Look again at verse 3. He says to him of 2nd Timothy, chapter 2, verse 3. He says to him, share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. It is a hard working farm who ought to have the first share of the crops. Hear the images, Timothy. You are an athlete. You are a farmer, you are a soldier. These are images that Paul uses to inspire Timothy to step up.
[00:47:09] Keep stepping up, Timothy. Keep stepping up. Keep stepping up.
[00:47:16] I want you to view your life in three corridors from zero to about 30. The key word that marks this corridor is first, first degrees, first car, first home, hopefully first and only marriage.
[00:47:36] The last quarter of your life is late 50s until.
[00:47:40] And the word that describes that period is last, last home, last job, last.
[00:47:50] It's the middle corridor which is the Most dangerous.
[00:47:55] Late 20s to early to mid-50s. It's the most dangerous quarter. Why? Because the key word there isn't first or last. It's same.
[00:48:06] Same wife, same home, same job.
[00:48:12] Boredom is no friend to holiness.
[00:48:19] It's the enemy.
[00:48:21] It's what got David, David and Bathsheba. He should have been out at battle, but he's bored. He sees this woman.
[00:48:33] I've always wanted to preach that sermon, entitle it Bed, Bath and Beyond.
[00:48:45] Y' all are making me feel good tonight.
[00:48:53] And it's this march of sameness.
[00:48:56] I just need men around me who inspire me because monotony kills.
[00:49:04] Hey, Brian, keep stepping up.
[00:49:13] My son Jaden thinks he's God's gift to basketball.
[00:49:17] If you walked into his room. He's got all these posters.
[00:49:21] Posters of Michael Jordan train up a child in the way he should go.
[00:49:26] Posters of LeBron James parenting failure.
[00:49:30] Posters of Steph Curry and Kobe Bryant.
[00:49:35] Can't tell you how many times I've watched Jaden look at these posters. And then get inspired and go in the backyard and work on his game. That's what posters do. They inspire.
[00:49:46] Every man needs some manhood. Posters of godly men who are stepping up, stepping up, stepping up.
[00:50:01] Let me close with this story if you know anything about American slavery. In fact, I was telling Robbie at dinner, I'm always grateful for Canada. Canada was a safe haven. It was the end of the Underground Railroad.
[00:50:21] As a black man, that matters to me.
[00:50:25] But I'm a bit of an anomaly as a black man because I can actually trace our lineage to pre emancipation days.
[00:50:36] It goes back to my great great grandfather Peter, who was a slave in North Carolina.
[00:50:44] We were owned by a family of German Reformed pastors.
[00:50:49] My last name, Luritz, is actually a German name.
[00:50:52] In fact, because of the DNA testing and stuff, we actually tracked down the family that owned us. And we were so excited, we called and said, hey, y' all used to own us. You'll do lunch.
[00:51:03] They're like, whoa, that came out wrong. Came out wrong. Came out wrong.
[00:51:15] But this family led my great great grandfather to faith in Jesus.
[00:51:20] According to family tradition, my great great grandfather, who was illiterate, couldn't read or write, memorized most of the New Testament.
[00:51:28] How did that happen? Well, according to family tradition, he'd just rock in his rocking chair there on his old home, and he'd have his kids read to him from the same section of scripture over and over and over again. And that not only got the word into him, that got the word into them.
[00:51:46] When the emancipation happened, the family that owned him were forced to set him free. But they also gave him 300 acres of land in Catawba County, North Carolina. They just blessed him.
[00:51:58] All of his kids came to faith in Jesus.
[00:52:01] My great great grandfather was married to one woman for over 50 years.
[00:52:06] He had a son, some by the name of Milton.
[00:52:09] Milton planted a church in Conover, North Carolina. He took his allotment of the land that Peter, his father, left to him and he planted a church. That church is still there. I've preached there. No offense, that's my favorite.
[00:52:24] It's a little church that can't seat more than 75 people.
[00:52:29] Milton was married to his wife for 53 years.
[00:52:35] Had 14 kids.
[00:52:38] Busy man.
[00:52:42] All 14 of his kids came to faith in Jesus Christ.
[00:52:48] Milton's youngest boy is my grandfather, Crawford Willow Laritz Sr.
[00:52:52] Played in the Negro Leagues, came to Christ early, was married for 53 years as well. All of his kids came to faith in Jesus.
[00:53:06] His youngest child and only boy is my father, CRAWFORD Willow Lawritz Jr.
[00:53:13] In May, my father will celebrate 53 years of marriage.
[00:53:21] My dad never made a promise to me he didn't keep.
[00:53:26] He gave me the death talk a couple years ago and took me to a room in his house. And it's stacks upon stacks upon stacks of journals. And he's got a deal. When he dies, they're going to turn that into his memoirs. And I'm like, have they actually seen your handwriting?
[00:53:43] Good luck with that.
[00:53:46] Then he took a journal out and flipped it to December of 1972, when I was in utero.
[00:53:53] And he showed me a prayer that he prayed for me. And then with tears streaming down his face, he said, son, I want you to know there's never been a day of your life when I have not prayed for you.
[00:54:05] In my direct lineage, we never had to look outside of our home to find inspiration.
[00:54:14] In my direct lineage, there's no such thing as a man who divorced his wife wife or a man who didn't love Jesus.
[00:54:34] I don't say that for you to clap because hear me.
[00:54:38] My guess is for most of you, that's not your story.
[00:54:45] For many of you right now, you're a little frustrated because you have no poster. You have no guide.
[00:55:00] Your father wasn't a part of your life.
[00:55:04] I feel like I'm having to make this up as I go along.
[00:55:10] Here's my challenge to you men.
[00:55:14] If my legacy's not your Legacy, here's my start one.
[00:55:19] So that 150 years from now, your great, great grandson is at some conference in the freezing cold.
[00:55:31] But here's what I want you to see.
[00:55:34] You can't just will yourself to do that.
[00:55:39] There's another man you need.
[00:55:42] That man's name is Jesus Christ.
[00:55:47] You want to talk about courage?
[00:55:50] When you and I were headed and destined for an eternity in hell, Jesus Christ left the comforts of heaven.
[00:55:59] He could have said, I got mine, you get yours. Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.
[00:56:04] The problem is, we didn't have boots.
[00:56:07] He came to earth, lived the life we could never have lived. He lived a perfect, sinless life.
[00:56:17] You talk about courage.
[00:56:19] I'll die the death. You should die.
[00:56:23] How does he die? Dies the death of crucifixion in Fact, the Latin word excruciatas, ex means out of. Cruciatas means cross. It literally means out of the cross. When they were looking for a word that would be the emblem of pain and suffering, they went to the cross.
[00:56:44] Experts in crucifixion say when you were crucified, long rivets were nailed between your wrists. It would strike a nerve, causing the hands to drop, like this. Long rivets were nailed in your feet. Two centurions would drop, drop you into a post. And upon being dropped into a post, all of your joints would become dislocated, and you'd have to push up to get air.
[00:57:03] Eyewitnesses, the crucifixion all say the same thing. We were overwhelmed by the sounds.
[00:57:14] You know, the average length of time it took a person to die the death of the crucifixion? Not two or three minutes, not two or three hours, but two or three days.
[00:57:24] That, friends, is courage to say, I will take the death that you deserve.
[00:57:33] I will die in your place.
[00:57:42] We have no hope to be the man God's called us to be, unless our first step is not a step up, but it's a falling down on our knees and surrendering our life to Jesus.
[00:58:00] That's where your legacy of manhood begins.
[00:58:04] Doesn't begin by trying harder.
[00:58:08] It begins by surrendering more.
[00:58:11] Father, I thank you.
[00:58:15] Bless you for these men.
[00:58:21] Manhood is not for the faint of heart.
[00:58:25] As Pastor Robbie shared. We are in a culture that is becoming more and more hostile to us.
[00:58:39] So, Jesus, I pray for the men in this room at our different locations.
[00:58:48] I pray that they would know you to be their friend because they know you to be their savior.
[00:58:58] Jesus, we thank you for your courage.
[00:59:03] We thank you for the finished work on the cross.
[00:59:09] And we invite you, Jesus, to fill in the gaps, to be lord of our lives, so that we could be all that you've called us to be.
[00:59:22] It's in Jesus name I pray.
[00:59:25] Amen.
