Oct. 1, 2026
Throwing Seeds, the Challenge of Brotherhood
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Amazon Music Before ministry is a method or a message, it is brotherhood. Jesus called His disciples friends.
Daniel stood with brothers. Strong men are not formed alone—they are forged in relationship
with men who love God, love people, and refuse to leave one another behind. When we rescue
men, we rescue families, we save the next generation.
This episode is a challenge to get cranked up on our purpose and mission. Jesus said, “You did
not choose Me, but I chose you” (John 15:16). In our walk with the Lord, you don’t choose the
mission—the mission chooses you. We speak life to dry bones, call men out of passivity, and
help faithful men become disciple-makers who will raise up others. Pressure reveals what is
inside a man, and when the Holy Spirit fills him, courage rises.
At the center of it all is grace. Jesus pictured grace like a farmer throwing seed
everywhere—you never know where it will land or what harvest it will produce. We are still on
the mission God gave Adam, to tend the garden ... but today we are gardeners of the hearts of
men: breaking hard ground, removing stones, pulling thorns, and cultivating hearts where God’s Word can grow. We work the soil. God brings the harvest.
BraveMen is hosted by Paul Louis Cole, president of Christian Men’s Network. CMN is a global
movement of men discipling men, serving on the ground in more than 100 nations. We believe
strong men build strong families, strong churches, and strong communities. We are men on a
mission—and that mission is Jesus. For resources to disciple men and strengthen families, visit CMN.men.
00:00 Introduction: Brotherhood and the Mission of Jesus
00:53 The Process of Discipleship: Becoming Like Christ
07:21 Christ the Center: Colossians 1 and the Power of Jesus
09:07 The Danger of Isolation: Elijah Under the Tree
12:07 From Slaves to Friends: Jesus and the Power of Friendship
14:30 Abraham and Lazarus: The Secret of Friendship with God
19:33 Christ Revealed is God Defined
20:47 The Parable of the Sower: Understanding the Seed
26:27 Our Mission: Tilling the Soil of Men's Hearts
28:40 The Gardener's Call: Making Every Man Good Soil
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Brave men with Paul Lewis Cole.
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Hi, I'm Paul Cole, and this is the brave men podcast.
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Thanks for being with me today.
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I'm fired up about what we're going to share today.
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Just you and me.
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We're going to talk about a couple of things that are extremely important.
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And that is the hat brotherhood.
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Talk about brotherhood.
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And we're going to talk about what that means and how we play that out.
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Christian Men's Network is built on brotherhood because it's built on this.
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Because the ministry to men, so often we get off into, hey, we're going to do this and that, minister to men, talking about techniques and methods.
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But there's one message and that message is Jesus.
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In fact, that is the method too, Jesus.
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Because Jesus solves everything.
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Following Christ changes our identity, changes how we define ourselves, changes how we make decisions.
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When a man is discipled in Christ, it changes everything.
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Brings your heart peace, puts you in a place of peace in the middle of storms.
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We just finished doing the Dad Academy.
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In fact, Brandon, my son, just did an incredible session on identity.
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And it was awesome.
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Joel 3.9 says this, wake up the mighty men, prepare for battle.
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And we're in a fight.
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I just got back from Vietnam.
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We're doing Dad Academy.
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We've got a lot going on.
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Go to cmn.men for tools and resources to disciple men.
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So season seven, full video and audio.
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So go to Christian Men's Network YouTube.
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You can see it there.
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And there's other prompts and things that are downloading.
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Thank you, Brian Boyd and your whole team for what you do.
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And we're going to get into Matthew 13 today.
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It's in Mark 4 also, but it's the sower of the seed.
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And maybe this session, I'll probably just call it throwing seeds.
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But I'm going to predicate some things for us.
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And that is that Jesus didn't come to win a popularity contest.
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He came to win a war.
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And victory is always on the other side of a fight.
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It's basically like this.
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I did a counseling thing years ago, became a licensed coach, personal PLC, whatever the thing's called, personal license coach.
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And in doing that, one of the things that my instructor told me, she said this.
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She said, listen, Paul, what you're doing, because we did these role play things, what you're doing is you're trying to help that person make the right choice.
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I go, well, yeah.
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She said, but you don't lift for them, they lift.
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And that's the key of this podcast, and it's the key of what we're doing with Dad Academy, it's the key of what we're doing with the CMN coaching, majoring in men, is that there has to be a place at which you lift.
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Say, okay, I've got all this information, but I've gotta actually do something with it.
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You take it from hearing it, James 125,
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to actually doing it.
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And that means you lift.
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Jesus said, John 15, 16, you didn't choose me.
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I chose you.
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And sometimes you don't choose the mission.
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In fact, I don't think you ever do.
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You know, we think we're choosing, but we've been built for a particular thing.
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Jesus basically said, the mission chooses you.
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So,
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If the method is Jesus and the mission is Jesus and the message is Jesus, then what's it about for us?
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It's to be conformed into his image.
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The foundational part of Christian Men's Network is that manhood and Christlikeness.
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are synonymous.
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The scripture that my dad put into play 50 years ago was 2 Timothy 2.2.
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When Paul, talking to his young guy that he was mentoring, this young champion, as he's mentoring him and putting him into it, like he took Timothy and put him in charge of the largest known church in Ephesus at that time.
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In fact, it's where John, after Patmos, where John ended up,
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in his later years, writing chapter 21 of John.
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And he said to Timothy, he said, listen, the things that I've taught you, this is sort of like what Jethro did with Moses when he said, hey, you're going to kill yourself trying to do it all.
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You need to train some men.
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And Paul said this to Timothy, he said, hey, the things that I've taught you, teach these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.
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Now it's coach to coach to coach, teach to teach to teach, it's generational.
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But I think the key thing here is, Paul says, look for faithful men, the guy who shows up, the man who fulfill it, the man who will walk it out.
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And then the word says,
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Teach faithful men who will be able.
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And I think that's the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit.
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I think the will be able comes out when, man, I don't know how to get this done.
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I just know I'm supposed to go after it.
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And then we find the anointing and power of his presence of the Holy Spirit actually empowers us to get something done.
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And we're like, wow, that was awesome.
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To be conformed into his image is to then move like Christ.
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John 14, 12.
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Jesus said, the same things I did, you will do.
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Same things I did, you will do.
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So discipling men is helping men be reformed, if you will.
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You know, we've talked about identity.
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Identity is the story you tell yourself about yourself.
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And the problem is most men have told themselves a story about themselves that somebody else wrote the words to.
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So Jesus came as the word, John 1.
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Jesus came as the word to do what?
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To re-story your story.
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to make a new story, to make it a new beginning.
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It's a new story.
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So we don't follow a philosophy, a pattern of life, theological treatise, we follow a person, his name is Jesus, and we're reformed into his image.
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So when we talk about discipleship, it's a process, but we're committed to the process because the process is committed to the person of Jesus.
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You know, we have strong men in tough times.
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We've got treasure.
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We've got all these books and materials and resources.
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But I'm not a bookseller.
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What we do isn't about selling books.
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We're passionate about the process of helping men become disciples of Jesus Christ.
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All right.
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A passion without a process is presumption.
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But a process without a passion is a program.
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And we've all been there.
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Process and passion is about a person.
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That person is Jesus Christ.
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He's the center of all creation.
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All right, David, if you can put this up, Colossians 1, verse 15 through 17, get into some things here that I think are awesome about brotherhood and about what it means to us to be our brother's keeper, to walk with another, and what our job is.
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In other words, guys go, hey, I'm digging all this stuff.
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This is great.
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But what am I supposed to do?
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Okay, here's the do part.
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All right?
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Colossians 1, this is part of centering who we are.
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Colossians 1 says this, Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.
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He existed before anything was created, is supreme over all creation.
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Through him, God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth.
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He made the things we can see, the things we can't see,
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such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.
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Everything was created through him, for him.
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Now, here's the beauty of it.
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He existed before anything else.
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He holds all creation together.
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It's basically like this.
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When you study quantum physics, which is because physics ended up having a limited life, they had to have something beyond that.
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It's quantum physics.
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Now we're going past that, string theory and all those things.
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But quantum physics basically has discovered that everything's not held together by matter.
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Everything's held together by light.
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So Jesus came as the Word, but he also came as the light.
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And in him it says everything is held together.
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So in being held together by Christ, we go from bondage to freedom, from darkness to light, from chaos to Christ.
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Yeah, I love that.
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Now here's brotherhood.
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Elijah, this awesome guy, this guy, 1 Kings 19, he has raised a young man from the dead.
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He's called fire from heaven.
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He's wiped out a bunch of pagan priests.
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I mean, this guy's been busy and he's been amazing.
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Stalwart, strong.
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We would say this guy is stone cold.
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Just gets it done.
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And yet, after all of that, he ends up isolated and tired.
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He's off by himself.
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Actually tells his assistant, no, no, no, wait over here.
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And it says he's sitting under a tree by himself.
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And this is the problem with being disconnected, isolated.
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Fear easily jumps on us.
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We get disconnected.
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We get depressed.
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And it's a pattern.
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And it's a pattern of life.
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And if we're not careful, we get there.
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What happened to Elijah?
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He got isolated.
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And he says, you might as well kill me, God.
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I'm the only guy left.
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This is an amazing moment.
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By the way, if you're listening, you're working out, and you're just listening, not watching on video.
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I do have a cup of coffee with me.
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Not that I have a cup of coffee with me all the time.
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Jesse's doing the shooting.
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Jesse's a one-cup guy in the morning, and I'm probably two-cup.
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But I work it for a while.
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And I reheat it a couple times.
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But I do enjoy it in the mornings and we're shooting in the morning.
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So 1 Kings 19, here's Elijah.
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He's got this issue and he's just suicidal.
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He's got a man.
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Because he's run for his life because the queen, after he killed all the pagan priests, which were her priests, she puts a contract out on him.
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And he's like, dude, I've got to get out of here.
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And here's this guy who's done all these amazing things.
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He's isolated.
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He says, you might as well kill me.
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And at that point, God says to Elijah...
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What?
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I got 7,000 other men who have stood strong.
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And my question is this.
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Why wasn't he with one of those guys?
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Why didn't he go to that guy's house?
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We're going to see this in just a moment when we talk about Lazarus.
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Because often Jesus went to the house of a friend.
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I know it says quite often he'd go off on his own and pray.
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But if you remember the Garden of Gethsemane,
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Remember who was right there with him?
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Like he's by himself, but he's not by himself because he's got some guys with him.
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Jesus always had a band of men somewhere close by.
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He was either mentoring them or he's spending time with them or they're actually encouraging each other.
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And that's the point of brotherhood.
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Jesus said, I got 7,000 other men.
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So why he had gotten so myopic, so caught up.
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I think you can get so caught up in ministry that you lose perspective of friendship.
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The power of the life of Abraham.
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Look at John 15, 15 through 17.
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I love this.
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It says, I no longer call you slaves because the master doesn't confide in his slaves.
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Now you're my friends.
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Since I've told you everything the father told me, you didn't choose me.
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I chose you.
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Appointed you to go produce lasting fruit.
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So father will give you whatever you ask for.
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So the ministry to men can be the result of purpose and communication, strategy, honor, work, but fundamentally it's about brotherhood.
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In fact, I had a friend who taught me this, and we were talking about dopamine, you know, which is that hit of satisfaction and pleasure and like, man, got this right.
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I watched the other day, I watched Brock Purdy throw a pass to Evans, who's one of his new receivers there with the 49ers.
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Over a guy's head, like by a couple inches, the guy grabs it.
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It was the most amazing throw.
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Boom, there's a dopamine hit.
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Satisfaction, got the thing nailed, cranked it.
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But the second most powerful chemical, I call the compadre chemical, and it's oxytocin.
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And it's a chemical secreted when people bond.
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It's when there's friendship.
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When you see that friend of yours that walks in your room, hey, bro, what's up?
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Bam.
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It's like there's something that happens when you're together working on a project and you just go, you hit each other.
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Remember me and Steve Weinberg, who's gone to be with the Lord, and we were coaching our sons in baseball.
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We had a couple games where we were like, dude, we coached that.
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That's it.
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What we did out there actually made things work.
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And there was a thing that connected us.
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I hadn't seen him for years.
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He was in George Bush's cabinet, George W. Bush.
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And I saw him a few years later.
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And when we saw each other, I hadn't seen each other for a few years.
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There's just that brotherhood thing like, hey, man.
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It's just women see women bond face to face, but men bond shoulder to shoulder facing a challenge.
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That's brotherhood.
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And I love that.
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That.
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Compadre chemical that comes out when we're brothers when we pray for each other when we work on a project when we go and help somebody together as brothers and make that thing happen.
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So fundamentally, our lives are about friendship.
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Abraham was called the father of faith, right?
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But the power of Abraham's life, it says in James 2 verse 23, it says scripture Abraham believed God counted him for righteousness and he was called the friend of God.
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Isaiah 41 says, God says about Abraham, My servant Jacob I've chosen, the descendants of Abraham, my friend.
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The secret of Abraham's life was friendship.
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Before God did anything else, when he created the world, he, and there's a little sidebar, get into Lazarus in just a second because I love this, is I think about my friends and people I know that, here's the deal, a friend brightens a room when they walk in.
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You've got a friend of mine that walks in right now to the studio, just brighten the room, hey, and other people brighten it when they leave.
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So there's that.
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A friend is someone who talks good about you behind your back.
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A friend is a person who says, hey, good word, even when it really wasn't.
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A friend is someone who knows everything about you and still likes you.
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And so I love all of this.
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When God created mankind, he spoke a word and everything was created, right?
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Spoke a word, the oceans, spoke a word, fish, spoke a word until it came to mankind.
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And when it came to man, he reached down with his hands, created us out of the dust, held us close, and breathed life into us.
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We were made to be close to our Father.
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Now here's a picture in John 11.
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Lazarus, how would you like to have a friend that could raise you from the dead?
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Lazarus had that friend.
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Jesus and Lazarus were friends.
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In fact, I think, you know, I think that Lazarus was such a good friend.
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It's why Jesus didn't make him a disciple, one of the apostles.
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Because, I mean, when you look at Lazarus's life, they were going to kill Jesus.
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They plotted to kill Jesus.
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And then they said, well, let's kill Lazarus, too.
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Because when Lazarus was raised from the dead, hundreds of people became followers of Christ.
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Thousands.
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Just Lazarus.
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Sitting at his house going, dude, it was unbelievable.
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I was in the dark.
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And he was sick.
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Bible records.
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Jesus is a six-hour walk away.
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He's sick.
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He's sick for another day.
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They send word.
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Jesus says, don't worry.
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I got this covered.
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It's a strategy.
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Something's going to happen here.
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Bam.
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Lazarus dies.
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Martha comes out.
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She's all upset.
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She says, hey, if you'd have been here, you wouldn't have died.
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Jesus.
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Here's the emotion.
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Here's the real person side of it.
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Jesus actually has emotions out of it.
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He goes, Martha, you know, he's going to come back.
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He's just asleep.
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Martha goes, no, no, I know it'll happen someday.
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He goes, no, right now I am resurrection and life.
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That's a word in and of itself.
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I am the resurrection and life.
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Martha and Mary, they're all torn up as friends.
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Jesus comes up and he's standing looking at the grave and he starts crying.
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He says he cries.
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He goes, dude, my friend had to go through this, but what's going to happen is going to be amazing.
285
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It hurts that my friends are hurting.
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Martha and Mary are hurting.
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My best friend.
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I think that one of the reasons he didn't make Lazarus a disciple is because he was always teaching the disciples.
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He needed somebody to decompress with.
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If you're a leader, pastor, owner of a company, manager, whatever it is, you've got to have somebody you can decompress with.
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I believe Lazarus was that man for Jesus.
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It's been a run.
293
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Well, what happened last week?
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Well, I'll tell you what.
295
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James and John's mom showed up.
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She started hassling me about their position.
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If she shows up one more time, they're both out.
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I think, you know, he had to have somebody he could decompress with.
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I think of Peter, and he's telling Lazarus about what happened with Peter walking on water.
300
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And Lazarus is like, dude, that's unbelievable.
301
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Jesus goes, yeah, it was amazing.
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I was actually giving him a bad time going by.
303
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And then Peter jumps out.
304
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You know Peter.
305
00:19:07.074 --> 00:19:09.496
And Lazarus goes, yeah, pretty impulsive.
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Yeah.
307
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He jumps out of the boat.
308
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He's walking on water.
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He starts sinking.
310
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He said, what did you do?
311
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I picked him up.
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I dragged him a little bit, but I picked him up.
313
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And Lazarus, you know, he just had to have that person.
314
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That's who Lazarus was.
315
00:19:25.388 --> 00:19:26.809
And then he raised him from the dead.
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00:19:27.670 --> 00:19:33.114
And it says on account of that happening, so many people became followers of Christ.
317
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I believe that's a picture of our friendship today.
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with God.
319
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It's a picture of Jesus and Lazarus because Jesus said this.
320
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He said, I only do what the Father shows me to do.
321
00:19:46.789 --> 00:19:57.095
If we want to know what God is like, we look at the life of Jesus Christ because Christ is the footprint of God.
322
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You look at God, you see Jesus.
323
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It is, Christ revealed is God defined.
324
00:20:06.979 --> 00:20:07.459
Write it down.
325
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Christ revealed is God defined.
326
00:20:12.501 --> 00:20:12.842
Bam.
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I love that.
328
00:20:14.502 --> 00:20:19.744
Actually, that little line, I don't know, that just came up to me last week.
329
00:20:19.784 --> 00:20:25.346
I was in Hanoi speaking for some new friends there at their church in Hanoi.
330
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And I said, what's the theme?
331
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He said, Christ revealed.
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Colossians.
333
00:20:30.329 --> 00:20:30.569
Great.
334
00:20:31.149 --> 00:20:32.470
So we did some things around that.
335
00:20:32.630 --> 00:20:38.014
And as I was praying over it in the hotel room in Hanoi, I wrote that down.
336
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Christ revealed as God defined.
337
00:20:40.756 --> 00:20:41.797
And I love that line.
338
00:20:41.917 --> 00:20:42.938
I love the picture of it.
339
00:20:43.058 --> 00:20:47.862
Now let's finish up someplace that I love this story.
340
00:20:47.882 --> 00:20:49.003
It's in Matthew 13.
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I'll use that picture of it.
342
00:20:52.245 --> 00:20:53.966
It's also Mark 4 and some other places.
343
00:20:54.026 --> 00:20:55.508
It's the sower of the seed.
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Get into this.
345
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This is our job.
346
00:20:58.368 --> 00:20:59.069
This is what we do.
347
00:20:59.109 --> 00:21:00.570
People say, well, what am I supposed to do?
348
00:21:01.030 --> 00:21:01.491
Here it is.
349
00:21:03.592 --> 00:21:09.036
It's a metaphor, but the metaphor is for us to learn from and to apply it.
350
00:21:09.906 --> 00:21:20.029
whether you're in Uganda or Yemen or Australia, wherever you may be around the world, this is applicable to our culture wherever we live.
351
00:21:20.809 --> 00:21:21.109
All right?
352
00:21:21.589 --> 00:21:22.409
It's Matthew 13.
353
00:21:22.489 --> 00:21:23.989
It's the parable of the sower of the seed.
354
00:21:24.050 --> 00:21:27.310
On that day, Jesus went out of the house, was sitting by the sea.
355
00:21:27.450 --> 00:21:29.731
Such large crowds gathered around him.
356
00:21:29.751 --> 00:21:33.352
He got into a boat, sat down, the whole crowd standing on the shore.
357
00:21:34.352 --> 00:21:38.113
And we know how sound bounces off the water, so I'm sure that's part of the strategy here.
358
00:21:38.593 --> 00:21:41.554
Also didn't want to be pushed into the lake while he's speaking.
359
00:21:42.154 --> 00:21:45.915
Then he told them many things in parables, saying, Consider the sower who went out to sow.
360
00:21:46.856 --> 00:21:49.036
As he was sowing, some seed fell along the path.
361
00:21:49.416 --> 00:21:50.997
Birds came and ate the seed.
362
00:21:52.017 --> 00:21:53.438
Others fell on rocky ground.
363
00:21:54.278 --> 00:21:57.659
Wasn't good soil, and it sprang up quickly.
364
00:21:57.739 --> 00:22:01.420
And since the soil wasn't deep, when the sun came out, there were scorched
365
00:22:02.349 --> 00:22:04.630
They weren't rooted, so it withered.
366
00:22:05.430 --> 00:22:05.990
So check it out.
367
00:22:06.130 --> 00:22:07.370
Others fell among thorns.
368
00:22:08.110 --> 00:22:09.631
Thorns came up, choked them.
369
00:22:10.011 --> 00:22:15.612
So others fell on good ground and produced a crop 160, some 30 times.
370
00:22:16.352 --> 00:22:17.652
Anyone out of here should listen.
371
00:22:18.032 --> 00:22:18.372
Okay.
372
00:22:19.773 --> 00:22:29.955
So if you just looked at this and you're basically, okay, your theology is such that you say, okay, well, there's some people are chosen and others aren't.
373
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Bummer for them.
374
00:22:32.090 --> 00:22:36.034
I mean, basically it looks like, hey, some seed fell on good ground.
375
00:22:37.796 --> 00:22:38.376
Well, there you go.
376
00:22:38.917 --> 00:22:41.539
Must be just us.
377
00:22:41.579 --> 00:22:44.582
We must be the good ground because we're the followers of Christ.
378
00:22:45.263 --> 00:22:46.965
Bummer for the guys who were bad ground.
379
00:22:47.725 --> 00:22:50.408
But that's not what the story is about.
380
00:22:51.109 --> 00:22:55.093
The story is about, and to the disciples, they got it right away.
381
00:22:56.609 --> 00:22:57.849
Because it's a farmer.
382
00:22:58.130 --> 00:23:00.130
A farmer goes out and throws seed.
383
00:23:00.150 --> 00:23:01.131
Let's look at this picture.
384
00:23:01.891 --> 00:23:02.571
Walk it out.
385
00:23:02.811 --> 00:23:03.852
Farmer throws seed.
386
00:23:03.952 --> 00:23:05.793
First of all, you didn't do that in that culture.
387
00:23:05.813 --> 00:23:07.453
So that got everybody's attention.
388
00:23:08.034 --> 00:23:08.834
It was like a teaser.
389
00:23:09.534 --> 00:23:11.115
Farmer goes out, throws seed.
390
00:23:11.215 --> 00:23:13.116
They're like, dude, you don't throw seed.
391
00:23:14.056 --> 00:23:18.978
You put it where it goes because you only put it in the good ground.
392
00:23:18.998 --> 00:23:20.599
Why would you throw it where the thorns are?
393
00:23:21.079 --> 00:23:21.959
How crazy is that?
394
00:23:21.999 --> 00:23:23.740
Why would you throw it where there's rocks?
395
00:23:25.384 --> 00:23:35.451
But again, it's a picture or a metaphor of God's grace, His mercy and God's grace, His loving kindness, His presence, His desire.
396
00:23:35.471 --> 00:23:42.616
The seed again speaks of the seed of Jesus Christ, salvation, repentance, renewal, all of that.
397
00:23:42.636 --> 00:23:44.778
OK, a new creation.
398
00:23:45.158 --> 00:23:46.479
Second Corinthians 517.
399
00:23:46.839 --> 00:23:50.782
Those who are followers of Christ become a new creation.
400
00:23:51.042 --> 00:23:51.883
Now, here we go.
401
00:23:53.621 --> 00:23:56.582
Out of this then, the seed is being thrown.
402
00:23:56.822 --> 00:23:57.563
It's going everywhere.
403
00:23:58.443 --> 00:24:01.264
Seed is expensive today, and it was expensive then.
404
00:24:04.226 --> 00:24:10.128
If you want the right seed, I have a friend of mine who's a farmer, and if you want the right seed, they protect their seed.
405
00:24:10.949 --> 00:24:12.289
They get the right stuff.
406
00:24:12.550 --> 00:24:13.490
It's expensive.
407
00:24:13.730 --> 00:24:15.471
They plant it exactly where it goes.
408
00:24:16.569 --> 00:24:17.749
So here's seed being thrown.
409
00:24:18.790 --> 00:24:23.592
And it says that some of the seed fell on hard soil.
410
00:24:23.892 --> 00:24:25.552
Birds came.
411
00:24:25.713 --> 00:24:29.394
Let's go back to Genesis where Abram cuts covenant with God.
412
00:24:29.414 --> 00:24:31.475
It says in Genesis chapter 10, I think it is.
413
00:24:32.355 --> 00:24:33.736
It says, or it could be chapter 15.
414
00:24:33.856 --> 00:24:34.936
It's one of those right in there.
415
00:24:35.136 --> 00:24:37.277
It's where he's cutting covenant with God.
416
00:24:38.405 --> 00:24:42.828
And it says that he puts the animals out and he's cutting covenant, which is a blood covenant.
417
00:24:43.428 --> 00:24:47.591
And it says the birds came down and began to steal or wanted to steal the covenant.
418
00:24:47.671 --> 00:24:52.755
It says Abraham, Abram at the time, because the H hadn't been added.
419
00:24:52.795 --> 00:24:55.797
The H, of course, from Yahweh means the breath of God.
420
00:24:56.603 --> 00:25:04.729
So when Abram became Abraham, it was the breath of God that invaded his life, that made him the man who multiplied.
421
00:25:05.790 --> 00:25:08.572
Okay, so it's always the breath of God that changes us.
422
00:25:09.192 --> 00:25:14.016
So Abram becomes Abraham, but Abram chases the birds away.
423
00:25:14.576 --> 00:25:17.658
You just sit in the corner and go, oh God, you told me this was going to be good.
424
00:25:17.878 --> 00:25:18.299
Oh God.
425
00:25:18.739 --> 00:25:19.940
He didn't play the victim card.
426
00:25:20.846 --> 00:25:24.209
He didn't play the, oh, well, I guess this is just the way it is.
427
00:25:24.229 --> 00:25:26.430
You know, that whole thing.
428
00:25:26.891 --> 00:25:27.792
He said, no, no, no.
429
00:25:29.478 --> 00:25:31.499
It's that very first scripture, Joel 3.9.
430
00:25:31.860 --> 00:25:33.541
Wake up the mighty men, prepare for battle.
431
00:25:34.001 --> 00:25:36.942
Victory is always on the other side of a fight.
432
00:25:37.002 --> 00:25:37.543
Write that down.
433
00:25:38.143 --> 00:25:40.824
Victory is always on the other side of a fight.
434
00:25:41.485 --> 00:25:44.967
By the way, many of these things are in the books and things we've written.
435
00:25:45.227 --> 00:25:53.691
Go to cmn.men, cmn.men, and Christian Men's Network, and the website is the .men website.
436
00:25:54.151 --> 00:25:56.373
cmn.men for tools, resources.
437
00:25:57.293 --> 00:26:07.001
And the books, materials, resources, videos, Christian Men's Network, YouTube, all of that to help us be conformed to the image of God.
438
00:26:07.061 --> 00:26:08.842
Now, back on this.
439
00:26:09.483 --> 00:26:10.584
He chased the birds away.
440
00:26:10.904 --> 00:26:11.364
Abram did.
441
00:26:11.664 --> 00:26:12.025
Abram.
442
00:26:13.026 --> 00:26:14.006
Abram chased the birds away.
443
00:26:14.026 --> 00:26:17.429
So now here's birds coming in and stealing the seed.
444
00:26:18.190 --> 00:26:18.910
What's the next one?
445
00:26:18.930 --> 00:26:23.153
The next one is there's thorns where the seeds are.
446
00:26:23.654 --> 00:26:26.416
And the next one is there's rocks there.
447
00:26:27.484 --> 00:26:27.964
rocks.
448
00:26:28.625 --> 00:26:38.870
I mean, I mean, to me, this is such a great picture of the lives of men in our neighborhood, in our church, in our culture.
449
00:26:39.470 --> 00:26:43.612
There are men who are hard ground and no matter what they hear, they're like, yeah, whatever.
450
00:26:44.172 --> 00:26:45.793
And it's like the enemy just steals it.
451
00:26:45.853 --> 00:26:49.075
Like the enemy is a vulture, just steals the seed of the gospel.
452
00:26:49.997 --> 00:26:50.217
Right.
453
00:26:50.637 --> 00:26:53.999
There's other men whose lives are just thorns.
454
00:26:54.319 --> 00:26:55.360
They're a thicket.
455
00:26:56.220 --> 00:27:00.242
It's like those guys you talk to and you're like, dude, this cannot be happening again.
456
00:27:00.662 --> 00:27:02.403
This could not have happened in your life.
457
00:27:02.763 --> 00:27:05.125
And they're just like this whole mix of stuff.
458
00:27:05.145 --> 00:27:10.827
And you just turn to somebody and you go, this is happening again.
459
00:27:11.087 --> 00:27:12.888
This life, there's always drama.
460
00:27:12.928 --> 00:27:13.449
There's just.
461
00:27:13.989 --> 00:27:15.550
And then the next one is rocks.
462
00:27:16.268 --> 00:27:20.712
There's just like tripping places and tripping stones.
463
00:27:20.752 --> 00:27:23.894
And there's things that... That's a hard one.
464
00:27:24.815 --> 00:27:25.856
Oh, that's a difficult one.
465
00:27:26.476 --> 00:27:27.517
Yeah, that's a bad one.
466
00:27:28.558 --> 00:27:29.959
And here's our job.
467
00:27:30.139 --> 00:27:30.540
You ready?
468
00:27:30.940 --> 00:27:31.481
Our job.
469
00:27:32.782 --> 00:27:35.404
Our job was the first job that God gave to Adam.
470
00:27:36.264 --> 00:27:37.405
To guide, guard, and govern.
471
00:27:37.425 --> 00:27:38.006
But...
472
00:27:40.425 --> 00:27:44.328
Genesis says in chapter 2, it says that everything was there.
473
00:27:44.668 --> 00:27:46.670
There was seed, there was soil.
474
00:27:47.450 --> 00:27:50.473
There was even said moisture came up from the ground.
475
00:27:51.393 --> 00:27:52.254
Everything looked great.
476
00:27:52.754 --> 00:27:55.757
It says, but there were no crops because it hadn't rained.
477
00:27:56.768 --> 00:27:57.969
Why hadn't it rained?
478
00:27:58.390 --> 00:27:59.531
This is really fascinating.
479
00:28:00.071 --> 00:28:08.199
It says it hadn't started raining or making crops because there was not a man to tend the soil.
480
00:28:09.680 --> 00:28:10.521
Fascinating, right?
481
00:28:10.841 --> 00:28:12.343
This is absolutely fascinating to me.
482
00:28:12.863 --> 00:28:14.705
It says there wasn't a man to tend the soil.
483
00:28:14.725 --> 00:28:15.286
What does that mean?
484
00:28:15.846 --> 00:28:19.650
That means that God always uses men.
485
00:28:21.488 --> 00:28:23.229
in every single situation.
486
00:28:23.449 --> 00:28:28.532
You look at everything that's happened in the world and God speaks through a man, God uses man.
487
00:28:28.592 --> 00:28:30.273
I'm not being gender specific.
488
00:28:30.734 --> 00:28:36.077
I'm not, have nothing to do with Joan of Arc or Margaret Thatcher or any other.
489
00:28:36.357 --> 00:28:37.698
I'm not talking about gender specific.
490
00:28:37.718 --> 00:28:40.920
I'm talking about God uses people.
491
00:28:42.283 --> 00:28:44.706
to get his work done on the face of the earth, right?
492
00:28:45.326 --> 00:28:46.588
So he said he's a gardener.
493
00:28:46.748 --> 00:28:52.755
What was Jesus when Mary goes to the tomb and she's walking away and she's just distraught?
494
00:28:53.035 --> 00:28:54.116
Where did they take him?
495
00:28:54.757 --> 00:28:58.962
She turns to a man and looks at him and she thought he was what?
496
00:28:59.202 --> 00:28:59.723
The gardener.
497
00:29:01.082 --> 00:29:07.108
Just the first thought, just first like that blink, like Malcolm Gladwell blinked at first, that thin slice.
498
00:29:07.288 --> 00:29:07.568
Boom!
499
00:29:08.609 --> 00:29:08.969
Gardener.
500
00:29:10.110 --> 00:29:11.752
And she says, do you know where he took him?
501
00:29:11.952 --> 00:29:15.235
And Jesus turns and goes, Mary.
502
00:29:15.355 --> 00:29:17.037
She goes, oh, Tim.
503
00:29:18.358 --> 00:29:19.279
She thought he was a gardener.
504
00:29:19.539 --> 00:29:21.701
What is it that we end up with?
505
00:29:21.901 --> 00:29:23.503
We end up with all of this.
506
00:29:24.728 --> 00:29:29.934
metaphor over metaphor of tending the garden, the garden of our heart, the garden of life.
507
00:29:30.035 --> 00:29:31.456
So now let's talk about this.
508
00:29:32.438 --> 00:29:33.779
Our job, you want a job?
509
00:29:33.859 --> 00:29:34.680
Here's your mission.
510
00:29:35.541 --> 00:29:36.943
Our mission is Jesus.
511
00:29:37.043 --> 00:29:41.028
Our mission is helping men be framed into the image of Christ.
512
00:29:41.188 --> 00:29:42.329
Our mission is this.
513
00:29:43.170 --> 00:29:48.475
To go to men whose soil is hard and help till that soil up, make them ready to receive the seed.
514
00:29:49.135 --> 00:29:55.420
To go places where there's thorns and just stuff and start pulling thorns.
515
00:29:56.121 --> 00:29:59.364
And where there's rocks, we help the men carry the rocks out.
516
00:29:59.504 --> 00:30:01.065
Go, bro, I'm going to help you do this, man.
517
00:30:01.245 --> 00:30:02.106
We're going to walk through this.
518
00:30:02.826 --> 00:30:05.609
Because God would that every man is good soil.
519
00:30:06.389 --> 00:30:07.210
And the gospel...
520
00:30:07.930 --> 00:30:11.791
And the mission of Jesus is for every single person.
521
00:30:13.291 --> 00:30:13.691
That's it.
522
00:30:14.411 --> 00:30:15.111
That's the mission.
523
00:30:15.892 --> 00:30:16.972
We are seeing men.
524
00:30:17.032 --> 00:30:18.152
We rescue men.
525
00:30:18.732 --> 00:30:19.792
We carry rocks out.
526
00:30:19.992 --> 00:30:20.973
We pull thorns.
527
00:30:21.413 --> 00:30:22.413
We till the soil.
528
00:30:22.913 --> 00:30:28.834
We make everything good seed so that every man becomes a follower of Jesus Christ.
529
00:30:29.014 --> 00:30:29.834
That's our heart.
530
00:30:30.454 --> 00:30:33.395
Our heart is that every child deserves a loving dad.
531
00:30:34.095 --> 00:30:43.343
Our goal is 100 million dads over the next 100 years who love their children, who speak life over the kids, just like we're doing with Dad Academy.
532
00:30:44.674 --> 00:30:45.174
And that's it.
533
00:30:46.035 --> 00:30:46.716
That's it today.
534
00:30:46.836 --> 00:30:48.477
Friendship, brotherhood.
535
00:30:48.997 --> 00:30:49.838
It's about brotherhood.
536
00:30:49.858 --> 00:30:50.658
What does a brother do?
537
00:30:51.319 --> 00:30:54.782
He goes and helps the man who's next to him.
538
00:30:55.782 --> 00:30:56.423
That's your job.
539
00:30:56.703 --> 00:30:57.323
That's who we are.
540
00:30:57.844 --> 00:31:00.066
Thanks for being on Brave Men podcast with me.
541
00:31:00.246 --> 00:31:06.731
My name is Paul Cole, and I am privileged and honored to steward a ministry called Christian Men's Network.
542
00:31:07.431 --> 00:31:23.129
And we have resources in 52 languages now in over 100 nations around the world as we help pastors and leaders, disciple men to do this, to till the soil, be gardeners, and to bring the kingdom of heaven to earth.
543
00:31:24.390 --> 00:31:24.751
I love you.
544
00:31:24.771 --> 00:31:25.431
Thank God for you.
545
00:31:25.471 --> 00:31:25.932
God bless you.
546
00:31:29.582 --> 00:31:35.589
This has been Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole, sponsored by the Christian Men's Network.
547
00:31:36.490 --> 00:31:40.975
CMN resources for discipling men are at cmn.men.
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Brave men with Paul Lewis Cole.
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Hi, I'm Paul Cole, and this is the brave men podcast.
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Thanks for being with me today.
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I'm fired up about what we're going to share today.
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Just you and me.
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We're going to talk about a couple of things that are extremely important.
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And that is the hat brotherhood.
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Talk about brotherhood.
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And we're going to talk about what that means and how we play that out.
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Christian Men's Network is built on brotherhood because it's built on this.
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Because the ministry to men, so often we get off into, hey, we're going to do this and that, minister to men, talking about techniques and methods.
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But there's one message and that message is Jesus.
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In fact, that is the method too, Jesus.
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Because Jesus solves everything.
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Following Christ changes our identity, changes how we define ourselves, changes how we make decisions.
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When a man is discipled in Christ, it changes everything.
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Brings your heart peace, puts you in a place of peace in the middle of storms.
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We just finished doing the Dad Academy.
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In fact, Brandon, my son, just did an incredible session on identity.
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And it was awesome.
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Joel 3.9 says this, wake up the mighty men, prepare for battle.
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And we're in a fight.
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I just got back from Vietnam.
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We're doing Dad Academy.
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We've got a lot going on.
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Go to cmn.men for tools and resources to disciple men.
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So season seven, full video and audio.
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So go to Christian Men's Network YouTube.
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You can see it there.
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And there's other prompts and things that are downloading.
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Thank you, Brian Boyd and your whole team for what you do.
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And we're going to get into Matthew 13 today.
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It's in Mark 4 also, but it's the sower of the seed.
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And maybe this session, I'll probably just call it throwing seeds.
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But I'm going to predicate some things for us.
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And that is that Jesus didn't come to win a popularity contest.
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He came to win a war.
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And victory is always on the other side of a fight.
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It's basically like this.
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I did a counseling thing years ago, became a licensed coach, personal PLC, whatever the thing's called, personal license coach.
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And in doing that, one of the things that my instructor told me, she said this.
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She said, listen, Paul, what you're doing, because we did these role play things, what you're doing is you're trying to help that person make the right choice.
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I go, well, yeah.
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She said, but you don't lift for them, they lift.
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And that's the key of this podcast, and it's the key of what we're doing with Dad Academy, it's the key of what we're doing with the CMN coaching, majoring in men, is that there has to be a place at which you lift.
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00:03:10.418 --> 00:03:15.259
Say, okay, I've got all this information, but I've gotta actually do something with it.
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You take it from hearing it, James 125,
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00:03:19.807 --> 00:03:21.607
to actually doing it.
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And that means you lift.
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00:03:25.588 --> 00:03:28.089
Jesus said, John 15, 16, you didn't choose me.
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I chose you.
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And sometimes you don't choose the mission.
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In fact, I don't think you ever do.
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You know, we think we're choosing, but we've been built for a particular thing.
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Jesus basically said, the mission chooses you.
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So,
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If the method is Jesus and the mission is Jesus and the message is Jesus, then what's it about for us?
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It's to be conformed into his image.
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The foundational part of Christian Men's Network is that manhood and Christlikeness.
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are synonymous.
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The scripture that my dad put into play 50 years ago was 2 Timothy 2.2.
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When Paul, talking to his young guy that he was mentoring, this young champion, as he's mentoring him and putting him into it, like he took Timothy and put him in charge of the largest known church in Ephesus at that time.
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In fact, it's where John, after Patmos, where John ended up,
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in his later years, writing chapter 21 of John.
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And he said to Timothy, he said, listen, the things that I've taught you, this is sort of like what Jethro did with Moses when he said, hey, you're going to kill yourself trying to do it all.
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You need to train some men.
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00:04:48.566 --> 00:04:57.328
And Paul said this to Timothy, he said, hey, the things that I've taught you, teach these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.
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Now it's coach to coach to coach, teach to teach to teach, it's generational.
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But I think the key thing here is, Paul says, look for faithful men, the guy who shows up, the man who fulfill it, the man who will walk it out.
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And then the word says,
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Teach faithful men who will be able.
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And I think that's the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit.
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I think the will be able comes out when, man, I don't know how to get this done.
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I just know I'm supposed to go after it.
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And then we find the anointing and power of his presence of the Holy Spirit actually empowers us to get something done.
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And we're like, wow, that was awesome.
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To be conformed into his image is to then move like Christ.
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John 14, 12.
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Jesus said, the same things I did, you will do.
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Same things I did, you will do.
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00:05:55.135 --> 00:05:59.181
So discipling men is helping men be reformed, if you will.
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You know, we've talked about identity.
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00:06:02.892 --> 00:06:05.535
Identity is the story you tell yourself about yourself.
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00:06:06.416 --> 00:06:11.761
And the problem is most men have told themselves a story about themselves that somebody else wrote the words to.
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00:06:12.922 --> 00:06:15.625
So Jesus came as the word, John 1.
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00:06:15.845 --> 00:06:17.727
Jesus came as the word to do what?
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To re-story your story.
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00:06:22.333 --> 00:06:25.616
to make a new story, to make it a new beginning.
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00:06:26.357 --> 00:06:27.358
It's a new story.
90
00:06:27.458 --> 00:06:35.506
So we don't follow a philosophy, a pattern of life, theological treatise, we follow a person, his name is Jesus, and we're reformed into his image.
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00:06:36.307 --> 00:06:46.756
So when we talk about discipleship, it's a process, but we're committed to the process because the process is committed to the person of Jesus.
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00:06:47.477 --> 00:06:49.818
You know, we have strong men in tough times.
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We've got treasure.
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00:06:52.398 --> 00:06:54.679
We've got all these books and materials and resources.
95
00:06:55.739 --> 00:06:56.999
But I'm not a bookseller.
96
00:06:57.819 --> 00:06:59.700
What we do isn't about selling books.
97
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We're passionate about the process of helping men become disciples of Jesus Christ.
98
00:07:05.621 --> 00:07:07.081
All right.
99
00:07:07.241 --> 00:07:10.142
A passion without a process is presumption.
100
00:07:10.162 --> 00:07:13.503
But a process without a passion is a program.
101
00:07:14.538 --> 00:07:15.359
And we've all been there.
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00:07:16.319 --> 00:07:18.421
Process and passion is about a person.
103
00:07:18.461 --> 00:07:19.762
That person is Jesus Christ.
104
00:07:19.802 --> 00:07:21.063
He's the center of all creation.
105
00:07:21.764 --> 00:07:39.477
All right, David, if you can put this up, Colossians 1, verse 15 through 17, get into some things here that I think are awesome about brotherhood and about what it means to us to be our brother's keeper, to walk with another, and what our job is.
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In other words, guys go, hey, I'm digging all this stuff.
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00:07:43.492 --> 00:07:44.132
This is great.
108
00:07:44.412 --> 00:07:45.673
But what am I supposed to do?
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Okay, here's the do part.
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00:07:48.794 --> 00:07:49.135
All right?
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00:07:50.375 --> 00:07:52.997
Colossians 1, this is part of centering who we are.
112
00:07:53.057 --> 00:07:56.719
Colossians 1 says this, Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.
113
00:07:57.319 --> 00:08:01.341
He existed before anything was created, is supreme over all creation.
114
00:08:01.901 --> 00:08:04.983
Through him, God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth.
115
00:08:05.023 --> 00:08:07.845
He made the things we can see, the things we can't see,
116
00:08:08.740 --> 00:08:11.902
such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.
117
00:08:12.562 --> 00:08:14.363
Everything was created through him, for him.
118
00:08:14.944 --> 00:08:16.365
Now, here's the beauty of it.
119
00:08:16.425 --> 00:08:18.246
He existed before anything else.
120
00:08:18.866 --> 00:08:22.228
He holds all creation together.
121
00:08:23.429 --> 00:08:24.389
It's basically like this.
122
00:08:24.409 --> 00:08:32.334
When you study quantum physics, which is because physics ended up having a limited life, they had to have something beyond that.
123
00:08:32.354 --> 00:08:33.315
It's quantum physics.
124
00:08:33.415 --> 00:08:37.197
Now we're going past that, string theory and all those things.
125
00:08:38.350 --> 00:08:43.172
But quantum physics basically has discovered that everything's not held together by matter.
126
00:08:43.252 --> 00:08:44.613
Everything's held together by light.
127
00:08:45.454 --> 00:08:49.055
So Jesus came as the Word, but he also came as the light.
128
00:08:49.495 --> 00:08:51.777
And in him it says everything is held together.
129
00:08:53.117 --> 00:09:02.402
So in being held together by Christ, we go from bondage to freedom, from darkness to light, from chaos to Christ.
130
00:09:03.462 --> 00:09:04.163
Yeah, I love that.
131
00:09:04.683 --> 00:09:06.104
Now here's brotherhood.
132
00:09:07.033 --> 00:09:14.367
Elijah, this awesome guy, this guy, 1 Kings 19, he has raised a young man from the dead.
133
00:09:15.329 --> 00:09:17.092
He's called fire from heaven.
134
00:09:18.225 --> 00:09:20.687
He's wiped out a bunch of pagan priests.
135
00:09:20.707 --> 00:09:24.371
I mean, this guy's been busy and he's been amazing.
136
00:09:24.551 --> 00:09:26.012
Stalwart, strong.
137
00:09:26.032 --> 00:09:28.955
We would say this guy is stone cold.
138
00:09:29.716 --> 00:09:30.517
Just gets it done.
139
00:09:30.697 --> 00:09:35.641
And yet, after all of that, he ends up isolated and tired.
140
00:09:36.282 --> 00:09:37.443
He's off by himself.
141
00:09:37.603 --> 00:09:41.027
Actually tells his assistant, no, no, no, wait over here.
142
00:09:41.941 --> 00:09:45.504
And it says he's sitting under a tree by himself.
143
00:09:46.465 --> 00:09:51.109
And this is the problem with being disconnected, isolated.
144
00:09:51.790 --> 00:09:53.651
Fear easily jumps on us.
145
00:09:53.852 --> 00:09:55.173
We get disconnected.
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We get depressed.
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And it's a pattern.
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And it's a pattern of life.
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And if we're not careful, we get there.
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What happened to Elijah?
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He got isolated.
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And he says, you might as well kill me, God.
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I'm the only guy left.
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This is an amazing moment.
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By the way, if you're listening, you're working out, and you're just listening, not watching on video.
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I do have a cup of coffee with me.
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Not that I have a cup of coffee with me all the time.
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Jesse's doing the shooting.
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Jesse's a one-cup guy in the morning, and I'm probably two-cup.
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But I work it for a while.
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And I reheat it a couple times.
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But I do enjoy it in the mornings and we're shooting in the morning.
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So 1 Kings 19, here's Elijah.
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He's got this issue and he's just suicidal.
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He's got a man.
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Because he's run for his life because the queen, after he killed all the pagan priests, which were her priests, she puts a contract out on him.
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And he's like, dude, I've got to get out of here.
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And here's this guy who's done all these amazing things.
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He's isolated.
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He says, you might as well kill me.
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And at that point, God says to Elijah...
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What?
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I got 7,000 other men who have stood strong.
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And my question is this.
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Why wasn't he with one of those guys?
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Why didn't he go to that guy's house?
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We're going to see this in just a moment when we talk about Lazarus.
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Because often Jesus went to the house of a friend.
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I know it says quite often he'd go off on his own and pray.
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But if you remember the Garden of Gethsemane,
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Remember who was right there with him?
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Like he's by himself, but he's not by himself because he's got some guys with him.
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Jesus always had a band of men somewhere close by.
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He was either mentoring them or he's spending time with them or they're actually encouraging each other.
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And that's the point of brotherhood.
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Jesus said, I got 7,000 other men.
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So why he had gotten so myopic, so caught up.
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I think you can get so caught up in ministry that you lose perspective of friendship.
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The power of the life of Abraham.
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Look at John 15, 15 through 17.
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I love this.
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It says, I no longer call you slaves because the master doesn't confide in his slaves.
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Now you're my friends.
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Since I've told you everything the father told me, you didn't choose me.
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I chose you.
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Appointed you to go produce lasting fruit.
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So father will give you whatever you ask for.
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So the ministry to men can be the result of purpose and communication, strategy, honor, work, but fundamentally it's about brotherhood.
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In fact, I had a friend who taught me this, and we were talking about dopamine, you know, which is that hit of satisfaction and pleasure and like, man, got this right.
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I watched the other day, I watched Brock Purdy throw a pass to Evans, who's one of his new receivers there with the 49ers.
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Over a guy's head, like by a couple inches, the guy grabs it.
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It was the most amazing throw.
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Boom, there's a dopamine hit.
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Satisfaction, got the thing nailed, cranked it.
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But the second most powerful chemical, I call the compadre chemical, and it's oxytocin.
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And it's a chemical secreted when people bond.
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It's when there's friendship.
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When you see that friend of yours that walks in your room, hey, bro, what's up?
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Bam.
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It's like there's something that happens when you're together working on a project and you just go, you hit each other.
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Remember me and Steve Weinberg, who's gone to be with the Lord, and we were coaching our sons in baseball.
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We had a couple games where we were like, dude, we coached that.
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That's it.
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What we did out there actually made things work.
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And there was a thing that connected us.
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I hadn't seen him for years.
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He was in George Bush's cabinet, George W. Bush.
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And I saw him a few years later.
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And when we saw each other, I hadn't seen each other for a few years.
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There's just that brotherhood thing like, hey, man.
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It's just women see women bond face to face, but men bond shoulder to shoulder facing a challenge.
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That's brotherhood.
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And I love that.
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That.
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Compadre chemical that comes out when we're brothers when we pray for each other when we work on a project when we go and help somebody together as brothers and make that thing happen.
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So fundamentally, our lives are about friendship.
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Abraham was called the father of faith, right?
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But the power of Abraham's life, it says in James 2 verse 23, it says scripture Abraham believed God counted him for righteousness and he was called the friend of God.
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Isaiah 41 says, God says about Abraham, My servant Jacob I've chosen, the descendants of Abraham, my friend.
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The secret of Abraham's life was friendship.
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Before God did anything else, when he created the world, he, and there's a little sidebar, get into Lazarus in just a second because I love this, is I think about my friends and people I know that, here's the deal, a friend brightens a room when they walk in.
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You've got a friend of mine that walks in right now to the studio, just brighten the room, hey, and other people brighten it when they leave.
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So there's that.
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A friend is someone who talks good about you behind your back.
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A friend is a person who says, hey, good word, even when it really wasn't.
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A friend is someone who knows everything about you and still likes you.
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And so I love all of this.
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When God created mankind, he spoke a word and everything was created, right?
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Spoke a word, the oceans, spoke a word, fish, spoke a word until it came to mankind.
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And when it came to man, he reached down with his hands, created us out of the dust, held us close, and breathed life into us.
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We were made to be close to our Father.
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Now here's a picture in John 11.
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Lazarus, how would you like to have a friend that could raise you from the dead?
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Lazarus had that friend.
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Jesus and Lazarus were friends.
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In fact, I think, you know, I think that Lazarus was such a good friend.
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It's why Jesus didn't make him a disciple, one of the apostles.
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Because, I mean, when you look at Lazarus's life, they were going to kill Jesus.
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They plotted to kill Jesus.
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And then they said, well, let's kill Lazarus, too.
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Because when Lazarus was raised from the dead, hundreds of people became followers of Christ.
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Thousands.
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Just Lazarus.
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Sitting at his house going, dude, it was unbelievable.
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I was in the dark.
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And he was sick.
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Bible records.
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Jesus is a six-hour walk away.
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He's sick.
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He's sick for another day.
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They send word.
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Jesus says, don't worry.
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I got this covered.
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It's a strategy.
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Something's going to happen here.
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Bam.
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Lazarus dies.
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Martha comes out.
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She's all upset.
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She says, hey, if you'd have been here, you wouldn't have died.
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Jesus.
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Here's the emotion.
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Here's the real person side of it.
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Jesus actually has emotions out of it.
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He goes, Martha, you know, he's going to come back.
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He's just asleep.
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Martha goes, no, no, I know it'll happen someday.
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He goes, no, right now I am resurrection and life.
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That's a word in and of itself.
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I am the resurrection and life.
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Martha and Mary, they're all torn up as friends.
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Jesus comes up and he's standing looking at the grave and he starts crying.
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He says he cries.
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He goes, dude, my friend had to go through this, but what's going to happen is going to be amazing.
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It hurts that my friends are hurting.
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Martha and Mary are hurting.
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My best friend.
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I think that one of the reasons he didn't make Lazarus a disciple is because he was always teaching the disciples.
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He needed somebody to decompress with.
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If you're a leader, pastor, owner of a company, manager, whatever it is, you've got to have somebody you can decompress with.
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I believe Lazarus was that man for Jesus.
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It's been a run.
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Well, what happened last week?
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Well, I'll tell you what.
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James and John's mom showed up.
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She started hassling me about their position.
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If she shows up one more time, they're both out.
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I think, you know, he had to have somebody he could decompress with.
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I think of Peter, and he's telling Lazarus about what happened with Peter walking on water.
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And Lazarus is like, dude, that's unbelievable.
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Jesus goes, yeah, it was amazing.
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I was actually giving him a bad time going by.
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And then Peter jumps out.
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You know Peter.
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And Lazarus goes, yeah, pretty impulsive.
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Yeah.
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He jumps out of the boat.
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He's walking on water.
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He starts sinking.
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He said, what did you do?
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I picked him up.
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I dragged him a little bit, but I picked him up.
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And Lazarus, you know, he just had to have that person.
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That's who Lazarus was.
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And then he raised him from the dead.
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And it says on account of that happening, so many people became followers of Christ.
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I believe that's a picture of our friendship today.
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with God.
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It's a picture of Jesus and Lazarus because Jesus said this.
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He said, I only do what the Father shows me to do.
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If we want to know what God is like, we look at the life of Jesus Christ because Christ is the footprint of God.
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You look at God, you see Jesus.
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It is, Christ revealed is God defined.
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Write it down.
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Christ revealed is God defined.
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Bam.
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I love that.
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Actually, that little line, I don't know, that just came up to me last week.
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I was in Hanoi speaking for some new friends there at their church in Hanoi.
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And I said, what's the theme?
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He said, Christ revealed.
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Colossians.
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Great.
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So we did some things around that.
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And as I was praying over it in the hotel room in Hanoi, I wrote that down.
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Christ revealed as God defined.
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And I love that line.
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I love the picture of it.
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Now let's finish up someplace that I love this story.
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It's in Matthew 13.
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I'll use that picture of it.
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It's also Mark 4 and some other places.
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It's the sower of the seed.
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Get into this.
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This is our job.
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This is what we do.
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People say, well, what am I supposed to do?
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Here it is.
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It's a metaphor, but the metaphor is for us to learn from and to apply it.
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whether you're in Uganda or Yemen or Australia, wherever you may be around the world, this is applicable to our culture wherever we live.
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All right?
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It's Matthew 13.
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It's the parable of the sower of the seed.
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On that day, Jesus went out of the house, was sitting by the sea.
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Such large crowds gathered around him.
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He got into a boat, sat down, the whole crowd standing on the shore.
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And we know how sound bounces off the water, so I'm sure that's part of the strategy here.
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Also didn't want to be pushed into the lake while he's speaking.
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Then he told them many things in parables, saying, Consider the sower who went out to sow.
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As he was sowing, some seed fell along the path.
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Birds came and ate the seed.
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Others fell on rocky ground.
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Wasn't good soil, and it sprang up quickly.
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And since the soil wasn't deep, when the sun came out, there were scorched
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They weren't rooted, so it withered.
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So check it out.
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Others fell among thorns.
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Thorns came up, choked them.
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So others fell on good ground and produced a crop 160, some 30 times.
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Anyone out of here should listen.
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Okay.
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So if you just looked at this and you're basically, okay, your theology is such that you say, okay, well, there's some people are chosen and others aren't.
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Bummer for them.
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I mean, basically it looks like, hey, some seed fell on good ground.
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Well, there you go.
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Must be just us.
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We must be the good ground because we're the followers of Christ.
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Bummer for the guys who were bad ground.
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But that's not what the story is about.
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The story is about, and to the disciples, they got it right away.
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Because it's a farmer.
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A farmer goes out and throws seed.
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Let's look at this picture.
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Walk it out.
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Farmer throws seed.
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First of all, you didn't do that in that culture.
387
00:23:05.813 --> 00:23:07.453
So that got everybody's attention.
388
00:23:08.034 --> 00:23:08.834
It was like a teaser.
389
00:23:09.534 --> 00:23:11.115
Farmer goes out, throws seed.
390
00:23:11.215 --> 00:23:13.116
They're like, dude, you don't throw seed.
391
00:23:14.056 --> 00:23:18.978
You put it where it goes because you only put it in the good ground.
392
00:23:18.998 --> 00:23:20.599
Why would you throw it where the thorns are?
393
00:23:21.079 --> 00:23:21.959
How crazy is that?
394
00:23:21.999 --> 00:23:23.740
Why would you throw it where there's rocks?
395
00:23:25.384 --> 00:23:35.451
But again, it's a picture or a metaphor of God's grace, His mercy and God's grace, His loving kindness, His presence, His desire.
396
00:23:35.471 --> 00:23:42.616
The seed again speaks of the seed of Jesus Christ, salvation, repentance, renewal, all of that.
397
00:23:42.636 --> 00:23:44.778
OK, a new creation.
398
00:23:45.158 --> 00:23:46.479
Second Corinthians 517.
399
00:23:46.839 --> 00:23:50.782
Those who are followers of Christ become a new creation.
400
00:23:51.042 --> 00:23:51.883
Now, here we go.
401
00:23:53.621 --> 00:23:56.582
Out of this then, the seed is being thrown.
402
00:23:56.822 --> 00:23:57.563
It's going everywhere.
403
00:23:58.443 --> 00:24:01.264
Seed is expensive today, and it was expensive then.
404
00:24:04.226 --> 00:24:10.128
If you want the right seed, I have a friend of mine who's a farmer, and if you want the right seed, they protect their seed.
405
00:24:10.949 --> 00:24:12.289
They get the right stuff.
406
00:24:12.550 --> 00:24:13.490
It's expensive.
407
00:24:13.730 --> 00:24:15.471
They plant it exactly where it goes.
408
00:24:16.569 --> 00:24:17.749
So here's seed being thrown.
409
00:24:18.790 --> 00:24:23.592
And it says that some of the seed fell on hard soil.
410
00:24:23.892 --> 00:24:25.552
Birds came.
411
00:24:25.713 --> 00:24:29.394
Let's go back to Genesis where Abram cuts covenant with God.
412
00:24:29.414 --> 00:24:31.475
It says in Genesis chapter 10, I think it is.
413
00:24:32.355 --> 00:24:33.736
It says, or it could be chapter 15.
414
00:24:33.856 --> 00:24:34.936
It's one of those right in there.
415
00:24:35.136 --> 00:24:37.277
It's where he's cutting covenant with God.
416
00:24:38.405 --> 00:24:42.828
And it says that he puts the animals out and he's cutting covenant, which is a blood covenant.
417
00:24:43.428 --> 00:24:47.591
And it says the birds came down and began to steal or wanted to steal the covenant.
418
00:24:47.671 --> 00:24:52.755
It says Abraham, Abram at the time, because the H hadn't been added.
419
00:24:52.795 --> 00:24:55.797
The H, of course, from Yahweh means the breath of God.
420
00:24:56.603 --> 00:25:04.729
So when Abram became Abraham, it was the breath of God that invaded his life, that made him the man who multiplied.
421
00:25:05.790 --> 00:25:08.572
Okay, so it's always the breath of God that changes us.
422
00:25:09.192 --> 00:25:14.016
So Abram becomes Abraham, but Abram chases the birds away.
423
00:25:14.576 --> 00:25:17.658
You just sit in the corner and go, oh God, you told me this was going to be good.
424
00:25:17.878 --> 00:25:18.299
Oh God.
425
00:25:18.739 --> 00:25:19.940
He didn't play the victim card.
426
00:25:20.846 --> 00:25:24.209
He didn't play the, oh, well, I guess this is just the way it is.
427
00:25:24.229 --> 00:25:26.430
You know, that whole thing.
428
00:25:26.891 --> 00:25:27.792
He said, no, no, no.
429
00:25:29.478 --> 00:25:31.499
It's that very first scripture, Joel 3.9.
430
00:25:31.860 --> 00:25:33.541
Wake up the mighty men, prepare for battle.
431
00:25:34.001 --> 00:25:36.942
Victory is always on the other side of a fight.
432
00:25:37.002 --> 00:25:37.543
Write that down.
433
00:25:38.143 --> 00:25:40.824
Victory is always on the other side of a fight.
434
00:25:41.485 --> 00:25:44.967
By the way, many of these things are in the books and things we've written.
435
00:25:45.227 --> 00:25:53.691
Go to cmn.men, cmn.men, and Christian Men's Network, and the website is the .men website.
436
00:25:54.151 --> 00:25:56.373
cmn.men for tools, resources.
437
00:25:57.293 --> 00:26:07.001
And the books, materials, resources, videos, Christian Men's Network, YouTube, all of that to help us be conformed to the image of God.
438
00:26:07.061 --> 00:26:08.842
Now, back on this.
439
00:26:09.483 --> 00:26:10.584
He chased the birds away.
440
00:26:10.904 --> 00:26:11.364
Abram did.
441
00:26:11.664 --> 00:26:12.025
Abram.
442
00:26:13.026 --> 00:26:14.006
Abram chased the birds away.
443
00:26:14.026 --> 00:26:17.429
So now here's birds coming in and stealing the seed.
444
00:26:18.190 --> 00:26:18.910
What's the next one?
445
00:26:18.930 --> 00:26:23.153
The next one is there's thorns where the seeds are.
446
00:26:23.654 --> 00:26:26.416
And the next one is there's rocks there.
447
00:26:27.484 --> 00:26:27.964
rocks.
448
00:26:28.625 --> 00:26:38.870
I mean, I mean, to me, this is such a great picture of the lives of men in our neighborhood, in our church, in our culture.
449
00:26:39.470 --> 00:26:43.612
There are men who are hard ground and no matter what they hear, they're like, yeah, whatever.
450
00:26:44.172 --> 00:26:45.793
And it's like the enemy just steals it.
451
00:26:45.853 --> 00:26:49.075
Like the enemy is a vulture, just steals the seed of the gospel.
452
00:26:49.997 --> 00:26:50.217
Right.
453
00:26:50.637 --> 00:26:53.999
There's other men whose lives are just thorns.
454
00:26:54.319 --> 00:26:55.360
They're a thicket.
455
00:26:56.220 --> 00:27:00.242
It's like those guys you talk to and you're like, dude, this cannot be happening again.
456
00:27:00.662 --> 00:27:02.403
This could not have happened in your life.
457
00:27:02.763 --> 00:27:05.125
And they're just like this whole mix of stuff.
458
00:27:05.145 --> 00:27:10.827
And you just turn to somebody and you go, this is happening again.
459
00:27:11.087 --> 00:27:12.888
This life, there's always drama.
460
00:27:12.928 --> 00:27:13.449
There's just.
461
00:27:13.989 --> 00:27:15.550
And then the next one is rocks.
462
00:27:16.268 --> 00:27:20.712
There's just like tripping places and tripping stones.
463
00:27:20.752 --> 00:27:23.894
And there's things that... That's a hard one.
464
00:27:24.815 --> 00:27:25.856
Oh, that's a difficult one.
465
00:27:26.476 --> 00:27:27.517
Yeah, that's a bad one.
466
00:27:28.558 --> 00:27:29.959
And here's our job.
467
00:27:30.139 --> 00:27:30.540
You ready?
468
00:27:30.940 --> 00:27:31.481
Our job.
469
00:27:32.782 --> 00:27:35.404
Our job was the first job that God gave to Adam.
470
00:27:36.264 --> 00:27:37.405
To guide, guard, and govern.
471
00:27:37.425 --> 00:27:38.006
But...
472
00:27:40.425 --> 00:27:44.328
Genesis says in chapter 2, it says that everything was there.
473
00:27:44.668 --> 00:27:46.670
There was seed, there was soil.
474
00:27:47.450 --> 00:27:50.473
There was even said moisture came up from the ground.
475
00:27:51.393 --> 00:27:52.254
Everything looked great.
476
00:27:52.754 --> 00:27:55.757
It says, but there were no crops because it hadn't rained.
477
00:27:56.768 --> 00:27:57.969
Why hadn't it rained?
478
00:27:58.390 --> 00:27:59.531
This is really fascinating.
479
00:28:00.071 --> 00:28:08.199
It says it hadn't started raining or making crops because there was not a man to tend the soil.
480
00:28:09.680 --> 00:28:10.521
Fascinating, right?
481
00:28:10.841 --> 00:28:12.343
This is absolutely fascinating to me.
482
00:28:12.863 --> 00:28:14.705
It says there wasn't a man to tend the soil.
483
00:28:14.725 --> 00:28:15.286
What does that mean?
484
00:28:15.846 --> 00:28:19.650
That means that God always uses men.
485
00:28:21.488 --> 00:28:23.229
in every single situation.
486
00:28:23.449 --> 00:28:28.532
You look at everything that's happened in the world and God speaks through a man, God uses man.
487
00:28:28.592 --> 00:28:30.273
I'm not being gender specific.
488
00:28:30.734 --> 00:28:36.077
I'm not, have nothing to do with Joan of Arc or Margaret Thatcher or any other.
489
00:28:36.357 --> 00:28:37.698
I'm not talking about gender specific.
490
00:28:37.718 --> 00:28:40.920
I'm talking about God uses people.
491
00:28:42.283 --> 00:28:44.706
to get his work done on the face of the earth, right?
492
00:28:45.326 --> 00:28:46.588
So he said he's a gardener.
493
00:28:46.748 --> 00:28:52.755
What was Jesus when Mary goes to the tomb and she's walking away and she's just distraught?
494
00:28:53.035 --> 00:28:54.116
Where did they take him?
495
00:28:54.757 --> 00:28:58.962
She turns to a man and looks at him and she thought he was what?
496
00:28:59.202 --> 00:28:59.723
The gardener.
497
00:29:01.082 --> 00:29:07.108
Just the first thought, just first like that blink, like Malcolm Gladwell blinked at first, that thin slice.
498
00:29:07.288 --> 00:29:07.568
Boom!
499
00:29:08.609 --> 00:29:08.969
Gardener.
500
00:29:10.110 --> 00:29:11.752
And she says, do you know where he took him?
501
00:29:11.952 --> 00:29:15.235
And Jesus turns and goes, Mary.
502
00:29:15.355 --> 00:29:17.037
She goes, oh, Tim.
503
00:29:18.358 --> 00:29:19.279
She thought he was a gardener.
504
00:29:19.539 --> 00:29:21.701
What is it that we end up with?
505
00:29:21.901 --> 00:29:23.503
We end up with all of this.
506
00:29:24.728 --> 00:29:29.934
metaphor over metaphor of tending the garden, the garden of our heart, the garden of life.
507
00:29:30.035 --> 00:29:31.456
So now let's talk about this.
508
00:29:32.438 --> 00:29:33.779
Our job, you want a job?
509
00:29:33.859 --> 00:29:34.680
Here's your mission.
510
00:29:35.541 --> 00:29:36.943
Our mission is Jesus.
511
00:29:37.043 --> 00:29:41.028
Our mission is helping men be framed into the image of Christ.
512
00:29:41.188 --> 00:29:42.329
Our mission is this.
513
00:29:43.170 --> 00:29:48.475
To go to men whose soil is hard and help till that soil up, make them ready to receive the seed.
514
00:29:49.135 --> 00:29:55.420
To go places where there's thorns and just stuff and start pulling thorns.
515
00:29:56.121 --> 00:29:59.364
And where there's rocks, we help the men carry the rocks out.
516
00:29:59.504 --> 00:30:01.065
Go, bro, I'm going to help you do this, man.
517
00:30:01.245 --> 00:30:02.106
We're going to walk through this.
518
00:30:02.826 --> 00:30:05.609
Because God would that every man is good soil.
519
00:30:06.389 --> 00:30:07.210
And the gospel...
520
00:30:07.930 --> 00:30:11.791
And the mission of Jesus is for every single person.
521
00:30:13.291 --> 00:30:13.691
That's it.
522
00:30:14.411 --> 00:30:15.111
That's the mission.
523
00:30:15.892 --> 00:30:16.972
We are seeing men.
524
00:30:17.032 --> 00:30:18.152
We rescue men.
525
00:30:18.732 --> 00:30:19.792
We carry rocks out.
526
00:30:19.992 --> 00:30:20.973
We pull thorns.
527
00:30:21.413 --> 00:30:22.413
We till the soil.
528
00:30:22.913 --> 00:30:28.834
We make everything good seed so that every man becomes a follower of Jesus Christ.
529
00:30:29.014 --> 00:30:29.834
That's our heart.
530
00:30:30.454 --> 00:30:33.395
Our heart is that every child deserves a loving dad.
531
00:30:34.095 --> 00:30:43.343
Our goal is 100 million dads over the next 100 years who love their children, who speak life over the kids, just like we're doing with Dad Academy.
532
00:30:44.674 --> 00:30:45.174
And that's it.
533
00:30:46.035 --> 00:30:46.716
That's it today.
534
00:30:46.836 --> 00:30:48.477
Friendship, brotherhood.
535
00:30:48.997 --> 00:30:49.838
It's about brotherhood.
536
00:30:49.858 --> 00:30:50.658
What does a brother do?
537
00:30:51.319 --> 00:30:54.782
He goes and helps the man who's next to him.
538
00:30:55.782 --> 00:30:56.423
That's your job.
539
00:30:56.703 --> 00:30:57.323
That's who we are.
540
00:30:57.844 --> 00:31:00.066
Thanks for being on Brave Men podcast with me.
541
00:31:00.246 --> 00:31:06.731
My name is Paul Cole, and I am privileged and honored to steward a ministry called Christian Men's Network.
542
00:31:07.431 --> 00:31:23.129
And we have resources in 52 languages now in over 100 nations around the world as we help pastors and leaders, disciple men to do this, to till the soil, be gardeners, and to bring the kingdom of heaven to earth.
543
00:31:24.390 --> 00:31:24.751
I love you.
544
00:31:24.771 --> 00:31:25.431
Thank God for you.
545
00:31:25.471 --> 00:31:25.932
God bless you.
546
00:31:29.582 --> 00:31:35.589
This has been Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole, sponsored by the Christian Men's Network.
547
00:31:36.490 --> 00:31:40.975
CMN resources for discipling men are at cmn.men.