The Four Roles You Were Made to Master

[Music: Crossroads Music, That's Who My God Is] - Well, hey, welcome to Crossroads. Whether it's your first time or your thousandth, we are so glad you're here. Now Crossroads is one church with locations all over Ohio and Kentucky, plus people joining online in communities all over the world. My name is Andy. I'm pastor of Crossroads Anywhere. I'm here with Shanna. - Hey, I'm Shanna and I'm with our Crossroads Students Team and I'm so excited to be here. - Love it. So. Shanna, you are coming up on staff like almost one year. - Yeah. - Just tell me like what's maybe like the most surprising thing to you about Crossroads over the last year? - Let me tell you, you Midwest besties really love camping. There's so many camps that Crossroads does and I was so shocked by that. And right now there's actually 1800 women who are at Woman Camp. And you and I are not there, obviously. We're here at Crossroads, so we are going to throw to our friend Jen, who is going to tell us all about Woman Camp.

- Hey, Jen. - Hey, girl. - Hey, Shannon. I heard you say city girl. You are -- You're going to be here next year. Is that what I just heard you say? - Uh, yeah. Maybe. - Yes. I am here in Neville, Ohio. We have over 800 acres of land, and we've had these women out here just we're talking about lighting up this year was our theme and how oftentimes as women, we struggle with control or carrying burdens that we were never meant to carry. And we already have so many stories of women who are just leaving here on the land burdens that they've been caring for years, some of them decades. You've got 18 year olds to 80 year olds. And I've lost my voice. Can you tell? Because we have been having a blast singing and dancing and just doing a bunch of girl things. - Oh, that's so good. - Awesome. - And so it's Sunday, and so that means like baptisms are about to happen, like right now, right? - Yes. Right now, in the main tent happening here, you can see the tent, women, at least 20 or 30 women just stood up for the first time to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior for the very first time.

And then many are about to walk down to this pond to get baptized. It's going to be amazing. - Oh, fantastic. Jen, thank you so much. Hey, whether you're watching online, we are going to celebrate. We're going to spend some time with worship right now as Jen and the Woman Camp team lose their voices singing, we're gonna have our own time to not just hear songs, but to connect with God through worship right now. - God, we offer up praise to you.

God, I ask that you would raise the level of our faith today. That you'd help us to see that in the midst of the things that we're going through in this life that you are still there and you are still good. I know some of us in this room feel like critics right now, because we're unsure if this thing is real, God, if you are for real about us. So my prayer, God, is that you would encounter us in a special way today. That you'd help us to see that in this world we are not alone, because the one who created it is both on the throne and here with us at the same time. I thank you, and what our eyes be more open to you today. It's in Jesus's name I pray. Amen. Amen.

Come on. [applause] So good to sing together in this room. We're not alone. You've been singing next to someone for a little bit now. Why don't you turn to somebody around you, we're one big family. Introduce yourself. Tell them your name and then you can have a seat. - Hey, I'm Brandon and I volunteer at Kids' Club 1st grade room. - I'm Amanda Neely and I volunteer in the Kids' Club in the preschool room. - We moved here the day COVID started. We knew in Chicago all of the people because we used to own a coffee shop, so we knew everybody in the South Side.

But coming here, we're like, all right, we don't know anybody. We started at the coffee team. Kids' Club asked, "Hey, we need some volunteers." And we're like, it makes sense for us to serve in a place that's also helping us. - I volunteer because it's so much fun. It's the highlight of my week. It fills my cup. God's going to use that. We just show up. Friday, I'm still at the office. It's starting to rain. I get in the car and lightning strikes across the street. I'm like, whoa, this is a serious storm. Then I get home and I open the garage door, pull in the garage, and water's just flooding in. - It's coming up fast. The car was lost. I mean, it was five feet of water. We were cleaning, and I'm like, "I think -- I think we need help." We're the ones that serve. We don't ask. And I felt like we always serve and make deposits. Taking withdrawals is hard and calling and saying, "Hey, I need help." - An hour or two later, Masters of Disaster started showing up and then they just kept showing up.

We saw that they didn't just help us, we saw that they helped our neighbors. I actually said to Brandon, like, "You know, we're volunteering tomorrow." And he's like, "No, we're not." I was like, "We're signed up." "You know, we don't have to go." And I'm like, "No, we should go. I just think we should go." - Neelys show up, we serve because we make Crossroads happen. - Gosh, I'm so encouraged by the Neely's. I can't imagine going through all of that and still getting dressed to get ready to go volunteer. And what's so remarkable about their story is the fact that they just wanted to continue to show up for a place that they loved, they have fun, that continues to pour into them. And when things got tough, we were able to show up for them when they needed it most. And here's the thing, the Neelys help run Crossroads. This whole building is run by volunteers. It's something that we say all the time. And one time a year we get really serious, really serious about our invitation. Because here's the thing, we we need you to get in the game.

And you might be wondering, what do I -- What do you mean by that? We're a big church. It's true. And you might be wondering, like, they're a well-oiled machine. Like there's no way that they need me. But you and I know that that could not be further from the truth. - Yeah. We have another saying around here. It's that we get our jerseys dirty. Like we don't want to be the people who end the game with a nice, squeaky clean jersey because we were riding the bench, or worst case, like we never even stepped onto the field. I got my Crossroads jersey on. You got your students jersey. And while it's not always easy or convenient, it is so good and so worth it. Over the years, I regularly have conversations with folks and volunteers who say, "Man, I thought I was helping Crossroads out, but I've gotten so much more out of this." And I've got three quick reasons why that might be true for you and why I think you should consider volunteering. So one, everybody wants their life to have an impact, right? But very few of us can point to anything on our calendar and say, well, yeah, that, that is where I'm having an impact. Man. This could solve that for you. You could know, hey, with 90 minutes, twice a month, you would be making an impact on people's lives for generations to come. It's incredible.

Second, man, you want to grow spiritually. There's just something that happens when we take Jesus at His Word and follow his example in serving other people where we grow. And third, man, maybe you want to meet other people who are also trending and bending their lives towards Jesus. That all happens when you surf. - Absolutely. And if you want any of that for yourself, any of it, we're just asking you to consider signing up to volunteer. And it's so easy. So you might be wondering, so how do I do it? Well, you get out your phone, which you're probably already on, and you're going to text 301301 and you're going to send the word "more". And you're going to get back two links. And you're going to click the top one and it'll say sign up to volunteer. You'll fill out the form. And no matter what site you attend, including our Anywhere folks. Hint, if you live in Colorado, you're in Anywhere folk because you don't attend a physical site. That is where you would sign up. And we have a bunch of different ways to volunteer and we can just give you all that information to help figure out where you're going to go.

- Yeah. So I'll give you a second. Take your phone out right now. We'll wait. Text the word "more" to 301301. Got that quick form. And you're not signing up for a spam list. You're not going to get a timeshare invitation. You're just signing up to go to Volunteer 101, which is basically just a behind the scenes tour of four of the different areas, or one of the four different areas where we need your help and where there's room for new people to experience Jesus in a language they can understand. So I'm going to give you those four areas right now. - Let's do it. - So the first is Kids' Club. I've got three kids, two of them are in Kids' Club right now, and they know more about who Jesus is because they've grown up in and around Kids' Club. You can help shape minds and hearts to know the truth about Jesus. And you don't have to be a seminary grad or a Bible expert. And eventually, like my oldest, they'll graduate out of Kids' Club into Crossroads Students. - And they'll come hang out with me. Let's go. We all know that middle school and high school are some of the most tumultuous years of a young person's life.

It's confusing, it's difficult, and you just feel awkward. And we want to help students to not navigate that alone. We want to tell them the truth about how God sees them, how God sees them, and who he is to them, so that the trajectory of their life can be forever changed and geared towards Jesus. And we have so much fun while we do it. Like so much fun. - I hear about it every week. So much fun. I'm jealous. And hey, maybe you remember what it's like to be new around here or around any place, and the difference of what it takes for one person to make a big place feel smaller. That is what our Connections Team does. Whether it's getting you into the parking lot or answering your questions online or at the info center, or hand you a cup of coffee, holding a door. These are amazing, amazing people people who make a big place small. - And lastly, I'm talking to my people who are behind the camera who are helping you actually engage with us right now. And in the auditorium, people who are on stage singing, playing instruments, these people are all actually volunteers, and you can be one of those volunteers.

So we need you and we need you to text "more" to 301301, if you haven't already, to sign up for any of those four areas. And when you do, someone is going to follow up with you from your site immediately. - That's right. And again, texting "more" to 301301, it's not a timeshare invitation. You're not going to get 30 texts. It's just one way for you to connect. And many of us give our time and our energy to serve around here. A lot of people also give financially. That fuels everything from that coffee to the work that's going on at Woman Camp to the stuff halfway around the world in places like Nepal and South Africa and India. All of that happens because people are faithful and trust God with their finances. So if you want more information about how to volunteer or about how to give, or you got questions about what Crossroads believes about money, just text "more" to 301301. - And listen we are in a series right now called Raw. And we're continuing on in that series where we're talking about real and raw things that come up when you're dealing with life and faith and pursuing God.

We're taking an honest look at some really big topics. We're looking at life, we're looking at sex, love, purpose, identity, all of these things. And we are jumping in with our Senior Pastor, Brian Tome, who's going to talk to us about living a life of purpose. So let's jump in with him. - Well, good morning, everybody. You know, for purposes of just expediency, I've got a -- this is a talk that I've given before. This is a different version I'm going to give right now. It's also a book that I've had in process for quite some time that'll come out someday. And the basic title is this: The Four Core Callings of a Man. Four Core Callings of a Man. Now, now, let me tell you a secret, it actually is for women, too. These things actually work for women too. But for expediency's sake and just sort of rawness, raw punch, it's helpful for me to just think about kind of one pronoun, he, today. So most of my stuff is going to be around that. But ladies, this is for you and you're in these four core callings as well. Let's pray before I go any further and get into them.

All right. God, I thank you for giving us a space to detach from the rest of our world, detach from our other pressures, or maybe bring our pressures into here, because maybe you're going to speak to our pressures this morning. And I pray that that's what happens, that you are going to equip us, you're going to give us a fresh touch of yourself or the first touch of yourself ever, and we would sense your love and your empowerment. And I pray that you would help me do that and to honor you in the process. And I pray these things according to the character identity of Jesus. Amen. My opinion, the two most important people in the Old Testament and then in the New Testament In the Old Testament, of all the people, there's a lot of great heroes. My personal opinion, I think David, King David is the most important person in the Old Testament. He has the classic story that everybody knows, even if you're an atheist, you've never picked up a Bible, of David and Goliath.

He's penned more of the Old Testament than probably anybody else. You take a look at all the Psalms that he wrote. He's just an amazing figure. And then his great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great great great great great great great great great grandson is Jesus of Nazareth. God comes to David and says you're going to have a son and he's going to have an everlasting kingdom. He might have thought that's going to be his son, Solomon or somebody else. But really it was on in his lineage, Jesus, who was going to start a new kingdom. And that kingdom was going to consist of Jews and Gentiles. It was going to be ever expanding. These two men, Jesus was more than a man, He was also God. These two men had four things that ran throughout their entire lives. And these four things run through the life of every man, or should run through the life of every man. Truth be told, they don't run through life of every man, and that's why men's lives don't work. These are core callings, core callings that every man and every woman actually has.

Now let's talk about the foundation for just a moment, because Kyle did a great job with this last week. The foundation, before you get into the calling or your purpose, the foundation is that you are a treasured child of the Most High God. David was constantly pelted with doubts about his parents and how much they loved him. Jesus had an earthly father whose name was Joseph, and people constantly pelted Jesus, at least the religious enemies that he had, pelted him with doubts over whether or not he was a legitimate child. He was accused of being a bastard. Both of these people had to be secure in their identities of being children of God. And this is where you and I start. We start with that idea that we are treasured children of the Most High God, that anybody who has received Jesus comes into his family. In the book of John, chapter one, it puts it this way. Notice this language which is really, really important. It says this: But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. The right.

There's very few times in the Bible you have a right. Most of the time we have a right to suffer. We have a right to obey. This is the right to become a child of God, who were not born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor the will of man, but born of God. It's really important that you have to understand this, that when you come relationship with God, you have a right to be in the family of God. Therefore, to have his love. That's profound. And I'd love to spend a whole series on that. But I just have to say this about that. These four callings I'm going to get into, you do not earn your way into relationship with God through these four callings. Some people try to do these things to impress God. It doesn't work that way. Sometimes people do these things in order to get themselves to heaven. It doesn't work that way. These are the things that you do when you're in the child -- And in the family of God, they're core callings. You ready for them? You ready? Here we go. I'll tell you this right now, just getting ready for you.

One of these is going to tag you. I don't know which one it is, but one of these four is going to hit you right between the eyes. And you had you heard this talk two years ago, it probably would have been a different one because there's different things that God works with us in different seasons. So let's go. The very first one. These are not numerical order, just -- Well, they are numerical order, but not numerical order of importance. Number one, which would I guess be numerical order. Number one. Number one. Friend. Friend. Every man has to learn how to be a friend. Every man has to learn how to have a friend. Every man has to learn how to operate as a friend. I believe friendship is the most important spiritual discipline for a man. Period. I know someone say, "Woo, man, preacher man saying that, don't you believe in the Bible?" Yes, I believe in the Bible, yes I do. And until the printing press was invented, for 1500 years, godly men grew with Christ before they ever read a paper Bible or a digital Bible.

Friends are the way that Jesus extended his kingdom and extended his ministry. His friends became his disciples. And then he had 12 and then he had 72 and then he kept expanding from there. David, it was his friends that enabled him to have the potency of his life. Here's a crazy verse. Get a load of this one. 2 Samuel 1:26. We see David's best friend is Jonathan, and here's what he says about him. I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; very pleasant have you been to me; your love to me was extraordinary, surpassing the love of women. Now, this is a verse that some people look at and say, "Well, David and Jonathan were some combination of gay or bisexual," and I've heard this increasingly over the years. Let me say, if you read verses like this and you see sex in this, two things, one, you're too sexually fixated, and two, you know nothing about friendship.

There is a kind of love that a male friend can give me that my wife can't give me. Last service I had a one of my closest friends sitting right down here. It was like there was a friend. There's a kind of love the Law give me that Lib can't give me because he understands organizations and things I deal with that Lib doesn't. He understands kind of unique temptations of men. My love for Libby is far beyond, far beyond him. But there's a kind of love. You have a calling as a man to have people around you to make them better, and those people are going to make you better. And if you think you can do it alone, you cannot do it alone. You will never achieve the redemptive potential God has for your life. Jesus says to his friends, he says this: I no longer call you servants because a servant doesn't know his master's business; but I call you friends because everything I've learned from the Father I've made known to you. God actually calls -- God actually calls his friends, not servants, He calls them friends.

It's a sad thing, our culture is hurting -- male friends. This is written about very, very heavily, men are lonely, more lonely than ever. And why is that? It's because men are doing fewer things than ever. We go to work and then we stream. And I stream a lot, I stream probably more than, maybe more than -- I stream a lot. No, I'm not cracking on streaming, but I'm saying that when you stream you have no chance of building any friendships because men build friendships when we do things with each other, women the same way. I think not as commonly, women are a bit different in this area, but men, we do things together and that's how friendships form. So if we're not doing anything with any other men, how are we going to like, have friendships? Books. Read books. Great. Awesome. Get in a book club. If you get in a book club and you talk about these things, then you might have a friendship. I don't care what it is. For me, it's hunting. I'll talk about that today a bit. For me it's hunting or other things like that. Maybe it's Dungeons and Dragons for you.

Maybe it's cooking for you. Maybe it's being in a chorus for you. I don't know what it is, but you have to find people and things that understand your world and want to be in it. Now, David, his passion was -- Well, how about how I say this, doesn't sound very churchy, but his passion, his passion was killing things. That was his passion. He was a warrior. He killed Goliath. God anointed him to do a lot, a lot of stuff. He killed wild animals that were coming on his dad's flocks. And guess who he attracted to him? He attracted to him people who wanted to kill things, people who were into adventures. He had this whole band of people known as the mighty men. These are people who had a proclivity for adventure and just doing extreme things. One of my favorite stories that shows the depth of his friendships and how David was more into God than his friends, comes from 2 Samuel 23:15. David is on the run from Saul, who is the king of Israel, who is searching out David to kill him because he's threatened by him.

And David leaves the Israel confines, and he basically goes to where the arch enemy of Israel is, the Philistines. And he's hiding out in their territory. And he just starts musing out loud with his friends, who are these mighty men. And here's what happens. And David said longingly, "Oh, that someone would give me water to drink from the well of Bethlehem, that is by the gate." He's just processing. He's a verbal processor here. Then the three mighty men broke through the camp of the Philistines and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem that was by the gate, and carried it and brought it to Bethlehem. And when David had this water, he poured it out and said, "This is only worthy of the Lord," and pours it out. These mighty men, the people around him were like, "Oh, that sounds like a challenge. Go behind enemy lines and carry the heaviest thing you can, which is water." They didn't know about Mercury back then. I think mercury is heavier in the water, right? You have stupid people here. [laughter] I'm one of you. I am one of you. I am one of you.

I look at one of my friends, female friends, went to MIT. Is Mercury heavier than water? She doesn't know. - [indiscernible] - Let's move on. It's a -- it has nothing to do with this. But anyway, they go on and. It's hard to carry like water when you're in enemy territory. You might get killed. They come to David and he goes, "Dudes, you shouldn't have done it. I was just verbally processing. It's like --" He takes the water and he pours it. He goes, "This is an offering only worthy of God. I'm not worthy of this." And all his friends, you just have to imagine, his friends go, "And that's why you're my guy. That's it. Because you're about God. You're not about your kingdom or anything else. You're about God." When you find people who are about God and have interests that you have, you can have the start of a potent, potent friendship life. This is raw. We're in the series called Raw. So the rawest thing I can talk about as I weave throughout the rest of my time today is my recent trip to Alaska to hunt moose.

I don't know if you ever been to Alaska, but Alaska is the largest state by far in the country. It's the longest distance to get to. You get to Anchorage, it's like three x the amount of distance from Cincinnati to Key West. And as you're getting there, every time you get there, every successive flight, the plane gets smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller. Until finally the last landing strip I was in and my friends were in, we got in planes that were one seat. That's one seat per guy, and those big tires just land in the frozen tundra of Alaska. And we went out, there's nothing, there's nothing, like there's no roads, there's no power lines. Like if you break your leg, I don't know what happens, but it's not good. And here's the friends and my son who went with me on this trip. We're all there. And it was amazing. And we're there because we have a special interest. I would never try to recruit someone to a trip like this. Like, "Hey, you should try hunting someday."

No, that'd be a horrible trip for you. Horrible. It was the most uncomfortable, uncomfortable two weeks of my life, and I liked the camp. It was very uncomfortable. But what made it was the friendship bonding. We were doing something together. David had his warriors, that's the second core calling of a man, of being a warrior, being a warrior. That's what his friends were into. Now, my friends, none of us have served in the military. By the way, if you've served in the military, male or female, would you raise your hand right now in all of our sites right now? Let's thank these people. [applause] Now see, all of you -- All of you. Yeah, you've been literal warriors, whatever your thing was. Like, I never had the privilege or honor of serving the military. I never did that. I wish I did because I felt I should have earlier in life, but I never have. So maybe, maybe that's the draw of hunting for me. It's like the closest I'll get to kind of warrior thing. It's definitely not the same, but I don't know, maybe there's something that draws me to it.

But David had his friends, were operating with who he was. He is a warrior. Men, you may have zero interest in guns. That's fine. Men, you have zero, ladies, you may have zero interest in hunting. That's fine. Zero interest in MMA. Great. Fine. No, no. But, but here's what this means, there are things, men, that you're going to have to fight for. There are things that you will only have if you exert energy and you exert yourself to make those happen. Boys wait for somebody else to take care of their fight. Boys wait for the government to swoop in and take it. Boys wait for somebody else to do it. Boys play the blame game. Boys wait for the the CEOs to take care of them. But men, we say, "Hey, there's a thing that I have to do. It's going to be hard. And by golly, I'm going to do it." And it's a fight and it's difficult and it's backbreaking, maybe not physically backbreaking, but man, it can be emotionally backbreaking.

It can be spiritually backbreaking. God says of himself in Exodus 15:3: The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is his name. When it says the Lord is his name, it means he's the owner of battalions and companies of angelic warriors and soldiers. It says right there. It says right there that the Lord is a man of war. It doesn't say the Lord sits around petting kittens. God is on purpose. God is on mission. There is a cosmic battle that God has enlisted in, and God wants you in the fight. He wants you to take advantage of the opportunities before you and push back against the realms of darkness that are in all of our lives. This is where this classic story that everybody in America knows. If you've never been to church, you've never read the Bible, and you're an atheist, everyone knows the story of David and Goliath. David is a warrior. By the way, Jesus is a warrior.

We don't have any record of Jesus picking up a weapon. He never picks up a weapon, but he is at war. He's at war against demons. He's at war against powers and principalities, and there's a shuddering and a quaking in the spiritual realm, and there is conflict there. Now, David is more the classic physical warrior. He's killed lions and tigers and bears while they've been coming on to his dad's sheep. And then he goes to take lunch to his brothers who were in the army, who are the sort of literal warriors. He goes to take lunch to them, and he's shocked that for 40 days, a giant has been taunting the nation of Israel. 40 days, interesting. 40 days has happened. And Jesus had 40 days in the wilderness where he was being taunted by the evil one. It's the Valley of Elah. It's behind me here. I've been there.

It's this place where the armies of Philistia and Israel are up on these hill crests and down below, no one wants to charge because then you can throw spears down and get them easily. So no one wants to make the first move. So Goliath comes out, Goliath comes out and he's like one on one, mano a mano, giant on giant. And here's what scholars are pretty united on. As the 40 days is happening, he's coming out banging his shield, taunting the nation of Israel. "Come on, send me a man. No man wants to fight? Is there no man who's a warrior?" Every day he would step closer. Every day he would step closer and taunt. And here's the spiritual principle for you and I, men and women, every day you don't warrior up against your problems, they get bigger. Every day you sit back and you assume it's going to take care of itself, the problem only gets bigger. You have to understand this is a core, a core identity of yours.

This is the core to who - you are this. But no one may look at you and think of the traditional warrior. But no, this is who you are. This is -- if you are in the lineage of Jesus, if you're in the lineage of David, you have this in you. You have the ability to be a friend and you have the ability to get into a fight, whatever that fight might be. You have the ability to get into a financial fight. I'll tell you, I'll give you an example. I know I don't want to get personal here, I just want to give us examples here. Man, when Lib and I were massive credit card debt, my gosh, that was a fight. We first married, massive, massive, massive fight. And if you're in deep credit card debt, consumer debt, deep school loans, you're not sure what to do about them. You know, you're in bondage. You don't like going to the mailbox. And so there's times, you know, "I'm not going to get the mail today. I'm going to get bummed out and get depressed." Guess what happens? The longer you put off going the mailbox, the worse things get.

You have to look at this not as, oh, it's a financial discipline thing. This is a financial war that you're in. You're in a fight and you need to fight for your freedom. You need to warrior up. You have this in you. Well, how would you warrior up with this? Well, how many streaming services do you have? You have one, that's too many. If you're in credit card debt one is too many streaming services. Like get -- change that money like, well, how many times do you eat out? Stop eating out. In fact, I know people have gone on oatmeal for a year. Put all that money, they warrior-ed up, put all that money, said, "I got to get out of this." I'm not saying you have to do any of these things. I'm not saying you're a bad person if you have a monthly balance and you have Netflix. I'm just saying, I'm just trying to say, hey, hey, friends, if you want something different, you got to warrior something different. You got to say, this is personal and I got to reach something inside that Jesus has given me. I will get personal, more relevant. You know, I still have the same sex drive I had when I was younger.

For the most part, that's been good. But it wasn't good for Lib. You know, if you're in a marriage with somebody else and like you're in different places sexually, you have a battle. That doesn't mean you're supposed to fight each other over it. It means like, you've got to do some really vulnerable conversation and problem solving of like, what do we do about this to get to the same place and have this happy connection? What is it? Because if you don't, it's a problem that's only going to get bigger if you don't solve it. It's very possible someone is going to create a real, real big problem in your marriage. I could go on and on and on and on. I don't -- I got to breeze by this one, but I'll just say, hey man, some of us it's okay to be stressed and be in a fight. You're created for this. You're a warrior. It's who you are. Now, when I was hunting in Alaska. This is so trite, I hate to say it. It's metaphorical. You know, I'm basically going to war with moose, trying to find moose.

And they are big. They are massive. It's the massive, most massive thing in North America. And if you've seen one in Canada, it's nothing compared to all the ones in Alaska. Interesting enough, the further north you get from like, like you take a deer in Florida, they're like guinea pigs. The further north you get all the way through Canada, every species gets larger and larger and larger and larger. It's like these species need the harsh elements to wean out the weak, and only the big and powerful survive. So when you get to Alaska, like, we saw this black bear, most massive black bear I ever saw. If you ever seen them down in Gatlinburg, no, no, those are not black bear. Had a grizzly bear stand up 50 yards away from me. It was the one time I didn't have a gun with me, and 50 yards away, he would take me down in about a -- I mean, he would run that distance in a second and take me down. So I just backed away, backed away, and shoo, shoo. So we're hunting and this guy pops up, this guy pops up and I called this guy, uh, old Hank is what we decided to call him.

Now for the sense of size, a full grown moose in Alaska, like, I want to be somewhat graphic here. It's called Raw. If you took this finger and want to put your finger in his butthole, it would be this. So they have laws in Alaska about how big the moose has to be before you take it down. It has to be a 50 inch spread. I looked at what we called old Hank. He looked real old to me, but I thought, "Huh, I don't I don't know it's 50 inches. I don't want to get penalized." And so we passed on him. We went back. My son pulled out that picture. We looked that picture and studied it and said, "Oh, man, he was 50 inches. Darn it." I thought, well, that could have been my shot. You never know how often it's going to come by and came this way and kind of kind of blew it, so I thought. The next day, the next day we had another shot at it, which I'll finish that story in a little bit. But I'm saying I was drawn to that with the friends because we're kind of -- we're doing something, we're trying to solve a problem. We're trying to accomplish something and we want to do this when we could.

David, in the book of 1 Samuel 17:48, he wanted to do something when he could. It says this: The Philistine arose and came and drew near to meet David, David ran quickly toward the battle line. Friends. Run! Run to the problem. Run to the problem. Run to your mailbox. Run to cancel subscriptions. Run to a conversation with your wife. Run to a conversation with your husband. Run to your teacher, your kid's teacher, who doesn't seem to be helping them in school. Run to them. Run to your kids who've got behavior problems No, they're all that way. No they're not. Run to it. Run to it. Run to the HOA president who's dysfunctional, making everybody's life hell. Run! Run, run, run and say, we're adults here. Whatever it is, I've been given all kinds of things. Again, this is who you are. Just like you have the capacity to be a friend.

By the way, speaking of this talk in Man Camp, this is a verse that I think is especially appropriate, Psalm 144:1: Blessed be the Lord, my God, who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle. This is maybe the most popular song we do at Man Camp. By the way, I'd love to have you Man Camp. We have one week to to sign up and, you may find great, great friends there. You're like, "Oh, I don't know, I don't know anybody. I don't have gear." Well, I handle you. We'll help you. We have people designed to help you and fold you in, so please check that out. It could be the most important weekend of your life. It's the most important weekend I do every single year, no second place. That's it. I'd love to have you there and see you there. Number three. Number three. Third core calling of a man is to be a king, a king. When I say a king, I'm not talking about being an elected official in the United States. I'm not talking about being a megachurch pastor. I'm not talking about being a CEO. I'm not talking about leading a nonprofit.

I'm not talking about being an HOA president. Any of those things may happen. But when I say a king or a queen, I am saying there is territory that God has given you. There is territory that you are meant to oversee. When I was living in my parents house, that territory was my room. And my room was always smelly, disgusting and destroyed and messy, always was. So my parents would just keep the door shut. They wanted to ignore it. Not a bad idea. Walked by it. It didn't bother me at all, because I was a boy. I wasn't a man. I wasn't operating in the four core callings of a man. And one of them is to be a king. And what do kings do? Kings do two things. Queens do two things. One, they bring order. They bring order. I hate messes now. I can't stand it. My favorite places to be in the world is in my garage and I'm not going in there until I have two hours to clean the thing because it stresses me freaking out.

I got screwdrivers, I got -- It's just not good because I need to bring order to it. When there's not order, I just go [whines]. That's what kings do, they bring order. You know, you bring order to your marriage. You bring order to your family. You bring order to your business. You bring order to your finances. You bring order to your apartment. You bring -- That's what kings do. Kings come in and bring order. The second thing the kings do is the kings bring expansion. Kings expand. Kings are always wanting to expand their territory. By the way, David becomes king at age 30. What time -- when does Jesus become King Jesus and start doing ministry? At age 30. Age 30. This is the way it is with men, by 30 you've got to be -- You got to be well on your way. You can do it way, way before then. But this is very, very important. Jesus has a kingdom. He is a king and a kingdom, and he is ever expanding his kingdom.

He's bringing order and he's bringing expansion to his kingdom. That's why he says to his friends at the very end of the book of Matthew and also in the book of Acts, "Go into all the earth, baptizing, making disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit." In other words, "Hey, we haven't just had a good thing that was good for us. I want to expand. I want people to be blessed. I want people to be helped." And this is what the church has always done. The healthy New Testament churches has always done this. David has a downfall and his downfall is when he stops kinging. David, his worse thing that he does is the next four core calling. All of us are going to have probably one of these that we're never going to be great at. The one that David was the worst at was the next one I'm going to get into, but it started with him being a bad king. He was a good king, until he wasn't. His worst mistake, in my opinion, wasn't that he had an adulterous affair with Bathsheba, who was a wife of one of his best friends, who was one of his mighty men.

That's horrible in and of itself. That's heartbreaking. Really, really bad. But really, his problem started before that. In 2 Samuel 11:1, it says: In the time of year when kings go out to war, David stayed at home. David stayed in Jerusalem. David stayed in his castle. What does that mean the time when kings go out to war? During the springtime, the ground thaws, you can mobilize your army, and you got to go and beat people off your lands and expand your territory. That's what kings do. And David was really good at that when he was on point. Really good at that because he was a warrior. So he understood might and he could do it, but he just got tired. He's like, [sighs] he said, "I'm some just -- I'm tired of the expansion thing. I'm tired of order. I'm just -- I'm just going to stay home and just stream. You know, I'd rather watch Lioness. That's what I'd rather do." Which is an awesome stream, by the way. Uh, not as good as 1923, which is the best love story I've ever seen.

Yeah, it was. Where was I? Stay at home. Stay at home. Sorry. I told you I liked the stream. I do love streaming. Uh, and I talk to my friends about it. You're all my friends, so. He stays back. He gets off point. Eyes wander, mind wanders, and the rest of his life is not the same. It starts because he stops kinging. There is territory that God wants you to oversee. He wants you to bring order to it, and he wants you to expand it. 1 Corinthians 6:3 says this. Check this verse out. I've never heard this before. Do you not know, you, that is children of God, daughters and sons of God. Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life! Do you understand that you are more important to God than an angel?

Do you understand that God loves you more than he loves an angel? And an angel is just a tool for him. They're not created in his image. It's mind blowing. We're so fixated on the spiritual and these things we don't understand we lose sight of the fact that the most crazy thing is that you and I are creating the image of God, and he loves you and you're more important than any angel. In fact, you're more potent than an angel because at some point we're going to judge them. Now, I have no idea what that means. No idea. Judge them how? Like, well, you didn't hit that C sharp on your trumpet right. It's a mystery of the Bible. I don't know, I don't understand how that's going to play out. All I'm saying is God has that in your future and my future, so therefore you have the ability to rule a territory he's given you right now. Start bringing to order the things that you're responsible for. Start expanding the things that you're responsible for. When I was a -- Crossroads started Lib and I were just spazzed and freaked and burnt out and it was just man, s we put off having our third kid.

And then Crossroads was about five years old or something like this, something like that, or four years old, and things started getting settled. "Should we have a third kid? I'm just not sure." I'm unsure of whether to do that or not. And we went to -- I went to a conference and I was looking at this book table where there were these different books. And I saw one, it was called Point Man. Same guy had a book called Anchorman and Finishing Strong. I saw the guy in the picture in the back and I went, huh? Steve Farrar interesting, huh? Interesting guy. Well, I didn't have anyone to have lunch with that day. And right out my corner of my vision, I saw -- That's the guy I just saw on the back of the book. And I used to do this thing in high school just to have fun and be, and college. You know, you see a crowd, a group of people, you just start calling out Bill, Jane, Barney, you know? You keep calling out names and someone's going, "Hey, good to see you again." They go, "Yeah, remember we had coffee?" Well, you know, fun things you have to figure out to do when you're not abusing alcohol when you're a Christian before 21.

So it was -- it was fun stuff to do. So I did that with Steve. Steve was walking away, I went, "Steve." Turned around and looked around and said, "Hey, you want to have lunch?" He went, "Sure." We went lunch and I told him about my kid thing. And he said, "Absolutely, you should have another child." I said, "Really? Why?" He said, "It's the only thing you're going to have that's ever going to outlast you." And he didn't use these exact words, but it was some of the effects that you need to expand your territory, expand your territory. So glad we have Mariah. Massive, massive blessing. I would say this, if you're a parent and you're not sure, should we have another one? Should we not have another one? If you're not sure, have another one. Expand your territory, expand your influence. And most of us who have adult children, we didn't feel this way when they were six maybe, but when their adult children, we're like, "Darn, I kind of wish I had another one." It's the long game and it's a fight, by the way. It's a fight, but that's what kings are up for. We're up for things that are hard because we're responsible for it.

You have this in you. Number four, the final one is that of father. Father, a core calling of being a father or of being a mother. Every man takes responsibility for another life. That's what being a father is, you take responsibility for another life. Danny Patton wasn't my father, but he took responsibility for me, when I was in high school he took responsibility for me spiritually, and that's why I'm here today and who I am because someone took responsibility for me. People who --some are being fathered and mothered in Kids' Club by people who are not their own mothers and fathers, but they're developing them spiritually. They're taking responsibility for that life. There's a cap that will be to your spiritual development that very few people will ever be able to push past who aren't literal parents. I don't talk to this much, but let's go here. Very few, there are exceptions. There are exceptions, but there's very few exceptions.

There is a sacrifice barrier, there is a maturity barrier that can only be broken through when you have kids. Because when you have a kid, you have to say no to yourself. You don't want to do a lot of things, you don't want to do a poopy diaper and you do a poopy diaper. You don't want to get up in the middle of the night and you get up in the middle of the night. You don't want to pay for that, and you pay for that. You don't want to go see a stupid four year old play soccer. That's one of the most ridiculous things. It should be outlawed. I mean, come on. I'm not anti soccer. I'm anti four year olds playing soccer and wasting my Saturday afternoon pretending it's fun. No, it's not fun. It's stupid. Do I get an amen? - Amen! - See, all the soccer coaches in here going, "But that's my kingdom. That's my kingdom. I don't--" [laughter] But it's a life of constant sacrifice.

This was the area that David was the weak at. He was a horrible father. I don't want to go into all the stuff, but it just -- It was failure after failure. He tried to pull it together at the end of his life, gave his son Solomon a little charge, and he did his best, but he was very, very weak in this area. Jesus was never a physical father, but he was God -- There God the Father, He and the Father are one, but he took responsibility for people. I'm not saying he enabled them, but he nurtured them. He honored them. He was with them. This is the thing that's most important in my journey. In a little bit here I'm going to have you stand up if you want a blessing in each one of these four areas, the area that you feel like God is calling you to take new territory in. This is the one for me. My son was on the Alaska trip with me. This is a picture of him when he was a little kid and his sisters. This is about the age he was when he told me a story several years ago I had actually forgotten about.

And my memory of it is formed by his memory of telling the story. We were in a discussion, he's with some of my friends and we were talking about early childhood memories. And he said, "My most profound memory was I was at the beach with my dad. And I said to him, said to me, "Let's take a race, I'll race you to the water." And apparently I said, "Okay, you go first. You can start." He said, "No, we got to start at the same time." I said, "No, you go first." So he said I was tearing off my little legs as fast as I could, and I was looking back and looking back, and I hadn't even gotten up yet. He was like, "Oh, I'm going to beat dad. I'm gonna beat dad." He said, all of a sudden -- I'll get a little emotional here just because I got to finish the story in about two minutes. Okay? He said, all of a sudden there was this force, this like superhuman force that came out of nowhere behind me, swept me up, swept me off my feet and tore with amazing speed I've never experienced before and dove into the water. He said, "That was my dad." Just a little kid.

And, you know, it was like at that moment, I was like, I was like a -- You know, I was like Superman with him, you know? But eventually Superman dies, for all of our parents, eventually Superman dies. I don't know when exactly I died for my kids, when I wasn't -- when I wasn't God anymore. But I had a Superman moment. It was a beautiful moment. A really beautiful moment on this hunt. So the next day after we passed on Hank, said we're not going to do it. The next day, Hank presented himself, and I took Hank down, 217 yards and he dropped. It was -- It was a good -- It was a good -- It was a good shot. Here we are, everyone gathers around as a team. All the friends, we're like, "Okay, all right, let's, uh, let's start taking his skin off and all that stuff." So we worked until nearly 1:00 in the morning taking his skin off, taking his quarters off, getting all the rib meat off him, all the meat off, hung it in bags, and it was too late and just too heavy and we're too tired to take it back. So we're going to come back the next morning. Came back the next morning.

Fortunately, wolves and bears hadn't gotten to it. We got out, got it. Every man had a quarter. I had a rear quarter, which I'm going to guess was about 150 pounds in my backpack going uphill because the plane's going to land on the top of this flat thing. It wasn't long, but it was brutal. It was really hard. We all got up there like, whoo, great. The last thing you do when you do this is the cape. That is the thing you're going to have a trophy with, the antlers, the head, the skin. It's actually Alaskan law to do that. It's actually hunter code, no matter what state you're in. Because you honor the life of the animal first, and you honor the life of the animal by making sure that protein extends the life of other entities that are you and I. So that goes out first. And then if you have energy and time, then you go get the trophy. So I'm looking forward to this. I go down, this thing it's big, it's heavy. And so I get down, I get down. You got to lie down like this, put on your backpack and then you get a hand, get to sitting position.

And unlike the previous load, which takes a half hour to try to figure out how to get up, I just, I just we're not -- I can't figure it out. I go, I go onto my all fours. This -- I think I have a picture of it, don't I? One picture. I eventually do get up. All right. We'll wait for it. Wait. So I'm sitting there. I can't get up. So finally, finally we figure the way to do it is my son is a beefcake. He's a musclehead. And um, he, uh, he stands above me and he basically curls and I do a chin up at the same time, holding on to, holding on to his forearms. So he curls, I use all my might, I do a pull up and I get up and I go about, I don't know, 30 yards, here I am. Here's the picture. Now there it goes. Go about, I start going and not long after this picture I stopped.

It was too much. It was too much. I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. Couldn't do it. I mean, I probably could have gone longer, but I went, I already tweaked my knee on the first run. If I keep going on this uneven tundra and bushes and creeks, I could really jack myself up and then I can't get out of here. So I -- it was the first thing in my life I ever wanted to do, I couldn't do. I've been primarily a warrior, and the first thing physically I want, I could not do. Now you're in the weight room and you can't do a rep or two. Yeah, that's part of the weight room is. But I mean, in the real world, the first thing I want to do, I couldn't. So I had to, I had to tap out. And the tears are over. It wasn't like, "Oh, I couldn't do it." I was like, I had somebody who could, my son. He was there. So Jake took the weight. [cheers] Jake took the weight. He was honorable. He was honored. He let -- he walked behind me as I did that, there was two other bags of meat.

We get to the top and then here's the last part, I'll show you up the top of the mountain. Here's what happened. - Oh, hardest thing I ever did. Hardest thing. - Now it was successful. It was good. It was a great, great, great memory. But I shared that to say that's raw. And here's the thing, these four things, they're hard, they're hard, they're hard, they're difficult, which is why the weenie boys don't want to do them. Keep trying to have excuses why I'm not going to do it. Oh I'm fine. I don't need other people. I'm a lone wolf. Oh, no, no. It's okay. Someone else will handle it. Oh, no, no, no, no, kids, family. No, put that off. No, I don't need to be a father. Oh, no. No, no, I'm not responsible for this. I'm not -- That's someone else's responsibility.

These are hard things. There really hard things, which is why there's very few men in our culture anymore who want to do the hard things. This is something God has for you because it comes out of his character. It comes out of his identity. So here we go, we're gonna end our service with this. If you know, man, God's tapping my chest on friend, I want you to stand in all of our sites right now. Just stand right now, friends, here, wherever you are. If you know God has something for me in friend, that's my next run, just stand right now. Men and women stand right now, and we're going to do something for you. Okay, here we go. So this is a sacred moment between you and God. I want you to say something. I'm going to pray something over you. I want you to say this: God, I will be a good friend. Lord, I pray that you would put a blessing on these folks. They want to be like you. They want to be like you. They want to be like your son. They want to be like David. Bring the right people in their life and give them the right conversations to have with the right people at the right time.

I pray for this blessing in the name of Jesus. Amen. Alright, go ahead, sit down. Those of you who go like, man, I was here today because I need to warrior up, that's like the next run for me. I'm dealing with something that's a war. I gotta fight for something. The warriors where are the warriors? Stand up men and women warriors. Okay, good. All of our sites, good. Okay, here's what I want you to say: God, train my hands for war. Lord, there are things that are not right around these people's lives, and you've put them there to fight. And I'm asking that you would bless their hands to push on the things they should push on, to listen to the things they should listen to, to love the things they should love, to spend themselves and money on the things they need to spend money on. Help them get in the fight and do it well. Amen. All right, kings, kings, kings and queens, it's your next one, king and queen. Stand there, you know, like king, queen, that's me.

All right. I want you to say: God, I will bring order and I will expand. God, I pray for these kings and queens right now, they oversee domains that have been underutilized, but they're about to go to the next place. I ask for extra grace on them, a new feeling of your spirit on them. I pray for good things to happen as they go out of here. In the name of Jesus. Amen. All right. Fathers, next round. You know, I gotta -- I gotta father, some father, fathers, fathers and mothers. Go ahead. Stand up. Fathers and mothers. Here's what I want you to say: God, I will sacrifice for those who are under my care. God, bless these lives and lives that are under them. Do a good thing in them, and may they feel the joy of being like you as they father and mother.

And I pray these things in the name of Jesus. Amen. Hey, uh, that's it. One last thing, hey, you know, one way to be a father and mother around here is through Kids' Club and students and other stuff. So we got one on one right outside all of our atriums if you want to go check that out. Thanks for being here. We'll see you next week. - Man, I love that. I love the reminder that I don't know what your calling, what your identity, what territory you feel like God might be speaking to you about stepping into. I just I love the reminder that God just always has more for us. And we've been like He always has something more for us to step into, to experience more of his goodness, more of his authority, more of the good things he's placed in us. So we want that for you. Any way we can help encourage you in that, that's literally what we're here for, whether it's praying for you, processing with you, helping you find your next step. That's what we're here for. - Absolutely. And here's the thing, if you are looking for that next step, because of those core four callings that Brian just talked about, and you're like, hey, volunteering is one of those ways that I want to step up.

Then again, text that number 301301 for more. Or if you want prayer and you want to process more of what Brian said, there is someone who is waiting on the other side who would love to connect with you and pray with you. And listen, we'll be back here next week with Chuck Mingo to talk about friendship. So we can't wait to see you here. Same time, same place. - That's right. - We're out for today. - See ya.