Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / October 26, 2016 | Men's Fraternity - Fall 2016, Session 7

Transcript

October 26, 2016 | Men's Fraternity - Fall 2016, Session 7 · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning, men.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Jameson and I are at Lost Valley Ranch in Colorado visiting Hillary with the family, but with Sam's help and a little technology, we were still able to greet to this morning.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we've been studying Peter, James, and John.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: They were three disciples who taught uh position, uh, position and prominence.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: But now we're going to move on and study Andrew.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he was a disciple who was uh whose faith was growing.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: He was demoted, though, and ended up serving uh kind of in the background.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: So think about yourself this morning as you compare yourself to Andrew versus the other three disciples that we studied.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh with that, uh have a great morning, and we'll see you all next week.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Have a good day.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: We found out um yesterday afternoon that um Tom wasn't gonna be around, which is like I mean, if Tom Green's not showing up, why should anybody show up, right?
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: So a little panicked, figuring out what to do, and then Keith calls me, and Keith says I got it covered.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'll go to the store, buy some donuts.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: So thanks, Keith.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Ed.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for taking care of all that stuff.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: Man.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: Now we had food and everybody's happy, and it'll it'll be a good day now.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, and Sam just came back from vacation.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: Sam came back from Florida.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: What'd you do in Florida?
• 1:29
  unknown: Playing on the beach.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, good.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's better than finding uh another woman.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: So roaming the Sam roamed the beach looking for a girl.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: So no.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: What do we got in sports?
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: We got uh K-State look good.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: They uh got a little scary at the end of the game.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: They got a hex on uh, I think what was the stat since Bill Snyder's been in in Manhattan.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: They have they've won seven and lost four against Texas.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: And somebody compared, I think, on Saturday fact that Texas is the number one spending college program in the nation.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: More money than any other.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: And uh Kansas State is down at like number 42.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: So that was an ugly game, though.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, any game they they win is a beautiful game to me.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Oklahoma State.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, another close one.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: So you'd think that Brad uh Gentry would be really excited about this.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: You're a little bit excited.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: Surprised, aren't you?
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: He's a cowboy.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh how about the Chiefs?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: They're uh they're something, aren't they?
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: They uh how do you like that?
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: Persecute the Saints.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: Isn't that something?
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: Chiefs persecute the Saints.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's sad.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: We should pray for them next game.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, we should.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: They have a special prayer vigil just for them.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: Loving the Chiefs, loving the fact that I have Spencer Ware and my fantasy team.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: Who stayed up to watch the Cubs game last night?
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: No one stupid one.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: It got so painful.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: He's probably still awake.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: Hank is still crying.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: That was a really painful game.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of scared.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine if the Cubs lose the series after being the best team all year long?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: That looked awful yesterday.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_02: If Cleveland wins, though, they're gonna be their city's gonna be on fire with championships.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: They got their NBA title.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: Anybody ever heard of the Babylon Bee?
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's your trusted source for Christian news satire.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: They came out this week with this headline: Second Coming of Christ scheduled for Game 7 of the Cubs Indians World Series.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's next Wednesday.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: And the article read like this in a stunning leak Monday, sources in heaven claim to have, quote, reliable information, unquote, that the triumphant return of Jesus Christ will occur one week from Wednesday during a deciding Game 7 of the World Series between the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago Cubs.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: Claiming that it's, quote, definitely happening.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: Sources added that the second coming will take place during the final inning as one of the teams comes agonizingly close to winning the World Series.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: Cleveland fans have waited since 1948 to see a baseball championship, and Gubbs fans have not witnessed a World Series title since 1908.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: It appears both fan bases will have to continue waiting.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: When we heard that Cleveland and Chicago both made the World Series, it was inevitable, said one heavenly source, speaking on terms of anonymity.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: The Son of Man may not know the hour, but we get briefings about possible dates, and we try to give some warning through prophetic omens.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: A fall classic featuring the Chicago Cubs and Cleveland Indians seemed like the perfect sign of the apocalypse.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: So if you really want to see these teams play, make sure you do it before Wednesday.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: Hank's going up uh this weekend, but he's gonna watch it on TV in Chicago.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what the thrill is there.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: So we're uh we're running our way to the Apostles of Jesus, Derek.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: They are a diverse group.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: We have looked at Peter, he's the boss man.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: James is the remember the son of thunder?
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he's the big talker.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: He asked Jesus to sit at his side.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: He wanted to bring down fire.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: John's the best buddy.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: And we come to Andrew, and I call him the connector.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we'll get into this a little bit more next week.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: You will, I'll be in Haiti.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because every time you see Andrew in the Bible, he's always with somebody, bringing them to Jesus.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: Every single time.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it reminded me, we were talking, you read this book last year.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: Anyone else ever heard of uh Malcolm Gladwell?
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: He's uh about the top paid public speaker in America, though he's a short little Canadian.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: I was with the plane on him once, as he was coming to speak into Kansas City, getting$80,000 for to uh to give one speech to the uh Chamber of Commerce in Kansas City.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: The point of his book, the tipping point, is that uh the question is how come some ideas you know suddenly take root?
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like everybody wears hush puppy shoes or everybody stops smoking or stuff like that.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: And the his answer is that there are connectors in society, and they know a lot of people and they and so forth.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: For instance, he he was talking about have you ever heard of the six degrees of separation that everybody is six people away from anybody else in the world?
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: And he was he was talking about how that whole idea got started.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: Some guy did a study, he picked 400 people in Nebraska in the 1960s, uh, or no, he picked one person in Nebraska out of the phone book and one person in Manhattan, New York out of the phone book.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: And he he uh he contacted 400 people in Lincoln, Nebraska or something, and said, and none of them knew this guy in Manhattan, New York, and he said, Okay, I'm trying to find out how many degrees of separation there are.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: I said, I want you to send this person's name to someone who you think, you know, might be closer to them.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so he followed that chain, you know, and that person was told to connect some one some friend of yours that you think would might be closer to New York.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, on the average, it took either five or six connectors to get to this unknown person in New York.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: But what this what he found, and what I never heard until Gladwell, is that almost half of those connections went through the same couple of people in like Pennsylvania or something.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: There are just some people who know more people and who are connectors who link up people.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how ideas get moved, that's how things happen, that there are certain people that you just go through, the Paul Reveres of society, who sort of take a message and they, you know, they they know enough people or they connect enough people.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: Andrew is in the Bible sort of the disciple who's the tipping point.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: He is the connector, and we're gonna talk about him.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: We're just gonna dare introduce him, sort of tell talk about how he comes to Christ today, the first half of the chapter.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: If you got your book, open it to him.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: And next week you'll get more into the connecting part, right?
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: So let's talk about this dude.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he's in definitely an interesting guy.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um Peter's brother, and he's referred to as Peter's brother quite often, as we see.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_02: And so he's kind of in his big brother's shadow.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_02: How many of you guys have an older brother?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: How many of you guys have ever felt like, you know, maybe you're kind of in their shadow a little bit?
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: Or how many of you guys have younger brothers?
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_02: Because I have a younger brother.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: How many of your younger brothers have felt like they're in your shadow?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: I know my younger brother definitely has felt that way.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: And it's either way, it kind of leaves not the greatest feeling inside, not the greatest taste in your mouth, because you feel like you are in their shadow, like they're somehow better than you in these ways, and that's how people see you guys, and that's just kind of the way it is.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: But with um Andrew, I think he probably I mean it's probably likely that he might have felt that way.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um one of the interesting things is that Andrew specifically, he had such a heart for following after God's will, even though he was kind of in the background a little bit.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um the first paragraph under Big Brother Shadow on page 66, um, he says, This is Acts 5.15, um, that at least Peter's shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: Doesn't say Andrew's shadow, doesn't even mention Andrew, but at least if if his brother, his older brother's big brother, Peter's shadow would fall, then people would be blessed by that, but not necessarily Andrew's.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know about you guys, but um I know for my younger brother, it was definitely a difficult thing for him.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um we're six years apart, and he's kind of he probably still always feels like he's in my shadow and just kind of trying to find his own way, trying to find something that he's really good at.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um and kind of like Andrew wasn't put into the spotlight, as Paul mentioned on the intro video.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we find Andrew uh first when we see him in the New Testament.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: He's not up, surprisingly, around the Sea of Galilee where he and Peter and the others remember came from there.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: There were fishermen up there.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: He's way down uh by Drew by the Jordan River by Jerusalem Jerusalem, which is like three to five days' journey away.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: There's the most uh you know popular guy in the country or the best-known guy at that time is sort of a wild-eyed preacher named John the Baptist.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: And for some reason, um Andrew is following him around.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, there's really a couple options, and and I think our author, you know, picks one of them, I don't remember which one.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: One option I think he says is that maybe Andrew and Peter were down there doing business in the Jerusalem area.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think he mentions that.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I think another option maybe that he mentions, or maybe he doesn't, is that Andrew's just a religious guy.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, some people um, to be honest, I've found that our governor is that way.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: Sam is one of the most brown backs, just happens to be, as you as you know, he's Catholic, but he also comes to be TBC.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: He's one of the most religious, spiritually minded people I know.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: He really just loves um it's not for political reasons he converted to Catholicism.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: I I wouldn't call him necessarily a deep thinker spiritually, but he loves the Lord and he just loves being spiritual.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I wonder why Andrew's down there.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: I think he may be that kind of a guy, you know.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: You just know some people who really, guys who really are spiritual.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, I wasn't necessarily that way when I was young.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: I was taking me out to the ball game instead.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: But um anyway, so so that's that's where we see him, and he's following John the Baptist around.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then John the Baptist says, Look, the Lamb of God.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: And remember, John the Baptist had been saying, you know, I'm sort of a connector to G to the Messiah, and then all of a sudden one day John the Baptist goes, Whoa, there he is.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: Look at him.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then and then we find the verse, I put it on the screen here, Derek.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: The two decided, this is the end of John 1, two disciples, and we don't know who the other guy is.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: There's uh, I think Gene Getz in this chapter thinks he might be Philip.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think doesn't he say anybody read the chapter?
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: I I read it, but so anyway, it's Andrew, and again, there's another guy beside him, always.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: He's a connector.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: They heard him say this, and they turn and leave Jade the B, um, and they follow Jesus.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm sorry, my mind's slipping, and so all I can think of is a stupid joke.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: What did John the Baptist and Winnie the Pooh have in common?
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: Their middle name.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: So um, anyway, the what, Les?
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's funny.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: That was beautiful.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thank you.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: So that's really spiritual.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: The two disciples heard him say this and they followed Jesus.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: When Jesus turned and noticed them following him, he asked them, What are you looking for?
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: They said to him, Teacher, where are you staying?
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: Come and see, he replied.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: So they went and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it seems like that was that one day is something that somehow completely changed Andrew's life in some way, because then he started following after Jesus.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: Somehow he he recognized that he probably was he was the Messiah, that he was the Lamb of God, that John the Baptist was not the Messiah, he wasn't the the ultimate light, but that he was leading the way.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: He was going to be the person who would point to Jesus.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_02: And Andrew saw that, and probably because of how religious he was, kind of how in tuned he was with those types of things in the scriptures, then he started following the true Messiah after that.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: And what he does, of course, is he immediately, because he's a connector, he runs to his brother and he says, Hey, you gotta see this dude.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: We've found the Messiah.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: So Simon Peter, and I think this is why Gene Getz thinks it was like a business trip, because Peter was down there in Jerusalem area too.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: So um he goes, We've found the Messiah.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: So he's now going to bring, and and you're gonna hit that pretty much next week.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: He's gonna bring Simon to connect with Jesus.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: So um by the way, uh, you know, I hadn't thought about this.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: Can I can I mention something from our meeting yesterday?
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: Do it.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, uh Derek's uh getting his master's degrees online up at uh Midwestern.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: And uh he's taking all these courses, course after course, you know, really power packed courses uh that last I think eight weeks.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: And and he's so he's gotta, every eight weeks he's gotta read like three new books and he's gotta write papers and everything.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: But he has to have somebody on the ground with him, you know, that he sort of debriefs with or or or whatever.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I he asked me, fortunately, I love this stuff, um early this fall if I would do that.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I've done and he just started another course called what's the course called this time?
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, organizational leadership.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, and he's reading these books.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: So yesterday we get together for our weekly meeting and so forth, and uh this really does relate, honest, I promise.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: And you know what, but we're talking, you know, you may think that a student ministry leader, whatever you think of him is standing in front of high schoolers and teaching them or talking to them.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: And while that's true, this course highlights that the re that uh whatever it is, uh because they have different not everybody's a student ministry leader, whatever it is, you are a leader of other leaders, you're a leader of other people.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: And we were talking about the fact that, like, I didn't think about like hand true, but your one of your main jobs is to be a connector between your volunteer staff and your students.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: And we were talking about what a great volunteer staff you have in middle school and in high school.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: And he was going through the names of the people in the church, the young couples and others who are his sort of leaders.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: And and wow, you know, he he uh and you're always looking for new people, so feel free to volunteer.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, in a way, that's one of your biggest jobs, as I heard yesterday, was taking your volunteer staff, training them, helping them, and then plugging them into high school kids or middle school kids and making sure they're successful and connecting them.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's I mean, that's huge.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we have no about 200 kids total that we see in our student ministry.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_02: I can't minister to all of them.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_02: Two people can't minister to all of them, fifty people can't minister to all of them.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: But the more leaders that we have, the more people that take a vested interest in the kids is gonna bring them closer to Christ and and help them see that hey, there are other adults here that care about me.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: There's people here that want to see me grow in the Lord.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I think you're exactly right in student mini any ministry.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's really important to develop our leaders, to have a huge team of leaders to be able to have as much impact on the students as possible.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: I guess one connection that I just thought of too was with Andrew, we kind of see him as a connector, pointing people to Jesus.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: But he also had a model that he followed because that's the exact same thing that John the Baptist did.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: And he followed after John the Baptist.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: And so we saw John the Baptist say, Look, there's Jesus, there's a Lamb of God, and brought Andrew in.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: And then Andrew did that same thing for his brother.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_02: And really, as far as connecting people to Jesus, that's all of our jobs.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's all of our jobs to say, look, I'm not, I'm not the greatest, I'm not God, I'm not the savior, but let me point you to the one who is.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_02: And we all have that opportunity, no matter what our job is, no matter where we volunteer, um, no matter what our family looks like, we all have that responsibility.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: One thing, uh Les is a close friend of mine sitting back there.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: Why don't if I could brag on you for a minute, Les.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things that Les does extraordinarily well is that without being like an evangelist, he's an evangelist.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, he's not uh he's not someone that you know would want to be up in front of everybody teaching them how to do evangelism.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: The reason he's so successful at it is he's a connector.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: Les gets excited like Andrew does here.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: He's excited about Jesus still.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Les is still excited about Jesus after all these years.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: And he's always going to, you know, telling people, wow, you know, let me, you need to come to our church and hear about Jesus.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: You need to, you know, so forth.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: And um I'm I didn't plan on saying that either, but I was just thinking, Les, how much like Andrew I think you are.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I think some of the most successful evangelists are just people that are excited about Jesus and tell other people this.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: They don't they don't necessarily have answers to every theological question, or they don't go out necessarily with tracks, but they just go, Wow, let me tell you what's what's really changed my life.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's huge.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: So uh we move to Andrew, did make a bold decision, Derek, to leave John the Baptist and to follow this stranger, Jesus, right?
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so then uh on one of the pages, I forgot my book, um the question is what price are you willing?
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: Is that there?
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, what price are you willing to pay to learn more about God's will for your life?
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: Andrew is willing to pay the price and take a chance and to follow.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_02: That's an interesting question.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um have you ever had an experience like that?
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of where you've No, I was thinking, uh I was thinking this week, have I ever had to really take a risk, you know, like a lot of people overseas, you know, who leave their families, their Muslim family, and decide to follow Christ and risk family and friends and life.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: No, I I I've never had a I've never I know there are people like that, but certainly the Jews that I hang around, you know, Jews for Jesus, almost all of the 200 Jewish missionaries in the organization whose board I chair, Jews for Jesus, almost every one of them is an outcast from their family, the Jewish family.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's really now they know what it's like, but I I can't say I do.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: I wonder if um something that we can maybe possibly relate to is you know, if we felt like God was leading us to a certain job or a certain position and maybe We weren't quite sure about it.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, how that could be not obviously a a sacrifice of our family or risk being killed or or anything like that for our faith, but just taking a bold risk, knowing that that's what God wanted for us.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I think an example that I have of that is even coming to TBC because I never had a serious desire to be a pastor, to work in a church, to do any of that stuff.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um I was working out at Target Distribution Center before this and in management over there, and just kind of out of nowhere, God said through through a series of people, hey, maybe you should think about this.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe this is this is somewhere where I want you.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I felt God leading me to TBC in a place that I hadn't had a desire to be at.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um it wasn't something that I was, you know, grew up all my life and this is just my my childhood dream or anything, but I knew that this was kind of the next step for where God wanted me.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so being willing to take a risk and dive into a position where I was gonna have to learn a lot really, really quickly to be able to do that.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just an interesting example of kind of following God's will and taking a risk, kind of in an unknown territory.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: Flip side of the coin from taking a risk, Derek, is that you know, some you know, you can have a traumatic loss of your mentor, of your leader, John the Baptist, remember, got arrested by Herod and then he got killed.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: And for Andrew, that would have been a traumatic loss.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so Jean asks on one of the pages here, 72?
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: 72.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: How would you feel if your spiritual mentor was arrested in prison because of his stand for what is right?
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'd feel bad.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: No, I've never had to have, you know, we don't live overseas.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: So uh let's do the memory verse and then I'll give them the questions to talk over in the group, okay?
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Philippians 2, 3, and 4.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: Let's say this together.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: But in humility, consider others better than yourselves.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so the question is what do you do in your group today?
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh one thing you could do is back off and just look at the four dudes we've we've looked at so far.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Peter was the leader, James was the warrior or the big talker, John was a member of the beloved, the best buddy, he's the lover, and Andrew's the connector.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: And um talk about which one of these maybe your personality or your background is closest to.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: A leader, uh the ambitious talker, the lover, or the connector.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, the three questions, just to sort of tweak the three questions we've had today, and one, and I'll leave these up here so you can look up here and use these as you're doing your group.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: Did you ever live in someone else's shadow like Andrew lived in his brother's brother Peter's?
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: How did you feel about that?
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: So talk about that, especially if while you were growing up you lived in someone's shadow.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: Second, Andrew went after Jesus.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh have you done that?
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: And when?
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: What price are you willing to pay to learn more about God's will for your life?
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: And the final question who influenced you spiritually like John the Baptist did Andrew?
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: Is he still around?
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: How would you feel if he was persecuted for his stand?
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: So there's three questions.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: And uh do that and maybe talk about whether or not anybody at your table is a connector.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: Does that sound good?
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_02: Those are great.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: You want to pray for us?
• 25:55
  unknown: Yeah.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: God, thanks.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh wow, thank I was thanking you so much last night for Keith and Ed and how they uh were gonna get up early and come and uh and uh get food out for us this morning.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: Sure do appreciate how everybody fits together and does work.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks that Sam is back uh to fix the you know fix the stuff and and make sure we can look at the screen.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: And uh thanks for Derek.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: I pray for him as he studies for his master's and as he leads the students.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I pray for all of us here who got up early.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: I pray that you'll um equip us for the day and that that maybe today there'll be some moment where we we're not sort of super spiritual at all, but maybe just like Andrew, we just make a little connecting move and connect someone else to Jesus or make a comment about Jesus that shows we still are excited about him.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: In Jesus' name.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, guys.